Small issues with host-only networking in Vista

[Nazgulled]

Just upgraded to v2.2.0 and I was waiting for host-only networking, a welcome addition that's for sure... But it comes with a few minor issues in Vista as host. Minor, but annoying... Actually, one is very annoying...

1) I have disabled the host-only interface DHCP server and manually configured with the IPv4 IP address of 192.168.2.254 and 255.255.255.0 for network mask. Then, on a XP guest I configured the only network adapter created by the "host-only interface" to use the IP address of 192.168.2.101 and the same network mask.

Now, I have an HTTP server running on my host machine and for testing purposes I'm allowing connections from everywhere. If I open Firefox (in the XP guest) and insert "192.168.2.254" into the address field, it shows the homepage of my HTTP server. Everything's working, so far so good. To simplify things, I opened the "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts" hosts file in the XP guest and added "192.168.2.254 vmhost". If I open the command line and "ping vmhost" it resolves the hostname to "192.168.2.254" but if I open Firefox and place "vmhost" in the address field and press enter, it times out, it can't open the same homepage of my HTTP server.

This was working just fine in v2.1.4, although the host-only network was not available I was using the "Microsoft Loopback Adapter" virtual device to manage this and it was working.

For some strange reason it's not able to properly use the hostname, but it can use the IP address... Any reason for this?

This issue is kinda important to me, the following two are the minor issues but annoying.

2) Since I installed v2.2.0 that two of the network adapters in Vista have their icon desaturated (gray color), like they are disabled. The problem is that they are not disabled, they are enabled and working. These adapters are the "VirtualBox Host-Only Network" and "Local Area Connection" (the one I use to connect through ethernet to my router).

3) Having virtual adapters in Vista produces one little annoyance, it adds "unidentified networks" to the "Network and Sharing Center". This can be avoided... There's a little registry key that must be added so these adapters are ignored in the "Network and Sharing Center". This should be added to VirtualBox in a future maintenance release. I don't remember the actual registry key but I can look it up later for you guys if you want it.

[Nazgulled]

Anyone?

[Perryg]

Try deleting the history, temp and cookies in Firefox. It may be using pre-existing cache.

[Nazgulled]

That's not the problem, it also happens on every other browser, IE, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari... But I did try what you said, but didn't work.

[Nazgulled]

*bump*

[vbox4me2]

Have you reinstalled 2.2 with repair option yet?

[Nazgulled]

Just did that and it didn't solve the problem, the guest machines can't still recognize "vmhost" when trying to open a webpage at that hostname, which resolves to 192.168.2.254 and if I try the IP directly, it works. This is making no sense, I don't understand why it isn't working... :/

Problem #2 seems to have been solved with the repair install though...

[Sasquatch]

What if you use the computer name of the Host itself, instead of vmhost?

[Nazgulled]

Hum, that actually worked but if I try to ping it, it says it can't find the hostname.

But isn't it weird that I have the hostname pointing to "192.168.2.254" and using the hostname doesn't work but using the IP does work?

[Perryg]

Hum, that actually worked but if I try to ping it, it says it can't find the hostname.

But isn't it weird that I have the hostname pointing to "192.168.2.254" and using the hostname doesn't work but using the IP does work?

A couple of other things to see about.
The guests machine is where you need the information in the hosts file (I may have misunderstood where you put it) looked like you put it in the host machine.
And when creating a hosts file you should <tab> after the address, type the name, and be sure to hit the enter key.
While this is a flat file it is still treated like a DB file of sorts.

[vbox4me2]

Try using names who are semi qualified, such as "vmname1.not.com", you might be resolving names that already exist somewhere behind your router on the internet.

[Nazgulled]

The guests machine is where you need the information in the hosts file (I may have misunderstood where you put it) looked like you put it in the host machine.

I've placed it in the guest machine of course, I'm not that dumb

And when creating a hosts file you should <tab> after the address, type the name, and be sure to hit the enter key.
While this is a flat file it is still treated like a DB file of sorts.

That's exactly what I did...

Try using names who are semi qualified, such as "vmname1.not.com", you might be resolving names that already exist somewhere behind your router on the internet.

That didn't work either and I'm sure the names do not exist, I even tried something as "abcdef" and it doesn't work too.

EDIT:
About problem #3, here's a link that explains the problem in more detail and how to solve it. It's "for" VMware but the principles are the same, you just need to find the VirtualBox device instead of VMware's.

[Nazgulled]

EDIT:
About problem #3, here's a link that explains the problem in more detail and how to solve it. It's "for" VMware but the principles are the same, you just need to find the VirtualBox device instead of VMware's.

You should really add this to the next minor version... I updated the v2.2.2 the other day and to my surprise, this registry hack was deleted. This means I need to do it every time I update VirtualBox, which is a pain... It makes no sense to have this adapter in the Network Connection Sharing and you should think in adding this to VirtualBox.