[Vista guest] Host interface : can ping but can't browse

[Rockz]

Hello,

I set up a standard VirtualBox 2.1.2 host on a Debian Lenny amd64. It runs a Vista Home SP1 32 bits guest with guest additions installed properly.

For development testing purposes, I set up the guest virtual NIC as beeing the same as the host one (bridge), that's "host interface" in the vbox manual : interface is eth0, and I filled the virtual NIC MAC addresse with the real MAC address.

And here is the problem : in the guest, a 'ipconfig /all', a 'ping www.google.com', and so on, returns me the good information (good local IP address, good gateway, good DNS servers), the default desktop RSS widget accesses the web and feedbacks news with no problem.

But when I start Internet Explorer or Firefox, I simply get no display/loading, just a "Interrupted connection" message.

I tried two possible solutions with no success : reseting Windows Winsock, and adding an additional DHCP property in Windows registry. Also checked the MTU : it's set to 1500, and I estimated the best value to 1472, so it's not the cause either.

Note : last week, I had the exact same issue on the Debian host (I can't run Firefox anymore on host, but installed iceweasel and it now works fine). I wonder if it's related or not.

I encounter no issue with linking to guest virtual network through NAT.

Do you have an idea why this happens, and if this is a VirtualBox related issue ?

Just ask pieces of data that may be required to diagnose, thanks

[JackieKu]

For development testing purposes, I set up the guest virtual NIC as beeing the same as the host one (bridge), that's "host interface" in the vbox manual : interface is eth0, and I filled the virtual NIC MAC addresse with the real MAC address.

You shouldn't do this, use the MAC address generated by vbox should work.

[Rockz]

Thanks JackieKu, I tried your suggestion and here is the result :

- I use "Host networking" mode
- I can browse web from guest
- Guest NIC has a different MAC than host one
- Guest NIC has a DHCP-assigned IP on local network
- Guest NIC has a different local IP than host one

So, this is not "host networking", since my guest has a different local IP than my host. As well, it's no big deal since host and guest are now on the same LAN and that I can perform tests (example : reach a Tomcat server running on the host LAN IP).

[Sasquatch]

Rockz, that's the whole point. Two computers can't have the same IP address on the same network. Just like you can't have the same phone number that your friend has. There will be a conflict as to where the data should go to (the host, or the guest, yours; or your friend's phone).
Host Interface means that it uses the interface from the Host to access the network, and not a software method like NAT.