virtualbox.org

I have been trying out Ubuntu and having many problems with it. Those problems aside, my original reason for wanting to use Ubuntu was for the network security - if I have Windows XP running in a virtual machine on Ubuntu, and the outside world cannot see the XP machine, it becomes much more difficult for intruders to get in. Not impossible, I know, but if I wanted impossible I would just disconnect the network cable, and that defeats the entire purpose.

OK, so what I want to do is try hosting a Linux OS as a virtual machine running on Windows XP then configure it such that all network traffic will go only through the VM before getting to the host. In effect, I want the host to not have any access to the internet unless the VM is running.

I've read the documentation on the different options for the VM's networking. Internal and bridged look to be the most likely to be able to do this, but I've tried these and they do not seem to work. Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions?

Does anybody have any advice on this?

What you want can and does work, this is a routing issue, just like a real router the Guests must be pointed to the VM firewall, either with 2 seperate local lan ranges or 1 with stringend masks.

It works and it's easy. Check out ZeroShell.

http://www.zeroshell.net/eng/

Thank you, both. I will check out ZeroShell. Apparently this can also be done with the Microsoft Loopback Adapter.