Connecting Host OS [Windows 7] with Guest OS [Colinux - Fedora 11] What am I doing wrong?

Question

I'm trying to keep Windows off the internet and use Fedora as a firewall to Windows internet connectivity. The pc is connected to a router. I have the internet working in Fedora. I need to route Windows through Fedora so it can access the internet.

I connected Fedora to the internet once using pcap-bridge and then for a couple of days it wouldn't connect with the same setup. I accidentally figured out that whenever the real ethernet device loses connectivity, colinux will not reconnect with it until the bridge is manually restarted. I also connected Windows and Fedora "once" through a TAP connection and I was able to ping from Fedora to Windows and vice versa, I also connected via ssh to Fedora from Windows. I've never had both connections working at the same time. I'm using the same setup for the TAP that once worked and no matter what instructions I follow on many of the sites I've been to, I always get "Destination Host Unreachable" from both Windows and Fedora. I've turned off all firewalls and antivirus' in Windows and I've turned off iptables in Fedora. The router's firewall is off. Each time I've changed a network configuration, I've restarted colinux.

I tried using eth0, eth1's IP Address as the gateway in the loopback adapter.

I gave up on the TAP connection and opted to use the Microsoft Loopback Adapter but I'm having the same problem with it.

I gave the real ethernet device (LAN) [A Bad Ip Address to block Windows from the internet]:

LAN: [This works]
IP Address 1.1.1.1
Netmask    255.0.0.0

LOOPBACK: [The problem]
I've tried 10.0.2.0-254, 10.0.0.0-254, 192.168.10,0,1,2.0-254
IP Address 192.168.2.10
Netmask    255.255.255.0

Colinux:
eth0=pcap-bridge, "LAN"
eth1=ndis-bridge, "LOOPBACK"

Fedora:
[obtained from router]
DEVICE=eth0
IPADDR=192.168.1.2
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1

DEVICE=eth1 [The problem]
I've tried 10.0.2.0-254, 10.0.0.0-254, 192.168.10,0,1,2.0-254
IPADDR=192.168.2.20
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.2.0
BROADCAST=192.168.2.255
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1

/etc/resolv.conf
search hsd1.pa.comcast.net [automatically given by router]
nameserver=192.168.1.1 [automatically given by router]
nameserver=75.75.75.75 [manually obtained from router]
nameserver=75.75.76.76 [manually obtained from router]
nameserver=10.0.2.3 [suggested by Fedora]

Answer 1

If you really wanted to use the Fedora VM as a firewall for the Windows machine, you'd need to insert it into the Windows machine's connection to the internet by making Windows use the Fedora VM as a default gateway. The Fedora VM would then have responsibility for routing all network traffic to your actual router (or blocking it, as the case may be).

I'm not sure well it would work, though--I'd imagine your traffic would end up in a loop, since your Fedora VM actually accesses the network via the physical NIC, which is sending all its traffic to its default gateway (which is the Fedora VM).

This same setup would work much, much better if Fedora was the host OS and Windows was the guest.

I don't have steps for turning a Linux box into a proper router on hand, but it's something readily available online, and it looks like you'd have the handle for it. :-)