Mac – Wireshark capturing packets between VMs on the Host-Only Network in VirtualBox

networkingvirtual machinevirtualboxwireshark

I have a very similar setup as the person in this question.

Details:

  • VM1 and VM2 are connected to each other via the "Host-Only Network" in VirtualBox
  • Wireshark is running on the host
  • Broadcast packets are received in Wireshark
  • VM1 to VM2 packets are not received in Wireshark
  • The ethernet adapters for each machine are set to allow promiscuous mode

A quick search for this on the net showed that I'm doing what I should be doing, at least as far as configuration goes. Most people who do this seem to want to capture traffic going from the host to the VM, which is not what I'm trying to do. I need to capture the traffic being sent between the two VMs. Is this possible? If so, is there anything I need to do that I'm not doing?

Best Answer

On Windows, Wireshark (or any other tool) can only capture packets that pass over a physical network interface. Cfr. all the related questions. It makes debugging communications between two applications on the same "server", impossible.

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