---
layout: docs
page_title: Networking
description: |-
  In order to access the Vagrant environment created, Vagrant exposes
  some high-level networking options for things such as forwarded ports,
  connecting to a public network, or creating a private network.
---

# Networking

In order to access the Vagrant environment created, Vagrant exposes
some high-level networking options for things such as forwarded ports,
connecting to a public network, or creating a private network.

The high-level networking options are meant to define an abstraction that
works across multiple [providers](/vagrant/docs/providers/). This means that
you can take your Vagrantfile you used to spin up a VirtualBox machine and
you can reasonably expect that Vagrantfile to behave the same with something
like VMware.

You should first read the [basic usage](/vagrant/docs/networking/basic_usage) page
and then continue by reading the documentation for a specific networking
primitive by following the navigation to the left.

## Advanced Configuration

In some cases,
these options are _too_ high-level, and you may want to more finely tune
and configure the network interfaces of the underlying machine. Most
providers expose [provider-specific configuration](/vagrant/docs/providers/configuration)
to do this, so please read the documentation for your specific provider
to see what options are available.

-> **For beginners:** It is strongly recommended you use
only the high-level networking options until you are comfortable
with the Vagrant workflow and have things working at a basic level.
Provider-specific network configuration can very quickly lock you out
of your guest machine if improperly done.

## Networking Assumptions

### There is a NAT available

Vagrant assumes there is an available NAT device on eth0. This ensures
that Vagrant always has a way of communicating with the guest machine.
It is possible to change this manually (outside of Vagrant), however,
this may lead to inconsistent behavior.
Providers might have additional assumptions. For example, in VirtualBox,
this assumption means that network adapter 1 is a NAT device.
