Losing network connection

[jwilliams108]

Hi All,

I am experimenting with running VirtualBox 3.1.6 on Mac OS X Server 10.6.3. My new issue is that the virtual machine (running CentOS 5.4) loses network connectivity within 10-15 minutes of starting up (I am using host-only networking, with a virtio device). The connection appears to up within the guest, but the host can no longer connect to the guest (ping or otherwise), and the guest can't ping out to the vboxnet0 device. Restarting networking within the guest doesn't seem to solve the problem - it requires a restart of the guest, and sometimes even this doesn't solve the problem. Strangely enough, I've been using this exact guest setup for some time without any problems on a Mac OS X 10.6.3 system (non-server). Has anyone else had any problems like this running VirtualBox on OS X Server?

Thanks for any assistance,
Jim

[jwilliams108]

I've done some further experimentation, and although I can't figure out why the network stops responding, I can consistently repair it by saving the machine state and launching it again. Can anyone offer some advice? This has me stumped, and it will prevent us from using VirtualBox as a virtualization solution.

[jturmel]

Our team has been having the same issue, we run VirtualBox on Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) the OS's we run inside VB include Debian and CentOS, we experience it dropping the host connection too then we have to restart it to regain te connection, rather frustrating when you're using it as a development environment.

[jwilliams108]

Good to hear someone else is experiencing this. I've done a fair bit of investigating, trying to see if there is a routing problem or some such, but everything appears fine. I have noticed that if I set up a continuous ping, the server stays accessible. I'll open a bug report on this.

[db--]

I'm glad to hear more people are heaving this issue. I for myself am running snow leopard 10.6.3 with virtualbox 3.1.6 and a guest ubuntu 9.04 64bit with host-only, nat and internal adapters. Sometimes after being idle for a while my host-only adapter is dead or extremly slow. Then I've to shutdown and startup my guest to get everthing working again. As this is my developer guest this is quite annoying. I have to reset my VM about 5 times a day, when working 8 hours.

regards,

-dennis

[weenaak]

I'm also having a similar problem.

Host: Mac OS X 10.5.8
Guest: Windows XP fully updated

Internet connectivity for guest PC is intermittent, even though connectivity on host remains constant. I can restore the connection by restarting the guest, restoring a saved state, or virtually disconnecting and reconnecting the cable from the network adapter menu item.

I've also noticed that (as far as I can tell) this only happens after a period of idle time. I'll be using the host system for a while, and when I switch back to the guest, there is no internet on it.

[dvmorris]

Has anyone figured out how to fix this issue? It's causing me to have to reboot my CentOS VM very frequently, and it's a huge time suck. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

Dave

[jwilliams108]

I've opened a bug: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/6559

Also, my current workaround is to setup a continuous ping to the virtual machine. It seems to keep the network connection alive.

[dvmorris]

This may be a stupid question, but how do I get the IP address of the VM? I'm running CentOS, and when I run ifconfig, I get this:

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:7B:6B:32 
          inet addr:10.0.2.15  Bcast:10.0.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe7b:6b32/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:24671 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:12859 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:36873809 (35.1 MiB)  TX bytes:745773 (728.2 KiB)
          Base address:0xd010 Memory:f0000000-f0020000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback 
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:2340 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2340 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:2836730 (2.7 MiB)  TX bytes:2836730 (2.7 MiB)


[jwilliams108]

This may be a stupid question, but how do I get the IP address of the VM?

You are using NAT on eth0, so it doesn't have a host accessible ip. Add a second ethernet adapter set to host-only networking, and it will give you an ip you can ping against (something like 192.168.56.101 if you are using the default vboxnet0 dhcp settings).

[dbarthelemy]

Hi all,

I am experiencing similar issue since I have installed a Mac Mini Server within my local network area.

Host: Mac Book Pro running Mac OS X 10.6.3
Guest: Ubuntu Server 8.04.3 LTS
VirtualBox 3.1.6 r59351

No network issues when Mac Mini Server is Off
Guest loss Network access after 15min when Mac Mini Server is On

Notes:
- The Mac Mini Server is running Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 with only the File sharing service enabled.
- Each guest and host have proper IP addresses from my DHCP server (ADSL box).
- VirtualBox is configured with PCnet-FAST III (Bridge with en0).

David.

[jollyc]

I've been having the same problem. One of my mates at work suggested changing the link speed from 1Gbps to to 100Mbps. This has helped so far but I only just changed it.

If it keeps working I'll hopefully remember to post here but if you're having troubles, it might be worth a try.

[brooded]

I'm using OSX 10.6.4 running Ubuntu on VBox 3.2.6, I was encountering similar problems where it was working fine connecting directly from Host to Guest, then over the last day or two completely stop and would not connect. I've been using Host-only as the network adapater on the Guest

It's not the best solution, but I'm now using SSHFS on OSX to mount the Guest drive and that seems to be working fine to view/edit files.

[jollyc]

I've been having the same problem. One of my mates at work suggested changing the link speed from 1Gbps to to 100Mbps. This has helped so far but I only just changed it.

If it keeps working I'll hopefully remember to post here but if you're having troubles, it might be worth a try.

Didn't seem to help for long. Back to the drawing board.

[mike25]

I've opened a bug: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/6559

Also, my current workaround is to setup a continuous ping to the virtual machine. It seems to keep the network connection alive.

I'm having the same problem.

I have VirtualBox 3.2.8 installed on Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server 10.6.4, Mac Mini server edition. I installed a guest OS, Windows XP SP3, that runs over VirtualBox. I use bridged network to get Windows connected to my router. The problem is, after some time period, say 10 minutes, sometimes more, with no network traffic into or out of the guest OS, the guest OS (which is Windows in my case) becomes un-reachable by other machines (in the same LAN). It also lost connectability to outside world, (Browser can not open any web page, etc.) despite that network properties in control panel keeps telling me it is connected.

I did some tests by running other guest OS VDI file, with same problem. So I guess the problem is Mac OS X Server specific (instead of Mac OS X non-server version)? I've running VirtualBox guest OSes on regular Mac OS X with no such problems...!

Is there any solution to this? I hope it can be solved, it's too annoying!