wireless comms with virtualbox

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wxmod
Posts: 10
Joined: 29. Oct 2015, 20:05

wireless comms with virtualbox

Post by wxmod »

Trying to hit a wireless connection I configured within VirtualBox guest (running in Win8), via smartphone, but am not succeeding. Maybe someone could provide a tip on where I am "messing up".

Some specs:
>Intellinet wireless 300N PoE Access Point, that I have configured for DHCP addressing, connected to a Win8 laptop.
>VirtualBox version 4.3.18 r96516 (running in Win8)

Within VirtualBox have these settings for "Network":

Attached to: Bridged Adapter
Name: Qualcomm Athero ...Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Promiscuous mode: Allow VMs

In the VM guest, at top there is an icon of 2 linked compter terminals. From here, I did "Edit Connections" and added "Wireless connection 1".
Wireless connection specs:
SSID: used same name as I see in my smartphone WiFi Settings
mode: ad-hoc (not sure if I should use this or "Infrastucture" which I think was other option)
band: automatic (note: there is an option for 2.4GHz, which is what the Access Point indicates it's using, but when I try to set it to that, it always reverts back to "automatic")
device MAC address: (used the one I see for the Access point.

On my smartphone:
Settings -> WiFi:
It looks to be seeing the access point, and indicates an IP address (we'll call it *.*.*.*).

Now, when I pull up a terminal, via emulator on my smartphone, and ping *.*.*.*, it returns successfully.
Similarly, when I open a terminal in the VirtualBox guest and ping *.*.*.*, it returns successful.
So it seems the smartphone can talk to the Access Point, and the VirtualBox guest can talk to the Access Point.

My question is why is the VirtualBox "Wireless connection 1", indicating it has not been accessed? What do I need to change to successfully access the VirtualBox "Wireless Connection 1"?

Thanks for any tips. By the wording of this you can probably tell, I am definitely feeling my way through this.
BillG
Volunteer
Posts: 5102
Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: wireless comms with virtualbox

Post by BillG »

The emulated network card in a vm is wired ethernet, not wireless. You can bridge it to a wireless NIC in the host, but internally (ie as seen by the guest OS) it is wired. Have a look at the options offered in the vm settings. They are all wired Ethernet NICs.

The only way to have a wireless network connection in a vm would be to insert a USB network card in the host machine and capture it from the guest.
Bill
wxmod
Posts: 10
Joined: 29. Oct 2015, 20:05

Re: wireless comms with virtualbox

Post by wxmod »

Thanks for your reply Bill. In lieu of a USB network adapter (which I don't have) can I use one of the network WiFi adapters that came with this laptop? Checked the host hardware and I found there are two Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapters.

When I go to the guest VM and check the Network settings I see:
1. Wired - this is working and is giving me outside access now (the build with CentOS 7 image does this automatically - very nice!)
2. Bridge (virbr0)
3. Unknown (virbr0-nic)
4. Unknown (lo)
5. Network Proxy

Do not see an option for wireless here. Do I need to pick one of these 5? How can I make the VM see one of the WiFi adapters that the host has?
Do I need to add a network connection in the guest VM? (choices are:
VPN, Bond, Team, Bridge, and VLAN.) Which one is the right one for my purposes?

(Note: if it's relevant, in the VM VirtualBox manager, Network, adapter 1 shows me attached to NAT.)

Thanks for any info.
BillG
Volunteer
Posts: 5102
Joined: 19. Sep 2009, 04:44
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: wireless comms with virtualbox

Post by BillG »

I thought I made that clear. The network card inside the vm is wired, no matter what sort of NIC is in the physical machine.

The physical NIC is not visible from the vm. The OS in the vm sees only the emulated NIC in the vm. You can use bridged mode so that the vm works like a physical machine on the physical network (ie gets its network config from DHCP on the LAN), but the NIC still looks like a wired Ethernet connection, even if it is bridged to a wireless NIC.
Bill
wxmod
Posts: 10
Joined: 29. Oct 2015, 20:05

Re: wireless comms with virtualbox

Post by wxmod »

Thanks Bill. So then I strictly have to buy a USB network card to make talking to the VM, via wireless, happen?

Then once I have the USB network card plugged in, will it be plug-and-play so to speak, i.e., in settings-->network, will the adapter2 tab become enabled (it's not now)? Then I will attach to Bridged Adapter, and then will select the name (for USB wireless network card), that the VM automatically sees?

Looking forward to testing this out...and thanks for your patience as I step through this!

TIA,
Steve
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