Help needed: Linux Host - Server 2008 Guest + XP Guest

[carlo1973]

I am setting up a demonstration of some software for our company. I normally use Linux for my OS of choice, but our office is running Server 2008 servers, and XP for our users systems. In order to make an accurate demonstration of what the software I'm testing is going to do, I have Server 2008 setup in a VM as a domain controller, with DNS and DHCP settings. DNS forward and reverse lookups are working. the XP image is to represent our end users. I"m having an issue with the network settings.

I have the latest version of Virtualbox installed on Ubuntu 10.10

Server 2008 VM Network settings
NIC 1 - External facing adapter (Faces the internet)
Bridged.
IP's set statically.
IP: 192.168.0.195
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
GW: 192.168.0.1
DNS: 192.168.0.195
192.168.0.1

NIC 2 - Internal facing adapter (Faces VM hosts)
Set to Internal Network - named intnet
IP 10.0.0.1
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
GW: <blank>
DNS: <blank>

DHCP scope: 10.0.0.11 - 10.0.0.20, exclusion set for 10.0.0.11
Scope options :
003 - Router - set for 10.0.0.11
006 DNS Server - set for 10.0.0.11
015 DNS Domain name - Set for test.com
Authorised - All green.

XP Guest:
Only one NIC configured.
Internal Network - Name: intnet
Set to get IP Dynamically.

I've configured a similar setup a few years ago and I'm following my tech notes (But I think I may have left a few things out unintentionally) but I was using VMWare on a windows host, instead of Virtualbox on a linux host.

As I mentioned, DNS appears to be working fine (Forward and reverse). DHCP reports no issues - authorised, and is green (up). The XP guest just doesn't seem to be obtaining the IP address from the Windows 2008 guest.

Any assistance on this would be awesome!

Thanks a bunch

Carlo

[carlo1973]

No help on this? Am I over thinking things?

The project I'm working on is to test ManageEngine Desktop Central and OS Deployer. ManageEngine Desktop Central is a help desk software implementation to allow a companies IT department to remotely monitor, deploy, and update systems without the use of WSUS. As our company uses many sub-networks joining our branches, and have many off-site laptops and desktops that are not directly connected to our domain - this really appeals to us. It uses service agents that run in the background that periodically report back to nodes that we would configure, and if needed allow us to "push" software updates, remotely install software, and even force take over a system via RDP. I have been asked to test this software out before implementing in a live environment - hence the VM option. In order for me to get this to work as close as possible to our office network (with separate networks and remote connections), I will need to setup up Server 2008, with 2 Nic's. 1 to pass traffic to/from my home network with the IP address statically set, and 1 NIC to pass information to the virtual computers. I think I can set this up to work if I set both the VM server 2008 and the VM XP to internal, with statically set IP addresses in the same virtual network. However, this is not ideal. Ideally, the vm Server 2008 should act as a router, assigning a DHCP address to the internal vm network, and filtering to the external network.


I've tried to find information on how to achieve this but have not found a method to do so. I know I set up a very very similar setup on a windows machine 2 years ago in school using VMWare. I have my old technotes that I wrote while working on assignments, unfortunatly my memory isn't the greatest, and looking back at my own notes, now seem to be a bit vague (don't you just hate when you write something down that your thinking is detailed, and then a few years later you look back at it and go huh?) There should be a method to do something similar in Virtualbox on linux. The closest to what I"m looking to perform was to set up the vm Server 2008 with a host-only interface which becomes bridged to a linux based vm router to acting an intermediary between the actual host's IP and the other host-only virtual nic's for the other virtual machines. Since server 2008 can act as it's own DHCP router, adding the virtual linux machine soley as a router to bridge the virtual networks and the physical networks just seems... well... redundant and a waste of resources. There has to be a better method.

[BillG]

Your problems probably don't have anything to do with VirtualBox. Using a DC as a router is not supported by Microsoft (except in SBS, which is designed to run that way). It causes all sorts of odd problems with name resolution and browsing. A multihomed DC has been a problem since NT days and it still is.

There is also another AD thing you should be aware of. All AD machines, including the DC itself, should use the local DNS _only_. No other DNS addresses, even as a secondary. Set the local DNS server to forward to a public DNS service to resolve foreign URLs.

I always run vm domains in an internal network, with the DC having one NIC only and a separate router to link the virtual network to the physical network.

DHCP on the DC should work OK in the internal network as long as it is authorised in AD.

[carlo1973]

Thanks BillG

I think you clarified a few things for me - things are starting to come back. I just remembered one key detail that would be different than my home setup. At school, we were using segregated Vlans. IP addressing was static, not DHCP over the VLAN.

Thanks a bunch!

I think I will look more into that linux router vm method to handle the routing. The test system has 4gb of ram, and really only needs to handle 4 VM's concurrently (and only for a short period of time). If I set their memory to their base recommended it should be sufficient for the demonstration/testing. The sad thing is I only need it to distribute a singular DHCP IP address. Everything else can be set statically. One of the things I will test will be the PXE server option in OS Deploy, to push a pre-defined image to a fresh VM session. I will also be testing to push the same image to a live system (Laptop that has a PXE boot network card) on my home network. The software manufacture states that their OS deploy can deploy images with dissimilar hardware. I just need to make sure that it works, and will work in our network setup.

[jobertel]

Carlo, how did you make out with this? I am trying something similar...debian host, Win server 2003 guest with bridge networking. With the NIC on the Win VM set to DHCP networking is ok. When I set the NIC with a static address in the same subnet as the DHCP address no traffic passes in or out of the VM. I am using the same gateway and DNS address as that assigned by DHCP.

[jobertel]

All, I temporarily worked around this problem by issuing a DHCP reservation from our router. So I can count on the guest getting the same address when it starts up.