Windows 7: VirtualBox Host-Only Network Not connecting to the Internet

Hey guys,

I'm having a little trouble setting up two virtual machines connecting to the internet. I've setup a Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows 7 virtual machine with host-only networking on their own subnet.

I'm having issues with getting them to connect to the outside network for internet access. Both machines are on their own subnet 192.168.2.0/24 and the host machine on subnet 192.168.1.0/24.

Both vm's are on Internal Network Mode and the Windows Server 2008 machine has a static ip of 192.168.2.2, but no default gateway or dns because i have no idea what to put in there. Do i put in the IP of the VirtualBox Host-only adapter as the default gateway?



This is where im having trouble with. I have DHCP setup on the Server VM and the Windows 7 VM can get an ip from the Server but neither can communicate out to the internet.

I'm lost and i need your help to set this up. I have included a network diagram to for clarity.

http://i.imgur.com/wGmtY.jpg

The behaviour you are experiencing is due to the fact that there is no routing happening between the VBox HO adapter and the physical NIC that is connected to the internet. That is the nature of host-only networking and the routing will not happen by accident.

You can establish routing with your current configuration by using Internet Connection Sharing to share your real network adapter to the HO adapter, but the ICS default settings will mean that your VM static IPs will be wrong. Changing the default ICS settings requires editing the registry and instructions for that can easily be found elsewhere.

> Do i put in the IP of the VirtualBox Host-only adapter as the default gateway?

Yes, but it won't achieve anything until such times as there is a route from the HO adapter.

To be honest you'd probably be better off using NAT or Bridged networking.

There is quite a good description of what each type of networking does in the VirtualBox Help->help Contents. Chapter 6 is what you want.

The networking is host only, meaning that the VM's will ONLY be able to talk to each other. They won't be able to talk to the Internet. Sounds like you really wanted bridged or NAT instead of Host only.

Thank You for the replies. But i decided to use VmWare Workstation instead because it supports multiple subnets and it seems to run much better than VirtualBox did.

Well, I would expect VMWare Workstation to run better and offer more benefits, as it's a $200 application and VirtualBox is free. Honestly, I really like VMWare Workstation 8. I'm the VM guy at work, and I just recently purchased VMWare Workstation 8 and am happy with my decision. Helps me to more easily build more complex labs and try some tricky stuff.