Running VM in Virtualbox causes the host to lose its network connection

I am running VirtualBox (with XP-Guests and soon W7) on a Win2003-server. Just recently (and with help of a superuser), I was able to see the VM in the network (before I could only connect to the web and see the intranet from the VM, but not see the VM).

Some details:

IP of gateway: 192.168.1.1
IP of host: 192.168.1.199

On the hosts's LAN-connections, I have a "VirtualBox Host-only network" and in its TCP/IP-settings have assigned the IP 192.168.1.51.

The VM still runs with automatic assignment of an IP and currently uses 192.168.1.5.

I hope this gives all info you may need, please just ask if I left out something...

edit: I see few people viewing the q and not responding. If I'm moving in the wrong direction or am doing something stupid (obvious for anyone but me) - please. add a comment ;)

MBaas

Posted 2010-01-28T09:02:35.250

Reputation: 275

Have you tried setting the lan device to "NAT" mode? That has cleared up most problems for me in the past. – Seamus Connor – 2010-02-17T08:35:14.953

Answers

Hoooorrray :) The 3.1.4-update somehow just fixed all problems, I'm in (virtual) heaven now :) Thanks for all your help & support, much appreciated.

MBaas

Posted 2010-01-28T09:02:35.250

Reputation: 275

The virtualbox host-only network is a private network between the host and the guests and not available to the outside world.

It should be on a separate network to your real network as my guess is, you are having a routing conflict.

Try setting it to automatic / DHCP, or use an alternate network allocation such as 10.0.0.x on /24 or 255.255.255.0 subnet, with no gateway.

William Hilsum

Posted 2010-01-28T09:02:35.250

Reputation: 111 572

In the previous question, he asked how to expose the vm to the production network (bridged mode). I think that's the situation he's trying to use now. – MDMarra – 2010-01-28T14:02:25.560

Thanks Wil, I have set the vb host-only network's IP-config to automatic, but it still takes my server from the network when I launch the vm :(

With the little knowledge I have, the routing conflict sounds like a plausible explanation, but how to find the root of that? – MBaas – 2010-01-28T14:33:17.033

I think it is still a routing conflict, I am not sure what defaults virtualbox uses.... Can you manually disabled the virtualbxo host-only network and just see if everything goes correctly? If it doesn't write in comments as I may be out of ideas, but if it fixes it - I have a theory - can you manually change the host only network to 10.0.0.anything and then see if it changes anything, alternatively, do an ipconfig and paste the results for that card. – William Hilsum – 2010-01-28T14:52:50.357

Disabling host-nw has not changed anything :( I also tried to assign a 10.0.0-IP without effect... – MBaas – 2010-01-29T15:20:40.537