Getting networking to function at work

[Miffo]

Hi,

I'm a virtual box newbie and I know very little about Linux admin or networks in general.

I have installed Ubuntu 14.04 as a guest on my Windows 7 PC. Although "ifconfig" shows an IP address for eth0, I can't use firefox. I tried "ping news.bbc.co.uk" and it resolves the IP address (but gets no response - that's normal).

I've tried changing it to "bridged" but that didn't do anything. I have spent hours reading other forum entries where people can't get networking to work but I've had no luck with the suggestions. I've even tried avoiding the corporate LAN and plugging in a WiFi dongle to connect to an ADSL router but I can't get anywhere with that.

I know our LAN is very restrictive in that it won't allow unauthorised machines onto it but I thought virtual box would just share the connection that my PC has?

Please help.

Thanks.

Peter.

[mpack]

NAT is normally the easiest to use: if the host has a working Internet connection then so also will the guest (usually). Essentially the VBox host process is using host Internet just like any other host app.

[Miffo]

NAT is where I started but that wasn't working in that Firefox could not get to any websites and I could not install the guest extensions.

[mpack]

There is no connection between networking and installing the Guest Additions. I suggest that you ask the latter in a separate topic, after reading the user manual (chapter 4) of course.

[Miffo]

I left the thread a while to see if I got an answer to my original problem but no luck.

I got guest additions installed the normal way. I had somehow found another way that involved using an apt command in a terminal window that then required internet access!

Can anyone help me with network issue? Default of NAT does not work and neither does Bridged mode.

[Perryg]

I know our LAN is very restrictive in that it won't allow unauthorised machines onto it but I thought virtual box would just share the connection that my PC has?

Not necessarily. It really depends on your LAN Admin. If they are smart they can lock it down where nothing except the host can work. This you would need to ask them.

[Miffo]

Not necessarily. It really depends on your LAN Admin. If they are smart they can lock it down where nothing except the host can work. This you would need to ask them.

I guess that must be it then. I spoke to some guys in another office and they just have it with NAT and everything works fine for them too. Even though we are sort of on same LAN, they are in another country and I believe have less restrictive local admin. Now I'll have to see if IT officially support Virtual Box!

Thanks.

[Miffo]

Oh - could be http proxy issue! Nothing to do with virtual box then. I have access to the LAN on this virtual box but http doesn't work. We even have that problem (I have found out) on the Linux server we have set up on a PC as host OS.