How does a VMware virtual computer TX and RX using its own IP and not using it's host's?

Question

How does a virtual computer send and recieve data with its own IP address while also sharing it's host's IP address? How does the router know that messages meant for 192.168.0.10 must go to 192.168.0.11 to be delivered?

Yes I thought of that, but what of other computers on the network that access the virtual computer via it's internal IP address? *.*.*.5 calls to *.*.*.7, who is a virtual computer running on *.*.*.6. The message goes to the router from 5 and the router sees its addressed to 7, how does the router know to send it to 6 when 6 already has its own IP address?

Answer 1

VM uses Routing Information Protocol (RIP), much the same way that routers can see each other, to make a table share accross 6 so that when 5 trys to send to 7 it sends out a RIP request_for_path packet which 6 replys to as 6 can see 7, 5 then shunts the data to 6 that passes off to 7, this can be upto 255 levels deep.

Answer 2

VMware uses it's own internal VM routing table to determine how data goes to one vmware image vs another. It's no different than any other router - it's just running in VMWare on a PC instead of in a small dedicated router device.