Networking components in Proxmox

We will now take a look at the networking components of Proxmox, which will allow virtual machines to communicate with or be segmented from other internal machines as well as the Internet.

Virtual Network Interface Card (vNIC)

Virtual Network Interface Card (vNIC) is a software-defined representation of a Media Access Control (MAC) interface of physical network interfaces. It is basically a virtual network card for a virtual machine. Multiple vNICs can share a physical network interface of a host node. In a way, networking starts with vNIC when a virtual machine sends data to reach other virtual machines or networking devices within a virtual environment or physical environment. In the following diagram, the virtual machine has two virtual network interfaces assigned with an Intel e1000 driver. Both of them are configured with the bridge vmbr601:

Intel e1000 is a Linux kernel driver used to virtualize Intel architecture-based virtual network interfaces. This...