10.7.x Host looses network when using bridged network

[racemoto]

Hi,

I am experiencing a pretty strange behaviour that I've never had with previous versions of Mac OS X.

When using bridged network (I am using the wired ethernet connection)

• the guest is not able to aquire a network address via DHCP
• worse than that, as soon as the guest sends out the dhcp discover signal, the host looses it's network connection

(When using host-only network or NAT, everything works just fine.)

I have now tried quite a lot of things (e.g. checking /var/log/system.log on the host, using a different virtual network adapter for the guest, updating the OS and vbox as well...), but there is no change. It also does not seem to be related to my user settings/profile or the configuration of the Mac OS host as well, as I see that same behaviour on a different machine...

To keep it short: I simply ain't got no clue where to look and what to try now - so any hints and any help would be gratefully appreciated

Below are some informations about the system having the issues, if there is any additional data that would help to analyse the issue, please let me know.

• Host System: Mac OS X 10.7.5 (however, I've had the same issue with 10.7.2, 10.7.3 and 10.7.4)
• Guest System: Identical problem with any guest machine I've tried (including Ubuntu Linux, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and some more...)
• VirtualBox Version: 4.2.2 r81494 (just updated, but had the same issue with previous versions)
• VirtualBox Extension Pack installed (Version 4.2.2 r81494 as well)

Thanks a lot in advance,
best regards!

[racemoto]

Sorry, I forgot:

Some of the VirtualBox machines I am using are older (and have been successfully used under Mac OS X 10.6.x), some are newer ones I created under OSX 10.7 for testing purposes.

[Perryg]

Post the results of the following:

Code: Select all

VBoxManage list bridgedifs

[racemoto]

Thanks for the reply!

Code: Select all

Name:            en0: Ethernet Adaptor (en0)
GUID:            00306e65-0000-4000-8000-50e549e7a112
DHCP:            Disabled
IPAddress:       192.168.50.169
NetworkMask:     255.255.255.0
IPV6Address:     
IPV6NetworkMaskPrefixLength: 0
HardwareAddress: 50:e5:49:e7:a1:12
MediumType:      Ethernet
Status:          Up
VBoxNetworkName: HostInterfaceNetworking-en0

What irritates me about that is that it says "DHCP: Disabled" - which is active (just checked to be sure)...

Edit:

I guess this does not relate to the host's network, but to the network configuration of vbox (vboxnet0), am I right? Well, in that case, "DHCP: Disabled" is correct. Sorry for any confusion that might have caused...

[Perryg]

So you have a router that has DHCP and it is enabled? VBox does not see it then.

[racemoto]

Dear Perry,

correct, I have a little Linux Box doing DHCP for the network here. As far as physical machines are concerned, there has never been any problem with aquiring a network address - also a VM Ware machine I tried works just fine. I have no firewall active.

Although this gives me a challenging task (as I don't see any reason yet why DHCP should not work here), your answer sounded like you don't have any doubt about your assumption, do you?

Edit: One more thing - if the DHCP server simply is not found on the guest, I assume (hope!) that this would not cause network problems (loss of network connection, after that failing to acquire a network address) on the host, would it?

(Using the host or other machines on the same network, I have literally never experienced any DHCP issues.)

Thanks again...

[Perryg]

Nope no doubt that what you are saying is correct and no doubt that for what ever reason VBox is not seeing it. Is the host static?
Can you watch the lease request happening with wireshark to see what is really happening? Remotely it is impossible to do much more than make suggestions with network related issues as I am sure you already know.

[racemoto]

OK, thanks then for pointing me at the DHCP issue. I'll now try to debug that and do some more testing with a clean install of Mac OS on my MacBook. Until now, I tested with my OSX86 machines, what should in theory make no difference, but when saying "should not make a difference", I guess I should take Murphy and his annoying law into consideration

I'll report here as soon as I have any news.

By the way: Thank you very much for your help; I really appreciate that!

Best regards from Germany!

[racemoto]

Well...seems like I might have been wrong assuming that vbox is causing the problems; sorry for that and for spoling your time.

It looks like this might be due to the system I am running vbox on (which is OSX86 / MacOS running on PC Hardware and not native Mac Hardware). On the native hardware I tested yesterday, everything runs fine, no issues at all.

To make this thread at least useful for other people running into the same problems, here are some links that might be worth reading:

• http://legacy.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=39195
• http://www.tonymacx86.com/lion-desktop- ... albox.html
• http://www.tonymacx86.com/snow-leopard- ... ssues.html
• http://www.tonymacx86.com/network/35494 ... -card.html

(However, the issue still remains open on my system, as we are already using the Apple Drivers and a natively supported ethernet card/chip - but still my feeling is it make more sense to search for the problem on the host machine for now.)


Best regards...