virtualbox.org

Environment

Vista Home Premium as Host, Windows XP as guest
Firewall Sunbelt Kerio 4.6
Networking Host interface

With previous version 2.1.0 host networking worked perfectly. Since updating to version 2.1.2 the guest is unable to browse to external sites unless I disable the firewall. What has changed? It appears that the application might be reported by the firewall as "system"

Any suggestions as to how I can set the firewall to pass traffic or do I have to revert to the previous version?

Open the Firewall Control Panel, go to the firewall rules and look for VirtualBox.exe. There set it to allow all traffic, disable any addition security options for it. If it still doesn't work, please contact the firewall company.

I will comtact Sunbelt, but before I do I need to know what has changed.

I work in IT specialising in networking and network security and do understand the firewall configuration. The settings for Virtualbox.exe allow both internal and external network to flow through the host interface.

The previous version of Virtual Box worked. The latest one causes the firewall to block the traffic with identical settings. Something has changed in the way VB uses the network. What has changed?

The executable itself has changed, so the firewall rightfully sees it as a different executable. Remove the old executable from the firewall's permissions list and add the new one.

Hmm, perhaps because of the file changes? But the firewall should warn you about that. At least, a decent one .

I'm an IT specialist too, at least, studying for one. Only one year to go.
The only network changes that I know of, are in the change log. That might trigger something.

Many modern software firewalls use file hashes to keep track of access permissions instead of easily spoofable filenames like older firewalls did. Many modern software firewalls also allow the user to suppress those annoying warning popups, one of which would have given said user a clue as to what the firewall has been up to.

A little research on the Sunbelt Personal Firewall forums turns up the fact that you need to enable "Gateway Mode" in SPF for VMs to access the network outside the local machine. Unfortunately Gateway Mode is NOT available on the free SPF once your initial evaluation period is up , you need to buy the full version to allow your VMs to see the rest of the world.

FWIW this also applies to v3.0.2 ...