How do I install and configure VirtualBox

Question

Hi ,
I originally hijacked a thread
VirtualBox - somewhat off-topic
that was vaguely similar to what I am experiencing, but a kind forum moderator has split my question away because hijacking someone else's issue is poor forum etiquette.
Here is what I posted:
I tried to follow your last thread however it is still unable to reach outside web. I have a question on how you configured Vbox network adapter, from file/preferences/network, I created a new host-only adapter. There are 2 tabs on this (one for Adapter) and (one for DHCP server). What were the values you used for each of these tabs?
Then, what were the exact settings you used for the guest setup before starting the VM. you can right click on the chosen VM and select settings/network , and from here you are given several adapter tabs. of course by default adapter 1 is set to NAT. Though many of the options for Adapter 2 seem to become pre-populated once you set it to host-only. Are these ok, are do these values need to be modified also. (this would be the advanced button. Adapter Type, Promiscuous mode, Mac, Cable connected
OK, so if we can get the above details, then My last question is did you enable 2 adapters inside the guest vm after you boot up the os. Did you enable the 1st to be NAT and 2nd to be static at the OS level? How did you acheive this. I have been trying for several days now... I cannot get this to work. What was the gateway address and static config settings? IP, subnet, gatway, or dhcp for the 1st ... ?
my requirements are:
assign the guest vm a static IP
reach the host from the guest via terminal
reach the guest from the host via cmd line
reach the internet from the guest
Thank you so much for putting the time into this !
Jeff

Answer 1

You can do all the networking stuff you need by setting a "bridged" adapter in the VM setup, then configure a valid IP in your guest OS, probably using the same gateway and name servers similar to your host OS.
If you you cannot use a bridged mode adapter because your host network does not support another network card, you can configure a NAT and a host-only adapter in the VM setup as following:
When you configure the network device that corresponds to the NAT device on the on the guest side, set it up to obtain the IP address via DHCP. The NAT device is for outgoing connections to the internet only. VBox will not provide any routing from the outside network to interface behind a NAT device, only via it's own internal DHCP routing.
The host-only adapter is only good for connection between the host and the VM guest. It is primarily designed to provide DHCP like the NAT interface, but does allow a manual configuration, by customizing the "vboxnet0" configuration in the Vbox Network preferences. By default, the IP address range 192.168.56.1 to 192.168.56.100 can be used for manual IP configurations.
It was not mentioned in your requirements, but you need a bridged mode adapter if you want to connect to your guest VM from any other machine beside your host system, e.g. local LAN.