virtualbox.org

Good Evening all,

This is sort of a question about virtual machines and networking in general.
I am new to virutal machines and I have a question about the way the network adapter functions. I am on a university network (WPA2 enterprise) where everyone has their own Username and Password to access the network. My Windows 7 VM is connected through NAT. If I am connected on my host machine, which is also Windows 7, with my school Username and Password, how is the virtual machine connected. I never had to input my username and password to it the schools network to access the internet. I'm sure the school logs our internet traffic, so is my virtual machines internet traffic logged under my Username? Does my host machines network adapter send the virtual machines packets? Does the virtual machine show up as a whole new computer on the network? I'm wanting to set up this machine so it's internet traffic is not logged under my student account. Not doing anything illegal just wanting to know if it can be done.

Sorry if I broke any forum rules. I did try to search but it seems my questions is pretty specific and I could not find any results pertaining to my situation.
Thanks!

Your question, username and IP have been logged. You'll be meeting some of my colleagues later in the evening. Key phrase is: Sharks with freaking lasers on their heads!!!

No, seriously, and not being a network expert by any means, I believe that the packets are coming from your actual, physical computer. The NAT connection is virtual and VirtualBox is doing the "translation" to and from the VM. So in your school's router, the MAC address for example would be that of your physical computer. Not sure if the IP packets indicate that there are behind a NAT or not.

Of course the physical network card in your physical machine actually sends the packets. How else could they possibly reach the router? This is true whether you use NAT or bridged mode.

I doubt that the router logs anything about usernames or passwords. It will be concerned with the MAC address of the device which sends the packets. The university could probably work out which machine that belonged to.