How I setup networking for VirtualBox on Ubuntu

Posted by admin
August 22, 2008

Just a quick note: I use VirtualBox daily at work. It provides excellent emulation for my original XP install (the one that came pre-installed on my Dell box!) while my main OS is Ubuntu. Setting up networking is not as straightforward as with VMWare, so here is what I had to do:

First, edit /etc/udev/rules.d/20-names.rules and make sure this line exists:

?View Code BASH
KERNEL="tun", NAME="net/%k"

Then create this script - you will run it whenever you wish to reconfigure your network:

?View Code BASH
#!/bin/bash
echo "Erasing old configuration"
sudo route del default
sudo ifconfig tap0 down
sudo ifconfig eth0 down
sudo ifconfig br0 down
sudo brctl delbr br0
sleep 1
 
echo "Creating virtual interface"
sudo chown chris /dev/sdc1
sudo tunctl -t tap0 -u chris
sleep 1
echo "Creating bridge interface"
sudo brctl addbr br0
sleep 1
echo "Making physical interface promiscuous"
sudo ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0 promisc
sleep 1
echo "Binding bridge to physical interface"
sudo brctl addif br0 eth0
sleep 1
#sudo ifconfig br0 10.255.203.34 netmask 255.255.255.0
echo "Configuring IP address"
sudo ifconfig br0 198.206.186.210 netmask 255.255.255.0
# sudo dhclient br0 # The new way!
sleep 1
echo "Binding bridge to virtual interface"
sudo brctl addif br0 tap0
sleep 1
echo "Enabling virtual interface"
sudo ifconfig tap0 up
sleep 1
#sudo route add default gw 10.255.203.254
echo "Adding default route"
sudo route add default gw 198.206.186.254
echo "All done!"

What’s that, then?
We start by getting rid of any existing configuration; then I change my virtual interface device’s owner to my own user, since I am logged in as a non-root user. Obviously you need to replace ‘chris’ with your own user name. From now on, tap0 will be the virtual interface seen by VirtualBox.
I make sure that my real interface is in promiscuous mode, which then allows me to bind it with a bridge interface.
All that is left to do it configure my bridge interface so that it can take over communicating with the rest of the world!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Similar Posts:

There are currently no comments highlighted.

linux, networking

If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Comments
Comment by admin
March 2, 2009 @ 2:35 am

Correct; the whole setup is done using this script, thus leaving interfaces blank.
Note that you can put a default configuration in interfaces and only run this script when/if you need bridging since the script starts by cleaning up any configuration.

If you are interested in bridging, this post is still valid.

If, however, you are simply wondering how to easily setup networking for VirtualBox, note that it seems that the latest release of VB will take care of all this for you. What it lacks in flexibility it certainly makes up for in ease of use.

Reply - Quote

Comment by Pedro
February 26, 2009 @ 10:06 am

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does anything special need to be done with the /etc/network/interfaces file? Should it be blank? Should eth0 be set to manual and have no ip settings in the file? Thanks for any direction about this.!!

Reply - Quote

Leave a comment

(required)

(required)