Networking – how to make 2 virtualbox vms able to see each other via internal network but also be able to access the internet

networkingvirtualbox

I have 2 VMs (A and B) running locally (on host H) with VirtualBox and I would like to be able to:

ping A from B via an internal IP
ping B from A via an internal IP
ping 8.8.8.8 from A
ping 8.8.8.8 from B
access A:22 from H
access B:22 from H

I'm currently using the NAT network setting on A and B, so I'm able to satisfy all requirements above apart 1 and 2.

I've tried changing this to internal network which satisfied only 1 and 2.

I've also used bridged networking which solved all those points but the problem is that A and B where now "exposed" in the local LAN by using 192.168.0.X type of addresses, which doesn't satisfy the "internal IP" requirement of 1 and 2.

What network configuration should I do on those 2 VMs to achieve this?

Best Answer

I solved it by adding 2 adapters on each VM. One for NAT and one for Host-only Adapter Network.

On the NAT I configured port forwards from 2201 to 22 etc. And when the VMs booted I had to configure their internal static IPs. They VMs are ubuntu so I had to edit /etc/network/interfaces and add:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 10.0.0.101
netmask 255.255.255.0

and on the other VM:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 10.0.0.102
netmask 255.255.255.0

After a shutdown -r now or a ifup eth1, the two VMs could ping each other via their internal IPs 10.0.0.101 and 10.0.0.102.

Related Solutions

Mac – Unable to access the internet from the VirtualBox CentOS VM via wireless connection

Your routing table is incomplete.

Your computer only knows how to route to IPs that start with 192.168 and 169.254 but does not know how to route to any other IPs, we'll want any other IPs to be routed through your router.

If your router would be 192.168.1.1, you can for example execute:

route add default gw 192.168.1.1

This would cause the table to look like this:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U     0      0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         192.168.1.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

For more information on how this works, execute man route.

Mac – How to access Virtualbox internal IP from host machine

For old installations of Virtualbox

I finally found the solution, on the third page of Google. :/ There was a great power point at http://www.slideshare.net/powerhan96/networking-between-host-and-guest-v-ms-in-virtual-box which explained everything that needed to be done. In addition, on the Virtual Manager, I had to make it fullscreen, File->Preferences->Network->Host Only Networks->Add. I needed both a Host-Only adapter and an NAT adapter for it to work both ways, which the powerpoint explains.

Update: Virtualbox 5.2

In Virtualbox 5.2, stop your VM. From the main menu, select "Global Tools-> Host Network Manager". Click "Create", and a new Host-Only Network called vboxnet0 should be created. Navigate back to the main menu by clicking "Machine Tools". From here, right-click on your VM image and go to "Settings->Network", and attach to your new Host-only Adapter called vboxnet0. When you restart your VM, its IP should have changed from 10.0.*.* to 192.168.*.*, and should now be accessible from your host machine.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Mac – Unable to access the internet from the VirtualBox CentOS VM via wireless connection

Mac – How to access Virtualbox internal IP from host machine

Related Question