virtualbox.org

I can't for the life of me figure out why my vm guest, running Windows XP Pro w/SP2 cannot join my Windows domain (I have 1 Windows 2000 Server). So here are my details:

Host info:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (just to be clear, this one IS joined to the Windows domain and working great)
Virtualbox 3.2.12
(Static) IP info: 192.168.0.6, Subnet: 255.255.255.0, Gateway: 192.168.0.1, DNS1: 192.168.0.2, DNS2: 206.13.28.12


Guest info:
Windows XP Pro w/SP2 32-bit
1 Network Adapter, using NAT - PCnet-Fast III (Am79C976)
The IP address/Subnet Mask/Default Gateway is set for DHCP, but I have the Windows 2000 Server's IP in the 'Preferred DNS server' field: 192.168.0.2, just like the host and my other machines on my network, and I've tried joining with no secondary, and with an actual ISP's secondary, with the same result.

The error I'm getting is the usual: Now I can never remember if I'm supposed to add '.com' or not, so I always try both ways: jamrebdom and jamrebdom.com, but I get the same results.

I've joined several other machines on my network to the Windows domain, so I know how to do it, but I don't get why I can't get this virtual machine to work. I thought maybe it's a Windows 7 host / Windows XP guest problem, but then I remembered I have a very similar setup at work. The only differences is that my Windows 7 host at work is 32-bit, and the network ip is different - instead of everything being 192.168.0.x, it's 10.10.10.x.

I can communicate with my server at home with the vm XP guest just fine - for instance, by 'running' \\jamreb01 (my server's name) I get a list of shares and can open them up and everything. I can also use the server's IP just fine of course too to do the same thing. I've tried adding the domain name in my 'hosts' file, but that didn't help. I've tried adding a 'route', but that didn't help.

I've searched this forum, Google and can't find anyone with my same problem.

Am i doing something wrong, or is this a bug, or something else?

Thank you.

I suggest changing from NAT to Bridged, as it gives less issues. Also, if you want to join a domain, you MUST have the DNS set to the domain server as primary DNS, else it won't be able to find it. You also point to .local domains, if you use a world wide domain like .com, you must be registered on the world DNS servers. I doubt you have that. Also check the full domain name on the Host, you will see it ends with .local too. At least, that's what you should have given during the promotion to domain controller on the server.

I'll check into that (Bridged) again. I did try that for a while, but I was having some issues with the guest communicating with the rest of the network or something, and since I knew I had it working at work with NAT, I wanted to get it going that way.

I do have the DNS set with the domain server's IP as the Primary DNS IP, I do know that much. I will check into the whole .local thing too though - I was not aware of that.

Thank you for your help.

domiflichi wrote:I'll check into that (Bridged) again. I did try that for a while, but I was having some issues with the guest communicating with the rest of the network or something, and since I knew I had it working at work with NAT, I wanted to get it going that way.

Could you please remind which version of Virtual Box was working for you in this environment? Have you played with alias setting?

domiflichi wrote:I do have the DNS set with the domain server's IP as the Primary DNS IP, I do know that much. I will check into the whole .local thing too though - I was not aware of that.

Thank you for your help.

I'm using Virtualbox 3.2.12 in both environments - the one that is working, and the one that I cannot get to work with NAT.

I'm not sure what that alias setting is that you are referring to?

domiflichi wrote:I'm using Virtualbox 3.2.12 in both environments - the one that is working, and the one that I cannot get to work with NAT.

I'm not sure what that alias setting is that you are referring to?

More information about aliasing in NAT networking mode could be found here.

Ok, I finally tried the 'proxyonly' and the 'sameports' settings (different combinations) and it did not help - I still can't join the domain. I also ended up trying to mess with the 'natdnshostresolver' and 'natdnsproxy' settings, but still no luck either.

I ended up setting the guest's NIC to be in bridged mode, and once I figured out how that worked, I got it to join the domain. I just really didn't want to do that because I already had one virtual machine bridged with my 1st physical NIC on my host, and I didn't want to use my 2nd physical NIC on my host, so didn't want to use bridging on my 2nd guest to get it to join the domain, but I guess I'll just deal with it. Oh well.


Thanks for all the help.

There is no problem bridging multiple vms through the same physical NIC. All the bridge does is enable a filter driver so that the vm network is bridged to the physical network. The filter driver sorts out which machine (guest or host) should receive the packet based on its MAC address.

Wow, thanks BillG. For some reason I thought you couldn't have multiple VMs bridged on the same physical host's NIC. So I moved my first VM to my 2nd NIC with my other VM so that I could have my host use my 1st NIC exclusively. Thanks again.