How to connect virtual machine to virtual machine

How to connect virtual machine to internet connection in VMware/VirtualBox

Table of Contents

There are various types of Network Mode available with Oracle VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Player. These two are the most used Virtualization Software by end users for performing R&D and testing.

Before we jump into out main topic on how to connect virtual machine to internet connection, you must have Oracle VirtualBox installed on your environment Server and also you must be familiar with the different types of Network Modes and which one would help us connect to internet using our Linux or Windows OS from the Virtual Machine.

Below are the Network Modes using which you must use to enable and connect virtual machine to internet connection

How Bridged Network Works?

When a guest is using such a new software interface, it looks to the host system as though the guest were physically connected to the interface using a network cable. The host can send data to the guest through that interface and receive data from it. This means that you can set up routing or bridging between the guest and the rest of your network.

How NAT Networking works?

Network Address Translation (NAT) is the simplest way of accessing an external network from a virtual machine. Usually, it does not require any configuration on the host network and guest system.

A virtual machine with NAT enabled acts much like a real computer that connects to the Internet through a router. The router, in this case, is the Oracle VM VirtualBox networking engine, which maps traffic from and to the virtual machine transparently.

How to select/change Network Mode in Oracle Virtual Box?

How to select/change Network Mode in VMware Workstation Player?

Connect Virtual Machine to Internet Connection using NAT

On RHEL/CentOS environment verify your network configuration. Verify the BOOTPROTO directive of your interface configuration file

Here we have a single connection » Ethernet connection 1 «, so verify the BOOTPROTO for this connection

My /etc/resolv.conf file

On Oracle VirtualBox

List the available interface and identify the interface for which you have configured NAT as Network Mode in the Settings

In NAT mode, the guest network interface is assigned to the IPv4 range 10.0.x.0/24 by default where x corresponds to the instance of the NAT interface +2. So x is 2 when there is only one NAT instance active. In that case the guest is assigned to the address 10.0.2.15, the gateway is set to 10.0.2.2 and the name server can be found at 10.0.2.3.

You can change the default NAT network for individual virtual machine using below command on your Windows Machine under the home directory of VirtualBox

To remove your custom changes for NAT Network

Now try to connect virtual machine to internet connection

How to change Adapter Type in VirtualBox?

On VMware Workstation Player

Here my VM on VMware Player is on DHCP and is configured as NAT in the VM Settings and I am able to connect to the Virtual Machine from my Windows host laptop.

My /etc/resolv.conf which gets automatically populated by NetworkManager

My default gateway

Connect Virtual Machine to Internet Connection using Bridged network

For Bridged Network Mode, you can use both DHCP or static IP for your Virtual Machine. I hope you have already changed the network Mode of your Virtual Machine Adapter to Bridged to be able to connect virtual machine to internet connection.

The steps to use Bridged Network is same for both Oracle VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Player

We will continue to use DHCP for demonstrating this article so verify your network configuration as explained earlier in this article

My new IP Address is now

As you see the IP Address has changed, now I am getting the IP Address directly from the router which should be in the same subnet as from where my laptop is getting the IP as we are using the same router.

Below is the IP Address from my laptop using ipconfig command

So my laptop and virtual machine, both are using 192.168.0.1 as the default gateway.

Check if you are able to connect virtual machine to internet connection

Lastly I hope the steps from the article to connect virtual machine to internet connection on Oracle VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Player using Linux was helpful. So, let me know your suggestions and feedback using the comment section.

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How to Configure Network Between Guest VM and Host in Oracle VirtualBox

Once you have installed different operating systems in Oracle VirtualBox, you may want to enable communication between the host and the virtual machines.

In this article, we will describe the simplest and direct method of setting up a network for guest virtual machines and the host in Linux.

For the purpose of this tutorial:

Requirements

In order for the guest and host machines to communicate, they need to be on the same network and by default, you can attach up to four network cards to your guest machines.

The default network card (Adapter 1) is normally used to connect the guest machines to the Internet using NAT via the host machine.

Important: Always set the first adapter to communicate with the host and the second adapter to connect to the Internet.

Create a Network For Guests and Host Machine

At the Virtualbox manager interface below, start by creating a network on which the host and guests will operate.

Go to File –> Preferences or hit Ctrl + G :

Virtualbox Preferences Window

From the following interface, there are two options; choose Host-only Networks by clicking on it. Then use the + sign on the right to add a new host-only network.

Set Guest Network

Below is a screen shot showing a new host-only network has been created called vboxnet0.

Virtualbox Preferences Window

You can as well change the values as per your preferences, such as the network address, network mask, etc.

Note: The IPv4 address in the interface below is the IP address of your host machine.

Host Network Details

In the next interface, you can configure the DHCP server that is if you want the guest machines to use a dynamic IP address (make sure it is enabled before using it). But I recommend using a static IP address for the virtual machines.

Now click OK on all network settings interfaces below to save the changes.

Set Guest Static IP aAddress

Configure Virtual Machine Network Settings

Note: You can follow the steps below for every virtual machine that you want to add on the network to communicate with the host machine.

Back at the virtual box manager interface, select your guest virtual machine such as Ubuntu 16.10 server or CentOS 7 and click on the Settings menu.

Configure VM Settings

Configure Adapter to Connect Virtual Machine to Host

Choose the Network option from the interface above. Afterwards, configure first network card (Adapter 1) with the following settings:

As in the screen shot below and click OK to save the settings:

Enable Network Adapter for Guest VM

Configure Adapter to Connect Virtual Machine to Internet

Then add a second network card (Adapter 2) to connect virtual machine to the Internet via the host. Use the settings below:

Setup Static IP Address for Guest Virtual Machine

At this stage, power on the guest virtual machine, login and configure static IP address. Run the command below to show all the interfaces on the guest machine and allocated IP addresses:

Configure Static IP Address for VM

From the screen shot above, you can see that there are three interfaces enabled on the virtual machine:

On Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint

Important: Here, I used Ubuntu 16.10 Server: IP address: 192.168.56.5.

Open the file /etc/network/interfaces using your favorite editor with super user privileges:

Use the following settings for the interface enp0s3 (use your preferred values here):

Save the file and exit.

Then restart network services like so:

Alternatively, reboot the system and closely, check if the interface is using the new ip addresses:

On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora

Important: For this section, I used CentOS 7: IP address: 192.168.56.10.

Begin by opening the file for enp0s3 – host-only network interface; /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3 using your favorite editor with super user privileges:

Create/modify the following settings (use your preferred values here):

Save the file and exit. Then restart network service as follows (you can as well reboot):

Check if the interface is using the new IP addresses as follows:

Manage Virtual Machines From Host Using SSH

On the host machine, use SSH to manage your virtual machines. In the following example, am accessing the CentOS 7 (192.168.56.10)server using SSH:

Connect Guest VM using SSH

That’s it! In this post, we described a straightforward method of setting up a network between a guest virtual machines and the host. Do share your thoughts about this tutorial using the feedback section below.

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How to connect 2 virtual hosts running on the same machine?

I have 2 virtual hosts running on my Windows XP laptop. One is Ubuntu running inside vmware player. The other is MS virtual PC (so I can test with IE6 ). The Ubuntu virtual host is running my web application with apache. I can point my browser on my laptop at the Ubuntu IP and view my web app. I read this post How to connect to host machine from within Virtual PC image and was able to get my Virtual PC to ping my physical machine using the loopback adapter. But I’m stuck on getting my Virtual PC to see my web application running in the Ubuntu vmware player host.

2 Answers 2

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I think the best is to configure both Virtual machine with «Bridged network interface» so that they all get an IP Address from the same DHCP (the same as your host machine) and they will be in the same network.

Otherwise the only common thing between two NAT is the host machine. Perhaps configuring a special routing from one subnet (vmware NAT) to the other (VPC NAT) can work, but honestly I never tried it.

I would prefer my first solution, with a firewall enabled on both VM (and configure exceptions one by one).

Vmware peer2peer two pc which is run linux ubuntu connection and testing ping:

1.Vmware workstation Edit—>Virtual Network Editor Remove all of network of the list and create a network with pushing Add Network button. Choose Vm1 and Vm8 and add to list.

2.Choose Vm1 from the list and tick radio button Bridged(connect VMs directly to the external network) and choose from Bridged to: Your custom Ethernet adapter for example: Broadcom Netlink(TM) Gigabit Ethernet and push Apply button.

3.Success your ethernet adapter and your virtual adapter is bridged.

4.You have to configure Ip adress, subnet mask and default gateway, for example my host machine Ip address: 1.1.1.1 Subnet mask:255.255.255.0 Gateway:1.1.1.2 For Client machine: Ip address: 1.1.1.2 Subnet mask:255.255.255.0 Gateway:1.1.1.1

5.Now you can send ping from one ubuntu machine to other ubuntu machine from terminal firstly, ifconfig and you can see your host ip address and ping ip address.

How to do networking between virtual machines in VirtualBox?

By default the network-setting is NAT, but it seems like they cannot network internally since they have the same IP. But If I change to internal networking I guess that I cannot access Internet with the virtual machines.

How can I set up networking between virtual guest AND have access to Internet on them?

9 Answers 9

The virtual machine receives its network address and configuration on the private network from a DHCP server integrated into VirtualBox. The IP address thus assigned to the virtual machine is usually on a completely different network than the host. As more than one card of a virtual machine can be set up to use NAT, the first card is connected to the private network 10.0.2.0, the second card to the network 10.0.3.0 and so on.

You can use a VM’s «Settings» dialog in the VirtualBox graphical user interface. In the «Networking» category of the settings dialog, select «Internal Networking» from the drop-down list of networking modes. Now select the name of an existing internal network from the drop-down below or enter a new name into the entry field.

I found the following solution for my environment:

Those settings can be done by the GUI Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager. Initially I had the same problem as Jonas, I missed DHCP. Finally I found this article (archived copy, original link is dead) and I used:

from the command line. Afterwards it worked fine.

I dare say that the manual is a poor resource, as most of the configuration of VirtualBox on a Windows host can be done by the GUI and it is a severe inconvenience that one can’t configure DHCP with the GUI.

My environment: I’m running portable VirtualBox 4.1.2r73507 on Windows 7 64 bit. Currently host-only and bridged mode not working, because host-only adapter is missing. I have a problem similar to that described in a german question on Virtual Box forum, I have no host only adapter.

This is how I connect vbox guests in NAT mode only (tested on VirtualBox 4.2.4).

Just use the gateway IP to go from one guest to the host. Then use port forwarding to «proxy» the host traffic into the other guest.

For instance if guest A wants to reach a guest B service that listen on port 1000, A has to use the gateway IP (for the first NAT interface it is 10.0.2.2). Then you need to configure port forwarding on guest B so that all traffic received by the host on port 1000 go to guest B on port 1000.

In conclusion, you don’t necessary need host-only mode to connect multiple guests but I don’t mean to say that host-only mode is not the best option for your use case.

You need the host-connection LAN type (something like that in english version) on guest machines and bridge-connection on your host-machine.

_{(answer to question by bernd_k)}

For sharing files between the host and guests, one actually shares directories rather than files.

If the network mode is bridged or NAT, then the host and guests are each equal network partners. Although the whole setup is contained in the one host, network-wise they are all equal on the network, as if they were physical machines. (NAT is sometimes more problematic to use than bridged.)

This way, any shared folder in any computer, virtual or physical, is available to all. Because not all virtual machines may be turned on all the time, it makes sense to setup one folder of the host as the shared folder. The host then shares the folder, and the virtual machines use it as-is or as a mapped drive.

The following article explains with great detail how to share folders in Windows :
How do I share folders in Windows 7 with the Shared Folder Wizard?

I have two network cards on my Oracle VM XP PC

1st Bridged with a fast IP address as im using this as a client with a server network configuration. Changed the default gateway to the same as network card two (Nat 2nd)

2nd Nat With obtain IP address from Oracle VM

I did the following steps and it worked fine with me finally (on CentOS VB):

Then this VB should access the Internet and could be accessible from the others (VBs and local machine).

Note:

The NAT adapter will be used to access the Internet while the Host-Only adapter will be used for networking access between any other VBs and the local machine as well.

How to Connect 2 Virtual Machines and Setup NFS Server Part 1

Here are a series of tutorials for beginners to get started in clustering virtual machines and learn how to parallel program. We will be using VirtualBox and CentOS in this article to simulate a clustered supercomputer.

I have an article on how to install VirtualBox, which is a program that allows you to create and use virtual machines. CentOS is a popular Linux operating. I’m writing these articles to teach the basics on what makes a supercomputer and how to get started with supercomputing and high performance computing.

What makes a supercomputer?

As you may have guessed, supercomputers are computers with high computational capacity compared to your everyday computer. Supercomputers tend to be built as a connected system of smaller computers called nodes. These nodes are connected together through a hub device called a switch where processes can be distributed in parallel via IP or VPI. Less powerful computers/nodes connected to create a supercomputer. With MPI which stands for Message Passing Interface in a distributed system, you can run processes that are passed among the individual nodes and run in parallel to achieve faster computations.

Prequisites

You must first install VirtualBox, which I have written a separate article on. I’ll also leave the link to the VirtualBox download. You will also need to download a Linux operating system ISO for booting the virtual machines with. I will use a minimum ISO of CentOS 7.1 in this example.

Create two virtual machines in VirtualBox

We create two virtual machines on VirtualBox. For each of the two virtual machines, go to Settings. Inside Settings, go to Storage. For the second item with a disc icon next to the option, select an ISO such as CentOS 7.1 minimal ISO to boot. Make sure that Live CD/DVD is checked. Press OK.

Start both virtual machines. The setup to boot into the operating system appears for installing CentOS. Enter the operating system installation. Use the default configurations for setting up the operating system. At the second setup window, click Installation Destination and click Done. Finally, click Begin Installation.

Click root password and set a password. Wait until the installation is complete and click Reboot. You can boot into CentOS on both machines. To login, the username is root, and the password is what you set the password as.

Setting up Internet Connection and DHCP

Click the X button on both virtual machines. Power off both virtual machines. Open File Explorer on Windows. Go to C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox. Hold Shift and Right Click white space on this window. Click Open Command Window Here.

We will create an Internal Network with VirtualBox’s built-in command. It will mimic our DHCP server.

Go to Settings on both virtual machines in VirtualBox. First, we go to Storage. We uncheck Live CD/DVD, and we remove the optical disc that is the CentOS 7 minimal ISO. Next, we go to Network. Click on Adapter 2. Select Internal Network as the type. intnet should be automatically assigned. Click OK. Start both virtual machines.

On both machines, setup the Internet Connection.

enps08 will be connected, but enps03 will be disconnected.

Change the last line of this file on both machines to ONBOOT=yes.