virtualbox.org

hi. i'm a new user of virtualbox. i would like to make a simple lab to use active directory on my pc to study a microsoft exam.

i have installed two virtual machine one with XP and one with WINDOWS SERVER 2008 R2.

i don't understand the network feature in VB. i would like to create a network where the two vm can ping each other.

i've searched on the internet a tutorial but i don't find anything usefull.

i've read that i need to set the NETWORK as HOST ONLY, but if i set this type of network and i set a static address on the two virtual machine the vm don't see each other.

can you help me ? where can i find a simple tutorial to realize this lab ?

thanks

The primary purpose of "Host-only" is to let a VM talk to the host.

If you really only need communications between two VMs (ie. no host, no internet) then local networking would be appropriate.

The basic difference between the networking options is who is allowed to participate. About the only mode you can't easily use is NAT.

by "local" networking, I think Mpack probably means "internal" networking, which is a network channel just between the guests that are connected to it, and is not connected to the host or the internet. See section 3.8 and 6 of the manual.

BTW, Windows has been defaulting to not allow Pings for some time, check that too if you want to ping.

Sorry yes, that was a typo. "Internal networking" was the intended phrase.

And just to clarify the statement about pings: Vista and later default to not allowing an external ping (ICMP) to get through the PC firewall. This is to prevent "Wargames" style address collection by spammers. Windows now requires that you explicitly enable this feature if you want it.

You probably won't find a tutorial for doing this on VirtualBox, but if you set both vms to use an internal network as suggested, the setup will be exactly the same as setting it up with two physical machines plugged into a hub/switch, and you should find a tutorial for that.

If you want to give the domain Internet access it gets a bit more complicated but is still almost identical to the setup on physical machines and networks.