virtualbox.org

All,

I have a (relatively) simple question, and the answer might be straightforward as well, not sure

I am using Virtual box on my Macbook (Lion). I have a stripped version of Win 7 running as a VM Virtual Box. Win 7 uses the network connection, which is provided on the host (Macbook) and that works perfectly.

What I want to do is the following: Have the Win 7 VM connect to wireless network A and running a VPN, while the Macbook itself is connected to wireless Network B, without a VPN. So, the Win 7 VM uses the same physical NIC (obviously), but uses a different virtual network connection, which itself is connected to a physically different wireless network.

You might wonder: why don't you try this yourself and why do you want this? At the moment, I have no access to two different wireless networks, so I can't test it. The reason doing this is that wireless network A is high speed wireless (7 mbps), but has a monthly data cap on it. Wireless network B is a slow wireless network (1.5 mbps) and has no data cap. The Win 7 VM is for work (hence the VPN) and uses the high speed wireless, while I use the other wireless network for all my other stuff, like private email, web browsing, streaming of audio, downloading, and so on. I wish I could use the high speed for this (and I can), but I will run soon into my data limit and have to pay a ridiculous fee of $15/GB (!) when I go over the data limit (which is set to 15 GB/month).

So, the question is: can I do this with/within Virtual Box running on my Macbook?

Thanks for any feedback and any other suggestions/thoughts around this question are welcome!
KR,
Wilbert

You need two NICs to connect to two networks. You should be able to give the vm its own network connection by using a USB Wireless NIC and capturing the USB device from the vm OS.

Hi Bill,

Thanks and that makes sense.

KR,
Wilbert