Dedicate a network interface to the VMs / guest use.

[Johan Hartzenberg]

Good day.

I would like to dedicate a network interface to the VMs.

In particular I want the host operating system to not use that interface for routing or even getting DHCP info.

For example: The Windows Guest is an AD domain member on the company LAN. It can access, via the interface bridged to the host's wired ethernet interface, all MS authenticated resources, including proxy to the internet.

The Host, running Linux (not a Windows domain member), have no business on that LAN and in fact can't easily access anything. It should use a 3G or any other interface, configured via DHCP, for communication.

I in particular want the DHCP information of the one to not confuse the configuration for the other.

This question might be more about the host operating system than about VirtualBox, as it is about getting the host to ignore the interface, while still allowing guests bridged to that interface, to use that interface.

In my case the host operating system is Ubuntu (Kubuntu specifically), using the KDE network manager for configuring the interfaces. So I am guessing that network manager needs to be told to leave the wired interface alone....?

Any suggestions, advice, help!? A point solution would be great but a generic "This is how you solve this type of situation" would also be great (Eg in case I need to one day do something similar with different details)

Thanx,
_J

[mpack]

You need a second host NIC, and the guest will used bridged networking to connect its virtual network to that NIC.

Discussions about configuring either host or guest should ideally be conducted in the appropriate forum, not this one.

[BillG]

I can't help you with Linux, but I do this often in Windows and it is pretty straight-forward. On the NIC dedicated to the host you simply go to the NIC properties (from the host OS) and clear the checkbox for the VirtualBox Bridged Networking Driver (so there is no link to the vm). On the other NIC you clear all the checkboxes except the bridge driver (so that the host has no link to the NIC, only the vm does).