virtualbox.org

Hi @ all,

since todays update, bridged networking isn't working any longer for me. With the old vBox I set up a host interface in vBox, attached it to the virtual network adapter and bridged it with the physical network adapter in the windows (host) control panel. Now I have just one static host adapter in vBox (seems to be my physical network interface of the host); I attached it to the virtual network adapter too but I cannot create a network bridge in the control panel any longer. So I have no access within my guest systems to the internet with host interfaces (NAT is still working fine). But sometimes I need a host interface to get full access to my network.

Any ideas? If it does a matter: Vista host / XP guest.

Thanks in advance.

Raul

I'm not quite ready to upgrade to 2.1.0 just yet, waiting on a few more features and bugfixes, so I'm not completely familiar with all the changes, but one of the changes is to attempt to simplify the networking model and eliminate the need to bridge adapters in the first place. Obviously, whatever the exact changes are, will make previous configurations useless and you'll have to re-rtfm to relearn everything all over again. Aren't upgrades wonderful . . . I'll be learning all this fun stuff myself soon enough after the next release or 2 of VBox.

Raul N. Vitti wrote:But sometimes I need a host interface to get full access to my network.

In VB 2.1 you have the following alternatives for accessing global network via Host Networking:
1. In VM network settings select your host interface. When VM is started, it looks as separate machine connected to this host adapter, getting its address from the same space, etc. I didn't check it myself, but probably VM will also be visible from outside (from other computers of your network, not only from the host).
2. Create a virtual loopback adapter on the host machine, select it in VM network settings — then VM will be attached to this loopback adapter, with its own address space. So, it will be visible to the host only. To access outer space from VM, you can do one of the following:
2a. On the host create a bridge from loopback and main adapter. Actually, there's no use doing this, because it will effectively do the same as p.1.
2b. Use Internet Connection Sharing to allow the Loopback adapter access external network via the main adapter. In this case your VM will see the external network, but external computers will not see your VM (it is located in another address space).

Choose what fits you best.

PS: I can't call myself an expert in this area, so I can be wrong somewhere in my descriptions above. It's just how I understood all that myself from reading the help and experimenting.

You do not need to bridge any more in 2.1.0. Just go to the VM settings and select the physical network adapter you want your VM to be able to access the network through and off you go.

As an additional bonus you can have as many VMs running on one adapter as you want. Enjoy!

If you remove your network bridge and adapters stop appearing in the Host Interfaces list, you will need to force the VirtualBox network drivers to reinstall by uninstalling and reinstalling VirtualBox.

"New Host Interface Networking implementations for Windows and Linux hosts with easier setup (replaces TUN/TAP on Linux and manual bridging on Windows)"

The Blue Screen of Death isn't worth this update. I reverted back to manual bridging until these careless engineers work this through. Two computers and Five tests each. Same result. Shut down and crash after reasonable TCP/IP flow. I left the Minidump files for the bugtracker.

CaptainFlint wrote: 1. In VM network settings select your host interface. When VM is started, it looks as separate machine connected to this host adapter, getting its address from the same space, etc.

That's the way I tried first but it didn't work. But now it does without any changes

The only reason I could imagine at this moment is that I run out of IP addresses. I have a very small IP range for DHCP reserved (all with a 24 hour lease time and just for virtual machines and live CDs), so maybe there was no more free IP in this range when I tried to set up the new bridged mode

But I'm not sure if this was really the reason, but it works right now and that's all I wanted