New Newbie and networking issue

[znelbok]

Hi all

Brand new to VB and VM's in general. I am lost with the networking side of things and my guest XP cant get to the internet or anywhere else.

When I installed VB on my XP Host, it installed a new Network driver (Virtualbox Bridged Networking Driver) which was ticked on my real NIC and it installed a second NIC (VirtualBox Host Only Network) and the the above mentioned driver was not enabled in it.

The new virtual network interface started life with DHCP enabled. Where does it get the IP address from? (Is there a DHCP server with in VB for this adapter) I dont have a DHCP server in my network, its all static.
What IP range should this virtual network be using?
I currently use 192.168.0.0, should it be in that range or other?
Do I need to setup the gateway and DNS for it as well (I believe only one gateway should be configured in the OS)?

I created an XP guest and it has loaded the AMD NIC with it attached to NAT. Again, it needs to be static as there are no DHCP servers.
The gust cant see or do anything on the network - no internet etc.
Should this be set to the same subnet range as the host?
What about gateway and DNS?

Sorry if these questions are answered somewhere else, I did do a search and reading, but there are so many posts on the forum now that unless you get the right keyword that narrows it down for you to just a dozen or so, there is days worth of reading.

Anyway, some help on basic networking would be a great help

Mick

[Sasquatch]

All network adapters are explained in the Manual, chapter 6. Read what they mean and do, that's the best thing you can do atm. Here is a small summary for the needs of some adapters:
NAT: DHCP is needed on this adapter. VB is the DHCP server itself. Without DHCP, you won't be able to access the internet on the Guest.
Host-Only: There is a DHCP server available for this NIC which can be found in the global preferences. The interface gets the IP 192.168.56.1 by default, that is the Host side of the adapter. The DHCP server is configurable.
Bridged: This makes the VM look like a normal machine on the network. Select the right physical NIC to use from the Host.
Internal: VM to VM network. Nothing else.

[AntiMatter]

Hi znelbok,

1. Configure the network setting of your VM to use "Bridged Adapter" (the "Attached to" drop down box). Just below it there is another dropdown "Name" which is the physical network interface (the network card) to use. Normally the default is already good.

2. within the VM, just leave the network settings as default (meaning it will get the IP dynamically).

WIth this, your VM use the physical network card of the host and acquires its IP via the router. The only times I got network issue with the guest OS are:

- Conflict with VMWare network drivers (I think it is not your case). I just disable the VMWare network interfaces I don't need.

- There is two network interfaces in the machine. Example: at work, the laptop use the wired network adapter. At home, the laptop use wireless adapter. In this case, in open Virtualbox GUI, Open the Network settings of the VM, Click on the Tab "Adapter 2", Enable it, set to bridged adapter and select the wireless adapter.

Of course, you can play around with other networking methods NAT, Host only, internal, etc if you understand the subtle differences. Otherwise, use Bridged which functions quite similarly to a physical machine.

Good luck.