Security Issues

G

gosh

Member
Hi,

New to Mac & Parallels so please bear with me.

I understand from previous posts that an anti-virus prog is a good idea for a Windows guest OS on a Mac but is that true of firewalls too?

Related to that - some Anti-Virus and Firewall programs act up odd if they detect there is a competitor on board somewhere. Is it possible for a guest program to detect the host program in this context.
 
There are two networking models in Parallels... 'Bridged' and 'Host-only'. Host-only is also known as NAT'd, shared, en2/3, etc.

In bridged mode, the XP VM is directly connected to the same netowrk your Mac is, and so you should do whatever you would normally do to protect an XP box on the network you're attaching to... this typically means anti-virus, firewall, all the XP updates, etc. Assume the XP guest is physically a machine on the network.

In Host mode, the XP guest is logically attached to a second (virtual) network adapter that is on the Mac... so there is a physical wired ('En0') Wireless Airport ('en1') and Parallels Network Adapter (coudl show up as en2 or en3, etc). The guest OSes are attached to a virtual network attached to en2(or 3). In this case, you wold use the Internet Sharing feature of OS X to connect the VM network to the 'real network'. In this case, there is a little more isolation, but Virus scan, at least, would be recommended...
 
If you don't mind me asking, what is the merits of host and bridged - I guess yo have to opt for one or other at install?
 
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