NAT network adapter is not working

[Platen]

I use VirtualBox for a couple of months and it works fine for me. I use VirtualBox 3.0.6 with a WindowsXP VM and a Debian Lenny host with a 2.6.30 backport kernel.

For networking I use network bridges and host-only adapters without any problems. Due to a specific requirement a configured a NAT network adapter as the first adapter. I configured the Adapter in the WindowsXP client to use DHCP as desired. The network status shows, that Windows tries to receive a network adress without any success. Other networks are deactivated at this time. Trying to ping 10.0.2.2 times out.

While I searched in this forum for a solution, I recognised in other VBox.log files, that the used IP-Adresses are logged in the logfile. In my logfile I think there are hints, that the network is started (Windows also recognises the network adapter), but I cannot find any information about the internal DHCP-Server or used IP-Adresses. Perhaps the network adapter is not started correctly (I cannot ping the host) and therefore the DHCP server fails somehow.

Any ideas? How can I find more information to analyse the problem? Is the problem known and I did not find the solution?

Thank you for your help. Lutz

VBox.log

(63.69 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

[Perryg]

If you are using NAT and nothing else at the time you will not be able to ping or see the host. It will not be in your private network.
So can you surf the Internet? If you need specific things like web servers you will need to forward the ports in NAT before they will work or setup another adapter with host-only..

[Platen]

Perry, I cannot surf within VM using NAT. The Windows network card is configured to derive the ip-adress and the DNS-server adress automatically. But as you can see in the result of the ipconfig, all settings remains to default values, because the DHCP server does not answer the Windows request.

Code: Select all

C:\>ipconfig /all

Windows-IP-Konfiguration

        Hostname. . . . . . . . . . . . . : lucy
        Primäres DNS-Suffix . . . . . . . :
        Knotentyp . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
        IP-Routing aktiviert. . . . . . . : Nein
        WINS-Proxy aktiviert. . . . . . . : Nein

Ethernetadapter NLAN:

        Verbindungsspezifisches DNS-Suffix:
        Beschreibung. . . . . . . . . . . : Ethernetadapter der AMD-PCNET-Familie
        Physikalische Adresse . . . . . . : 08-00-27-2B-BA-10
        DHCP aktiviert. . . . . . . . . . : Ja
        Autokonfiguration aktiviert . . . : Ja
        IP-Adresse. . . . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
        Subnetzmaske. . . . . . . . . . . : 0.0.0.0
        Standardgateway . . . . . . . . . :
        DHCP-Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255

C:\>

I am not sure whether this is the problem or this is the result of problem (if the network adapter does not work correctly, the internal DHCP server does not receive the DHCP request of the Windows client and cannot answer).

Lutz

[Perryg]

NAT should work right out of the BOX on the guest but there will be issues of accessing the host. See the section of the VBox manual below.
6.4. Network Address Translation (NAT) of the VBox Users Manual
Also look for Firewall issues.

[Platen]

Perry, the firewall is deactivated. I read the manual several times, otherwise I won't contact the forum. But because the NAT network is so simple, the question is, what can I do, if does not work right out the box?

Lutz

[Perryg]

First thing to do is to find out whether the problem is the host or the guest.
Can you download a live CD of linux and setup a new VM in NAT and see if the live version can in fact get to the Internet?

[Sasquatch]

The log doesn't show any DHCP offers, so the Guest doesn't even bother to ask VB for one. Another option is that you don't have the first adapter enabled, but another one that's not attached to NAT. Can you verify that? I wasn't able to dissect the log to get the active NIC.

[Platen]

Nice idea! And NAT in the Live-DVD environment works. So I looked around WindowsXP and finally I found it. I deactivated the DHCP Client service ... . Terrible foul - sorry!

Thanks a lot, Lutz

[Perryg]

Good, glad you found it. I shall mark this topic solved.