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I am using VBox 4.0.4 64-bit on a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 host. I have a 'host only' network and the IP details for the Win 7 host adapter are:

IP: 10.20.1.1. Netmask: 255.255.255.0 everything else blank/undefined.

I have 4 Linux guests attached to this host-only network with the same netmask and with IPs 10.20.1.11, 10.20.1.12, 10.20.1.13 and 10.20.1.14.

Almost everything is working fine; the guests can communicate with each other and the host can communicate with (ping) the guests. However, the guests cannot 'ping' the host. The firewalls are all disabled on the Linux guests and VBox is added as an exception in the Windows firewall. Any idea what the problem might be here?

Thanks,

Chris

IIRC Windows 7 has limited the security to disallow ping. Aside from the ping can the guests interact with the host?
You can enable ping (ICMP) in the Windows firewall settings.

Well, it's not as simple as that unfortunately. Windows 7 seems to classify the Vbox 'host only' network as a public network and so disables all incoming traffic overriding the specific firewall rules (such as to allow ping). I don't want to change that as I do connect to real public networks and that would compromise security.

Do you know if there is some way to force Windows 7 to classify the host-only network as a private network (which it is of course)?

Chris

I had the problem yesterday and solved it like this:
I did this while not having other network connection on my Notebook.

In your host open the Network and Shares Dialog (might be called differently, I translated the german name) and click on the unidentified network on the to row where it says computer <---> unidentified network <---> Internet

A new explorer window will open and you'll get a banner about not being able to connect to any computers in this network because it's public. Click on that and the network will become "work".

Regards
Aydan

PS: Did this on W7 Home Premium 64Bit.