MacOS – How to create a loopback adapter for Parallels VMs

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I have several windows VMs that needs to connect to the OSX host in Parallels. Rather than hard coding all the VMs to use an IP that my Wifi router uses, Id rather have something that works even while WIFI is down.

How can I have network communication between my VM and my mac while disconnected from all other networks? (wifi, lan, etc) I

Best Answer

If you are using Shared Networking for your Parallels VM, there is an IP address allocated for the host OSX machine as well as the VM. By default, shared machines use the 10.211.55.x subnet, and 10.211.55.2 is the host. You can use this IP to access the OSX host from your Windows VM. This subnet can be adjusted in Parallels Preferences:

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If you check the box Show in System Preferences, you will see the host IP:

enter image description here Shared networking is independent of the LAN that the host machine uses, so it can be used while disconnected from a network.

An additional networking type is Host-Only, which will work similarly, though with a different subnet: 10.37.129.x. By default, host-only disallows connectivity from your VM to the external network.

The 3rd networking type is Bridged, which will use your network adapter (ethernet or WiFi) directly, so this networking type will not work for the setup you are asking for.

For reference - here is a description of the networking modes that Parallels uses.

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