Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

Hi,

On an Intel Mac Pro, with OSX 10.5.8, VBox 4.1.6, with Windows guests (so far: Win2k and Win7 32bit) using Bridged Adapter on en0, the network does not work from inside the Guest(s). On the same host, my Ubuntu VM works fine with Bridged networking. I tried making Promiscuous Mode: Allow All, to no effect.
Using a NAT network in these Win guests works (but I need these VM's to be visible on my lan...so I need bridged networking).

In case it matters, these VM's were recovered from a linux host that had a hardware failure, so I know Bridged networking used to work for these VM's.

I have NOT tried re-installing guest editions (because I guessed it should not matter and would only muddy the water). Should I try that?
Any other thoughts?

Thanks.
Last edited by bhamail on 15. Nov 2011, 20:12, edited 2 times in total.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by Perryg »

Guest additions would not keep the Bridged adapter from working.
Have you looked inside the guests Device manager to see if the network adapter has an error?
Moving them around may cause you to not have the right drivers installed now.
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

I verified there are no errors shown in the guest Windows' Device Managers. Also, these same VM's can access the network when I change to NAT networking. They just don't work in Bridged mode.
Perryg
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Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
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VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by Perryg »

With the guest set to bridged mode:
1) post the results of ipconfig /all from the win guest
2) the results of ifconfig -a from the host
3) also from the host the results of VBoxManage list bridgedifs
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

Sure.

Win2k:
C:\Documents and Settings\dan>ipconfig /all

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : win2kdsk
Primary DNS Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : dannyrollo.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : dannyrollo.com
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : AMD PCNET Family PCI Ethernet Adapte
r
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 08-00-27-77-27-A9
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.38
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, November 15, 2011 2:28:47 P
M
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, November 16, 2011 2:28:47
PM


Win7:
C:\Users\dan>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : win7-32
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : dannyrollo.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : dannyrollo.com
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Desktop Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 08-00-27-4F-3C-7A
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::1cd3:cb3b:b7f0:73d2%11(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.236(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, November 15, 2011 2:28:22 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, November 16, 2011 2:28:23 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 235405351
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-15-3C-23-44-08-00-27-4F-3C-7A
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
Primary WINS Server . . . . . . . : 10.6.18.3
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.dannyrollo.com:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : dannyrollo.com
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Local Area Connection* 9:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes


Host:
dans-power-mac:~ bhamail$ ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet6 fe80::217:f2ff:fe0f:97ce%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4
inet 10.6.18.35 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.6.18.255
ether 00:17:f2:0f:97:ce
media: autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control>) status: active
supported media: autoselect 10baseT/UTP <half-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,flow-control> 100baseTX <half-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control> 1000baseT <full-duplex> 1000baseT <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control>
en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 00:17:f2:0f:97:cf
media: autoselect status: inactive
supported media: autoselect 10baseT/UTP <half-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,flow-control> 100baseTX <half-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control> 1000baseT <full-duplex> 1000baseT <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control>
fw0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2030
lladdr 00:1e:52:ff:fe:32:b7:48
media: autoselect <full-duplex> status: inactive
supported media: autoselect <full-duplex>

(edited, due to first post I'd left the guests in the wrong mode to be able to email the info...above data was with guests in Bridged mode).


dans-power-mac:~ bhamail$ VBoxManage list bridgedifs
Name: en0: Ethernet
GUID: 00306e65-0000-4000-8000-0017f20f97ce
Dhcp: Disabled
IPAddress: 10.6.18.35
NetworkMask: 255.255.255.0
IPV6Address: fe80:0004:0000:0000:0217:f2ff:fe0f:97ce
IPV6NetworkMaskPrefixLength: 64
HardwareAddress: 00:17:f2:0f:97:ce
MediumType: Ethernet
Status: Up
VBoxNetworkName: HostInterfaceNetworking-en0: Ethernet

Name: en1: AirPort
GUID: 00316e65-0000-4000-8000-0017f20f97cf
Dhcp: Disabled
IPAddress: 192.168.57.1
NetworkMask: 255.255.255.0
IPV6Address:
IPV6NetworkMaskPrefixLength: 0
HardwareAddress: 00:17:f2:0f:97:cf
MediumType: Ethernet
Status: Up
VBoxNetworkName: HostInterfaceNetworking-en1: AirPort

(same edit comment as above).
Perryg
Site Moderator
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Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by Perryg »

It looks like you are attached to a domain, are you?
If so then the guests auth records will not be right since you changed hosts (different NIC). Try to setup the guest to the domain again and see if this clears the issue. Also it may be necessary to adjust the DC which if you are not the admin of you will need their help.
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

Acutally, I'm not using a windows domain if that's what you mean.

I have my dhcp server (on centos - actually sme) setup to hand out specific IP addresses to known MAC addresses (the win2k VM in this case). These MAC addresses are unaffected by any change to the VBox Host. Evidence of this is shown in how the win2k guest VM is still pulling the expected IP address from the dhcp server. The win7 VM just pulls the next available dhcp address. There's no windows auth going on here that I know of. The Win clients are only part of a workgroup (named: WORKGROUP), and there is no windows domain in effect.

Of course, maybe I've completely missed your point...

FWIW, simple network ops (like ping) DO appear to work in the win2k VM with Bridged Networking. I've even tried changing the between Bridged and NAT while the VM is running to see what happens. The VM's detect the network change and pull new IP's as expected. But when Bridged, only the simplest of operations succeed. Others just hang.
Also, on my older Ubuntu VM (8.04 LTS), I'm seeing similar issues as windows - simple "pings" work, but longer network operations hang with Bridged networking.
Last edited by bhamail on 16. Nov 2011, 03:57, edited 1 time in total.
BillG
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Guest OSses: Windows 10,7 and earlier
Location: Sydney, Australia

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by BillG »

What exactly "doesn't work"? The guests are getting a valid network config from the DHCP server so they must be able to access the network.
Bill
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

With Bridged mode, I can somtimes "ping google.com" from a command prompt, but I can't load a google page in a a web browser.
In the Win7 vm, the network will repair itself, and then drop again when it tries to verify web connectivity.

I can both ping and load pages when in NAT mode on the NIC.
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

megaduu wrote:That's what i think too Image
To megaduu: Sorry, I don't know what you mean. What do you think?
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
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Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by Perryg »

I think megaduu was seeding to later spam.

The problem I have with your setup is that is is not using VirtualBox in a standard manor. Not saying that it should not work but there is no way without actually touching the unit that anyone would be able to tell you what the problem is because it is custom.

If I were troubleshooting this though I would look at the common denominator which would be the dhsp server and or any proxy. Is there any looping that could be going on, or flooding? I use wireshark to view the traffic but MAC must have something similar.
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

Aha. The old wandering spammer...

Back to our show:

Actually, I'm not sure what is so odd about this setup. My understanding is that one needs to use Bridged networking for a VM to look and feel like any other physical machine on the network.

These same VM's all came from a headless Ubuntu server running VirtualBox, and Bridged networking worked fine there. I think it was originally setup via TUN. (In fact, the only reason I moved these VM's is a hardware failure on the linux box, and I figured a Mac OSX host might also allow me to run Mac Guests...but that's another story).

I'm pretty sure the issue lies with VBox Bridged Networking on the Mac OSX, but as you say, maybe I just need to find a sniffer and see what I see (off to learn how to use a sniffer now ;).
There are no proxies involved, and the DHCP server is a standard setup (and appears to be working, and has not changed since the Linux VBox host died). Thanks very much for your help, and I'll post anything new that might shed some light...I really hope to get this build farm working again (oh - that's what these VM's do - I run a small build farm for some OSS projects).
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

Some more info/progress:

I changed the network adapter type, and that seems to have fixed Bridged networking (in some of the VMs):
Ubuntu 8.04 -> changed from 'PCnet-FAST III' to 'Intel Pro MT Desktop'
Win2k -> changed from 'PCnet-FAST III' to 'Intel Pro MT Desktop'

Unfortunately, my win7 vm already was using 'Intel Pro MT Desktop'. I tried all the other adapter types with no joy. BTW, a trick I used to let windows try to down load new drivers was to add a second network card (setup for NAT - which has always worked) and it would then use that second card to find drivers. Unfortunately, it found no drivers for the other cards, and the Intel Desktop card is not working with Bridged networking...

Any other ideas?
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

More info:

I tried creating brand new VM's for WinXP and Win7 (32bit).

Neither one of these works properly with Bridged Networking (and by not properly I mean the NIC's do pull IP addresses, and do support simple ping commands, but neither can load a full web page in a browser).

Both of these work fine with NAT Networking.
bhamail
Posts: 22
Joined: 23. Jan 2009, 04:30

Re: Bridged Network not working on Win guests

Post by bhamail »

Some info (and solution/workaround).

So after googling some more, I found the following items of interest:

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/3783
Ticket #3783 (new defect)
Opened 3 years ago
Last modified 6 months ago
OSX Bridged Networking unreliable due to incorrect MTU setting!

Also: http://natefrogg-techitup.blogspot.com/ ... -host.html

After I edited the windows registry adding the suggested MTU setting, the new WinXP and Win7 VMs now work properly with Bridged networking.

Given all the time I lost on this, I wonder is there anything I can do to help get this known bug looked into? (I'll add a comment to the bug pointing to this thread).
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