virtualbox.org

Hello,

I am installing VBox for the first time on a Windows 7 Enterprise Machine.

I have 2 wired (not sure how I got 2) adapters and only 1 has a cable. I have 1 wireless. The Windows 7 host uses the wired, and I want the new Ubuntu VM to use the wireless.

When I start up VBox, I goto the VM's network tab, I select Settings/Network/Bridged Adapter, and I see and select the wireless adapter.

Aftre I startup the VBox and login, I watch the icon for the internet connection. Instead of getting the instant drawing of two arrows representing that I have a wired connection, I get the searching wireless icon, it searches for a while, and then I get the wired connection is not available message. I found it strange that it was uses the wireless searching icon for a wired connection.

When I click on the icon, something that looks strange to me is I see a "Wired connection disconnected" message, and it is grayed out. Below it, I see a "wired connection 1" that I can edit. I don't know if the different names are a problem.

Trying to learn from problems reported by other people, I already have fixed (or have now broken it):
- the "MaxFilters" problem in my Registry, I have set it to 10hex = 14.
- The installation routine ran as an administrator process.
- I have verified that all of the Windows 7 adapters have a "VirtualBox Bridged Networking Adapter" driver listed.
- I have unchecked the "VirtualBox Bridged Networking Adapter" from the wired connection, the 2nd unused wired connection and the VBox NAT adapter. The only adapter where the "VirtualBox Bridged Networking Adapter" is checked is for the wireless adapter I want it to use.
- I usually run the VBox executable as an administrator (sometimes forget)
- I have tried most of the VBox adapter types, changing it doesn't seem to work. I ended up with eth0, eth1, eth2, eth3, eth4 and eth5 from this exercise, so I went into the config file and deleted eth1 - eth5, keeping eth0, in case that was a problem.
- I am pretty sure that the MAC listed in the VBox configuration panel matches the one listed for eth0

what am I missing?

Thank you for any help you can provide me

Is the wireless connection on the host energised? Meaning that it is available to the host and active?
Unless the wifi adapter is a USB adapter you are actually using a hosts NIC with special drivers and if it is not active this is what you would see.

Thank you for helping me with this.

The wireless card that I want to use inside the VM is indeed a USB stick. It is in a USB port. It is connected to a Wifi that needs a login, so, in case that was the problem, I disabled all the other adapters in the host, made my host connect to the wireless and the WiFi, opened up a browser, logged in, and made sure it was connected.

So, I am pretty sure that is ok.

You have two choices.
1) use the network connection of the host regardless if it is wired or wireless. The guest will still see it as a wired connection because as mentioned before, the adapter *must be active in the host if you want to use it in the guest and since it is emulated by use of special device drivers it will appear to be wired.
2) don't enable the network in the guest settings but do enable the USB2 section so you can use the USB device in the guest and setup the guest to use the USB device and not the VirtualBox network adapter.

USB2 requires the installation of the Extension Pack.

I am trying to do choice 1, with bridging on, use the wireless device, it will appear as wired in the guest, just can't figure out why it won't connect. Does it have something to do with being a USB stick? This setup used to work for me on a different computer with an older version if VBox.

Maybe I should try to use Choice 2, since I can't get Choice 1 to work?

I suspect it has to do with removing the VirtualBox device drivers since the connection will require it to proceed. Normal install works for me and a others.
Hard to remotely work on networking issues.
The only real issue that I have seen is the Windows MaxFIlters but you have already fixed that. Try to put everything back like it was and look at firewall, virus software, VPN software, or router issues.

It turns out the problem wasn't firewall or virus, but something about how the WiFi hotspot is constructed and/or how VBox reacts to it. When I choose a different SSID, the ubuntu guest connects through the bridged adapter to the host's wireless and works fine. There is just something about the first WiFi SSID I tried that goofed VBox into thinking it didn't have a connection. They must be doing some packet sniffing on the WiFi gateway and denied any service, and the ubuntu guest overreacted and disabled eth0.

Thanks for the help, Perryg.

burkejayg wrote:It turns out the problem wasn't firewall or virus, but something about how the WiFi hotspot is constructed and/or how VBox reacts to it. When I choose a different SSID, the ubuntu guest connects through the bridged adapter to the host's wireless and works fine. There is just something about the first WiFi SSID I tried that goofed VBox into thinking it didn't have a connection. They must be doing some packet sniffing on the WiFi gateway and denied any service, and the ubuntu guest overreacted and disabled eth0.

Thanks for the help, Perryg.

I can confirm this. I had the same problem, I switched BSSID's and the problem is gone. The primary difference between both BSSID's, is that the one that works only has 1 AP, the other one had multiple APs.

Maybe the Virtual Box drivers fail in bridged mode when the chosen wireless network has multiple APs with the same BSSID?