How to tell Guest OS to treat USB port as network card?

Question

Computer 1

• Motherboard 845GBV
• Host OS Windows XP
• Guest OS Linux slackware (via Virtual Box)
• Network via USB modem
• USB port 3/6

Computer 2

• Motherboard Asus P7P55D-E Pro
• OS Windows 7 x64
• Network via USB modem, or on-board network chip
• USB port Plenty!!

1) Motherboard on computer 1 is possessed of 6 USB ports

2) USB modem (connecting to the internet) is plugged into one of the USB ports

3) Guest OS uses NAT to access the USB modem

4) I wish to start setting up a network where the Slackware guest OS on computer 1 is the gateway/firewall for computer 2

How should the Guest OS be told to use one of the USB ports (I only use 3 of them at present) as a Network Card?

Answer 1

You cannot change the functionality of a USB port by "telling" it something. You will need to install a USB Ethernet adapter in order to use one of the spare USB ports as a "Network Card". If the USB (cable or xDSL) modem is eth0, then the new USB Ethernet adapter will show up as eth1.

Avoid the really cheap no-name adapters on *bay. Choose a brand that has a full range of networking products and is more likely to have Linux support.

Answer 2

If you have USB network adaptor, passing it through should work. I found that having driver support on the guest (naturally essential) and and host works with wireless USB network dongles, but i've not tried it with usb ethernet dongles.