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Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 30. Jan 2010, 20:20
by rooney
Hello!

Is it possible to change the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only ethernet adapter that can be found in "Settings->Network Connections"?

Regards,
Rooney

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 30. Jan 2010, 20:31
by Perryg
Sure. Click the advanced button. It is located there.

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 30. Jan 2010, 20:50
by rooney
I just can change the firewall settings no MAC address in the advanced options.

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 30. Jan 2010, 21:19
by Perryg
Strange. Mine has a MAC address. I might have started out with Bridged though. See screen shot.
But as long as you have it working. No problem.
HostOnlyMAC.jpg
HostOnlyMAC.jpg (34.58 KiB) Viewed 30809 times

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 31. Jan 2010, 00:58
by mpack
rooney wrote:I just can change the firewall settings no MAC address in the advanced options.
I think you are looking in the wrong place. Look in the Settings|Network area for the VM (in the VirtualBox GUI), not the network settings inside the guest.

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 31. Jan 2010, 14:53
by rooney
No, I don't want to change the MAC address of the guest, I want to change the network address of the VirtualBox Host-only ethernet adapter. Each VM has a different MAC, but the VirtualBox Host-only adapter you can find in Settings->Network Connections is always the same.

I solved the problem by changing some entries in the registry.

Regards,
Rooney

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 31. Jan 2010, 18:46
by bithajcsar
Hi All,
Maybe my problem is very similar:
I want to use several Host-Only Adapters and for each I want to have some specific IP address. However, VirtualBox always assigns its' default IP address and subnet mask to those adapters independently from the one I set up in the GUI. I tried even enter the correct address into the configuration XML file of the VirtualBox, but at the next start I can see again the default addresses (ipconfig /all) assigned by some VirtualBox features. Therefeor there should be some bug which prevents me to change the IP address of the Host-Only Adapter.
Does anyone know solution of that?

@rooney: Could you tell us what registry entries were relevant for your problem?

Thanks in advance!
Vasy (bithajcsar)

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 1. Feb 2010, 00:38
by MarkCranness
rooney wrote:I solved the problem by changing some entries in the registry.
I haven't installed the host-only networking, so I can't check for sure, but there are some config items in menu:
File > Preferences... > Network > (select adapter) > Edit host-only network (screwdriver icon).
(On Mac it's ... > Options I think, rather than Preferences.)

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 1. Feb 2010, 00:52
by bithajcsar
MarkCranness wrote:
rooney wrote:I solved the problem by changing some entries in the registry.
I haven't installed the host-only networking, so I can't check for sure, but there are some config items in menu:
File > Preferences... > Network > (select adapter) > Edit host-only network (screwdriver icon).
(On Mac it's ... > Options I think, rather than Preferences.)
Exactly those changes are ignored completely in my case. I can not change the IP address of the interface.

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 1. Feb 2010, 01:53
by MarkCranness
Just to be 100% sure (sorry), I'm suggesting:
File > Preferences > Network, and NOT
Settings > Network

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 1. Feb 2010, 08:06
by rooney
MarkCranness wrote:Just to be 100% sure (sorry), I'm suggesting:
File > Preferences > Network, and NOT
Settings > Network
Oh, I see, that is a great feature, can even add an additional interface.



To change the MAC address of the host-only adapter (NOT IP address and NOT the MAC address of your guest) you first have to determine the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-only adapter. You can do so in the windows host by opening a command shell (start-->run-->cmd) and execute ipconfig -all.
The relevant network interface is listed as "VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter" and will have a MAC address starting with 08-xx-xx-xx-xx-xx
Write down this MAC address.

Open your registry (start-->run-->regedit) and search for 08xxxxxxxxxx (without hyphen), whereby x stands for your specific MAC address. Somewhere in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\... you will find the MAC entry of the ethernet adapter. Change the MAC address and reboot.

That's all!!!

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Ada

Posted: 22. Jun 2013, 18:52
by dams
rooney wrote:
Open your registry (start-->run-->regedit) and search for 08xxxxxxxxxx (without hyphen), whereby x stands for your specific MAC address. Somewhere in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\... you will find the MAC entry of the ethernet adapter. Change the MAC address and reboot.

That's all!!!
And does anywone know how to do this under Linux?
(change the virtualbox host host-only network interface mac address).

Thanks.

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Ada

Posted: 24. Jun 2013, 12:22
by ankutsa
For Linux simply click the refresh button.
..But after that you need to edit " /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules" in your Linux and remove all lines. Otherwise new "kernel" names are assigned to the adapters, like "eth5" etc, which may screw up your config if you relied on eth0 for example.

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 12. Apr 2016, 10:37
by BigCharlie
Has anyone tried this and been unsuccessful?

I have the same issue and would like to change the Host-Only Network adapters MAC address on the Host computer.

Re: Changing the MAC address of the VirtualBox Host-Only Adapter

Posted: 13. Apr 2016, 08:42
by BigCharIie
Sorry, 5 day 5 post limit for new accounts here. Any update towards fixing this problem?

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