Is installing VPN software on the guest feasible/practical?

[Korgle]

So here's what I'd like to do: use a VPN for private web surfing, but keep my activity and VPN files entirely isolated from the host. As in I don't want to mess up with VPN software installation files, virtual adapters and whatnot on the host, I want those to be all neatly self-contained in the guest. As I see it, I'd set up the guest's network adapter as "bridged adapter" in VBox's network settings tab, it'd connect without a hitch through my host connection, but the VPN software on the guest would make it so that the world would only see the VPN's IP for whatever browsing I do on the guest, while I'd be able to simultaneously browse in the host with my normal ISP's IP. Then everything would be perfect and I'd dance a happy dance. But since I've never tried such a thing and I'm not exactly a network (or VBox, for that matter) expert, there is a reasonable chance that what I described makes no sense and is not even possible. So what do you guys say? Key points here being:

1. Would I get a connection at all with such a setup?
2. And most importantly, would that be a safe connection, as in would my guest's internet traffic always come and go through the VPN tunnel and only through the VPN tunnel, or would it actually show up as regular host traffic, thus defeating the purpose of using a VPN in the first place?

[andyp73]

From VirtualBox's perspective using "Bridged Adapter" in the network settings means the guest looks and feels like just another machine on the network. Assuming you have a DHCP server on your network (mot likely your ISP firewall / modem / etc/) then your guest will get an IP address in the same range as your host.

How you obfuscate your actions within the guest then that isn't really a VirtualBox question, you would do it the same way as you would any physical computer using the same operating system.

-Andy.

[Korgle]

I think I follow you, but just to make sure... Would that be a "yes" to both 1 and 2? Are you saying that setting "bridged adapter" would make it so that there is no functional difference between a guest VM and an entirely different physical computer, even when the guest VM needs the host's wi-fi/ethernet adapter to see the router at all? Bear in mind that the expected/desired result is my external IP being my regular ISP-assigned one when browsing on the host, but the VPN-assigned one when browsing on the guest. Sorry if I'm repeating myself, I just want ensure I understand this before I end up setting something on fire around here.

[BillG]

When you use bridged networking, the host and the guest share the one physical network adapter. The VirtualBox filter software works with the device driver of the NIC to decide whether the traffic goes to the IP stack of the host or the IP stack of the guest. Looking at the network from the outside, the host and guest look like two different machines on the same internal network. In other words if you have a VPN connection on the guest and not on the host they will behave just like two physical machines, one with a VPN connection and one without. The data coming from the machine using VPN will be encrypted and encapsulated, the data from the other will not be.

[Korgle]

Sure sounds easier than I had figured, then. I'll get to tinkering. Thank you both!