Hi bit of a newbie here...
I have installed XP Pro as a guest OS in my XP Pro PC.
The install went very well, but I can't get the networking working
I have installed a virtual "tap" network adaper on my host and bridged it to my phisical LAN card.
I have set up the virtual adapter for my guest to use the tap
In my guest windows has installed the adapter but shows "Limitted or no connectivity"
I cannot ping the guest from the host or vice versa
What am I doing wrong?
Networking Problem
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randomchance
- Posts: 9
- Joined: 19. Jul 2007, 18:25
- Location: Stillwater, OK
If you got to Control Panel -> Network Connections in the guest and double click the connection it should bring up the connection status. On the 'support' tab it shows information about your IP address and your default gateway. If those are blank then windows has not been able to obtain and IP address, gateway, and DNS server information via DHCP. That is most likely why you can't ping between host and guest also, if the guest doesn't have an IP address or know where to go for DNS information, then neither machine can resolve the name to an address. This is probably because the DHCP server is not responding, or because you have a static IP and don't use DHCP at all.
Using bridged networking it all depends on what you're connected to because your guest OS appears to whatever is upstream as a another computer. This is OK if whatever is on the other end of your ethernet cable is acting as a DHCP server and can support multiple connections (like a router, or a modem/router combo, or if you have another server somewhere in the network handing out IP addresses). If you are connected directly through a modem (cable or DSL) and receive your DHCP information from your ISP - or have a static IP - then this may be an issue. It is possible that your upstream only allows 1 machine on the connection at a time. Whatever the case, you have to get IP address, gateway, and DNS server information to windows in order to be able to get out on the internet. DHCP is automatic if its available, but if its not you may have to enter the information yourself.
You should try it with NAT networking just to make sure that the guest connection is working. You can do port forwarding using NAT to get host -> guest connection if necessary. Find out how your host OS gets its network information, that is the same way the guest would get its info when you use the bridged connection. If it turns out you can only have 1 connection or you have a static IP, then you can put a NAT router in between your host computer and your modem and set it up to hand out DHCP information. There's not time to go into how to do that right now, but that is one possibility. Another possibility is again, to use NAT networking and port forward to the guest. This sets up VBox to act as a NAT router between host and guest, instead of using an actual hardware router. The users guide covers this pretty good if you need to go that route.
It would really help diagnosis to know how your host machine gets out to the world. This could give clues as to how to proceed. Do you have a cable/DSL modem with only one ethernet port, or are you on a larger network? Is there a router in the system, or maybe some type of device that does MAC filtering (like a hardware firewall)? These can help tell how the host gets its IP info. Try NAT networking to verify that the connection works in the guest. These are just some basic things to start with in troubleshooting the problem...
Using bridged networking it all depends on what you're connected to because your guest OS appears to whatever is upstream as a another computer. This is OK if whatever is on the other end of your ethernet cable is acting as a DHCP server and can support multiple connections (like a router, or a modem/router combo, or if you have another server somewhere in the network handing out IP addresses). If you are connected directly through a modem (cable or DSL) and receive your DHCP information from your ISP - or have a static IP - then this may be an issue. It is possible that your upstream only allows 1 machine on the connection at a time. Whatever the case, you have to get IP address, gateway, and DNS server information to windows in order to be able to get out on the internet. DHCP is automatic if its available, but if its not you may have to enter the information yourself.
You should try it with NAT networking just to make sure that the guest connection is working. You can do port forwarding using NAT to get host -> guest connection if necessary. Find out how your host OS gets its network information, that is the same way the guest would get its info when you use the bridged connection. If it turns out you can only have 1 connection or you have a static IP, then you can put a NAT router in between your host computer and your modem and set it up to hand out DHCP information. There's not time to go into how to do that right now, but that is one possibility. Another possibility is again, to use NAT networking and port forward to the guest. This sets up VBox to act as a NAT router between host and guest, instead of using an actual hardware router. The users guide covers this pretty good if you need to go that route.
It would really help diagnosis to know how your host machine gets out to the world. This could give clues as to how to proceed. Do you have a cable/DSL modem with only one ethernet port, or are you on a larger network? Is there a router in the system, or maybe some type of device that does MAC filtering (like a hardware firewall)? These can help tell how the host gets its IP info. Try NAT networking to verify that the connection works in the guest. These are just some basic things to start with in troubleshooting the problem...
Anything worth doing is more trouble than its worth...