2

Goal:
I want to run a Debian-squeeze-Guest in VirtualBox and give the guest it's own public static ip. I found tons of threads about this topic, but all in all I'm now trying for 10 hours (reading the manual, the forums, trying to learn about networking concepts & commands) to give a Guest his own public static ip (so that the Guest is similar to a vServer you can order from a hosting company), but wasn't able to.

Since I'm a big noob as far as networking stuff is concerned, I'm probably doing something wrong.(please bear with me :-) )

Situation:
VirtualBox 4.0.10 (headless no gui) is running on a dedicated Debian-Server, the Guest OS is Debian as well.

The server has a static ip and I ordered an additional ip for a VM.

Problem description:
Upto now I was able to use NAT to access the VM from the outside and to setup an internal network between several Guests and all of this worked very well.

When setting NIC 1 to bridged and configuring a public static ip on the guest, the guest was unpingable. (neither from outside, nor from the host) I could connect to the guest via the internal network, from another vm, though. ( VBoxManage controlvm VMGuest nic1 bridged eth0 ) ( configuration attempt of static-ip on the guest '/etc/network/interfaces' is below)

Please let me know what I'm doing wrong, or what I can try to get it to work, or if you need more info.

I think I've read that with a current VirtualBox-version for bridged networking no special host-configuration is necessary, is that accurate, or might that be the problem?


Additional Info
Info I got from the hosting company about the additional IP

  Please note that you can use the IP address only for this server.

  IP: 46.4.xx.xx
  Gateway: 46.4.xx.xx
  Mask: 255.255.255.248 

VBoxManage showvminfo VMGuest |less

 ...
NIC 1:           MAC: 080027D72F7B, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'eth0', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0
NIC 2:           MAC: 080027B03B75, Attachment: Internal Network 'InternalNet1', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: Am79C973, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0
NIC 3:           disabled
(...rest is disabled) 

cat /etc/network/interfaces on the Host-machine

 # Loopback device:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# device: eth0
auto  eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  address   46.4.xx.xx
  broadcast 46.4.xx.xx
  netmask   255.255.255.224
  gateway   46.4.xx.xx
  post-up mii-tool -F 100baseTx-FD eth0

# default route to access subnet
up route add -net 46.4.xx.xx netmask 255.255.255.224 gw 46.4.xx.xx eth0 

cat /etc/network/interfaces on the Guest-VM

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
auto  eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  address 46.4.xx.xx
  netmask 255.255.255.248
  gateway 46.4.xx.xx

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

ifconfig -a on the Guest shows the correct static ip for eth0 but the Guest is unreachable "over eth0"

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:d7:2f:7b
          inet addr:46.4.xx.xx  Bcast:46.4.xx.xx  Mask:255.255.255.248
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fed7:2f7b/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:21 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1260 (1.2 KiB)  TX bytes:3114 (3.0 KiB)

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:b0:3b:75
          inet addr:192.168.10.3  Bcast:192.168.10.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:feb0:3b75/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:142 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:92 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:15962 (15.5 KiB)  TX bytes:14540 (14.1 KiB)
          Interrupt:16 Base address:0xd240

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:123 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:123 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:25156 (24.5 KiB)  TX bytes:25156 (24.5 KiB) 

4 Answers 4

1

I have always done this by creating a bridge interface in the host so that it looks like this:

brctl show

bridge name     bridge id               STP enabled     interfaces
br0             8000.0025b3bafc61       no              eth0

ifconfig eth0

eth0  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:25:B3:BA:FC:61
      inet6 addr: fe80::225:b3ff:feba:fc61/64 Scope:Link
      UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:12199478 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:1121494 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
      RX bytes:1101744530 (1.0 GiB)  TX bytes:396467719 (378.1 MiB)
      Interrupt:51

ifconfig br0

br0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:25:B3:BA:FC:61
      inet addr:10.16.21.55  Bcast:10.16.21.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
      inet6 addr: fe80::225:b3ff:feba:fc61/64 Scope:Link
      UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
      RX packets:1280420 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
      TX packets:1098325 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
      collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
      RX bytes:334957389 (319.4 MiB)  TX bytes:394733263 (376.4 MiB)

Running "VBoxManage showvminfo | grep NIC" should show something like:

NIC 1:           MAC: 080027D96DFB, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'br0',
       Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM,
       Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0

I don't know if you can tell VirtualBox to bridge with eth0 directly, without having to set up br0 first. You seem to assume this is possible, and it could be the cause of your troubles. Also note the Bridged keyword. If you previously had it NATted, this could be the problem.

1
  • Great answer thanks! +1 when I have the rep. I read that bridge to eth0 directly should work in newer VBox-versions. Besides the direct way I also tried to configure a bridge br0 on the host and connect to br0 but without any luck so far. I think the problem has something to do with the hosting provider's setup.
    – user86296
    Jul 1, 2011 at 17:54
0

I used that script for creating VM with Virtual Box without GUI:

#!/bin/bash

VMNAME="OpenBSD"

VBoxManage createvm --name $VMNAME --ostype OpenBSD --register
VBoxManage createhd --filename ~/"VirtualBox VMs"/$VMNAME/$VMNAME --size 100000
VBoxManage storagectl $VMNAME --name "IDE Controller" --add ide --controller PIIX4 --hostiocache on --bootable on
VBoxManage storageattach $VMNAME --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium ~/"VirtualBox VMs"/$VMNAME/$VMNAME.vdi
VBoxManage storageattach $VMNAME --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium ~/iso/install49.iso --passthrough off
VBoxManage modifyvm $VMNAME --memory 512 --vrde on --acpi on --rtcuseutc on
VBoxManage modifyvm $VMNAME --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0
VBoxManage modifyvm $VMNAME --nic2 bridged --bridgeadapter2 eth1
VBoxManage modifyvm $VMNAME --nic3 bridged --bridgeadapter3 eth2

And it works fine. One of virtual interface have public ip, other interfaces have internal ip.

1
  • Thx good answer +1! I tried this even with importing a completely new VM several times and even though it didn't work for me it's good to know that this exact configuration has worked for someone else, so I'd say that it's reasonable to assume that I should focus my the search for the problem on other areas. Edit: Oops +1 when I have enough reputation to upvote.
    – user86296
    Jul 1, 2011 at 17:49
0

"Please note that you can use the IP address only for this server."

This may be an indication that the hosting company has implemented Layer 2 Security at the switching level, so if the MAC does not match, it will not be allowed onto the switched network.

1
  • Good answer thanks! I think this is the case with my hosting company. +1 when I have the rep.
    – user86296
    Jul 4, 2011 at 15:16
0

Thanks to everyone who answered!

The following German tutorial finally brought the solution (the network part). My Host-IP and additional ip were not on the same subnet:
http://www.kitesurfer1404.de/klartext/eq6_setup

0. Information from my hosting company about the additional IP-address and Mac-address

Host-IP:       _hostIP_
Additional IP: _additionalIP_
Gateway:       _gatewayIP_
Maske:         255.255.255.248

Your IP _additionalIP_ has the following separate MAC-adress for virtualisation purposes:

Mac-address for the nic: _macaddress_

1. On the Host

iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

# Add the Gateway as an IP-address on the host, in the following way (not the actual additional IP):
ip addr add _gatewayIP_/255.255.255.248 dev eth0

# Add a route for the 2nd additional ip in the following way
route add -host _additionalIP_ gw _additionalIP_


# make the changes persistent - this part is not tested!

emacs /etc/network/interfaces
# ----------------------------------------
# Loopback device:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# device: eth0
auto  eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  address   _hostIP_
  broadcast _broadcast_
  netmask   255.255.255.224
  gateway   _gateway_
  post-up mii-tool -F 100baseTx-FD eth0

# default route to access subnet
up route add -net 46.4.xx.xx netmask 255.255.255.224 gw 46.4.xx.xx eth0

up ip addr add _gatewayIP_/255.255.255.248 dev eth0
up route add -host _additionalIP_ gw _additionalIP_
# ----------------------------------------

2. On the Host - change Guest settings

# set the mac-address of the guests nic to the virtual mac-address we got for our additional ip
# bridgeadapter1 is the network card from the Host that should be used for the bridge
VBoxManage modifyvm VMGuest  --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0      --nictype1 Am79C973   --macaddress1 _macaddress_
VBoxHeadless -startvm VMGuest 

3. In the Guest

# connect via internal network and edit the network-configuration

emacs /etc/network/interfaces
# --------------------------------------------------
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
auto  eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  address _additionalIP_
  netmask 255.255.255.248
  gateway _gatewayIP_

allow-hotplug eth1
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp
# --------------------------------------------------


shutdown -r now

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