Filter out PCI NIC for guest OS?

[bricktop44]

Hi,

I have been trying to figure out the best way, if any, to use a PCI NIC on the host system exclusively on a guest system. If i use a USB Ethernet device i can filter it out to use with a specific guest system. But with the PCI nic i have not been able to use it exclusively with one guest system. I dont want any contact to the host system or to the cloud, just a stand alone guest system that uses the PCI nic to interface with a soho router. Other guest systems on the same host will be doing the exact same thing so i must be able to separate them via networking so they don't accidentally ping each other. At the moment host and guests are all Windows 7 pro.

thanks in advance,

Bricktop

[Perryg]

Your first approach is actually the best. Use USB adapter.
VirtualBox does not have direct PCI control (yet).

[bricktop44]

Good enough. Thanks man, ill go the USB route.

[BillG]

The only way I know of to do this with a built-in NIC in Windows is through the network settings in the host OS, not through VirtualBox.

If you look at the properties of the NIC from the host, you will see a new entry for VirtualBox Bridged Networking Driver. This is a filter driver which allows the virtual network to access the physical NIC. The filter driver sorts out which traffic goes where based on MAC addresses.

If you clear this checkbox, the vm cannot use this NIC. If on the other hand you clear all the check boxes except this one, only a vm can use the physical NIC. To dedicate a NIC to each vm you would need to clear these checkboxes on all NICs (except the one used by the host) and connect each vm to a different virtual network (which in turn is linked to a particular NIC).

[reapur]

So can you please advise on how to do this:
Host (windows xp) has two network connections, one LAN and one Wireless connected at all times, each pointing to a different network.

I want the client to run and NAT or Bridge to the Wireless connection. I can't get this to work despite hours of testing, so I'm missing something for sure but I need another set of eyes ...

I have tried to just configure the client to Bridge to a the wireless NIC, but that never seems to work
I tried to uncheck the virtualbox setting in the properties of the LAN NIC but that doesn't work either

It only seems to work if I have one NIC running and connected to the network and not play around with the settings of the client.

what is the proper way to get this done?

Best Regards

[BillG]

Networking through a wireless NIC can be a problem. Can you get the wireless NIC to work at all?

If you hve two NICs which both work properly with VirtualBox, you can dedicate one to the host and one to the guest.

From the host OS, look at the properties of each NIC. They should both have an entry for VirtualBox Bridged Networking Driver with a checkmark in the box.

For the NIC you want the host to use, clear this checkbox. A vm cannot use this NIC because the filter driver is disabled. The other bindings are as they were before you installed VirtualBox.
For the NIC you want the guest to use, clear all checkmarks except the filter driver. The vm will still be able to use this NIC, but the host cannot.

The same process works for Windows VPC and its filter driver.

[BillG]

Hyper-V does this automatically. If you enable a virtual network linked to a NIC (and tick the box to allow the host to still use it), you see two windows in Network and Sharing Center with different names. The one with the NIC name has the normal bindings for the host. The one used by the vms shows only the filter driver.

[bricktop44]

So i have gone with using USB to Ethernet adapters (Linksys300m). I installed 2 on my host win 7 machine, then tried to filter out 1 adapter per 1 guest VM. The problem seems to be when i go into the USB filter screen to select which usb adapter i want, they both have exactly the same information. So when i filter out the first usb adapter for VM1, and the second usb adapter for VM2 they will not separate. BOTH usb adapters appear on whatever VM guest machine i start up first. Is there a way/better way to do this? Perhaps filter by the USB adapters MAC or something unique? Do i have to use a different model USB to Ethernet adapter on each guest VM so Vbox can keep them separate?

The end goal here is to have at least 2 guest VM's completely isolated from each other in a network sense. The host NIC will also need to stay separated. Ill need to hook up a soho router to each Ethernet interface, all with the same default IP address. Using one usb to Ethernet adapter for each guest VM seemed the easiest way to go. But since the usb adapters are all the same model, i cant seem to filter them out. Help?