How to config Windows firewall so VM Host-only can ping Windows 7

Question

I start a VM (Linux) in a host-only network connection (manual IP address: 192.168.8.123) under Windows 7. After turning off the VM firewall, I can ping the VM from Windows.

However, when I tried to ping from the VM, it failed. I noticed if I turned off the Windows firewall, then the ping can make it. However, I don't want to turn the firewall off. So how do I configure the firewall to let my Linux VM ping successfully get to Windows?

Answer 1

I ran into this issue recently when I started doing Linux development on a Windows laptop where the source code was on the host and it was shared over CIFS* to compile on a CentOS VM.

1. Open Windows Firewall and click on Advanced Settings:
2. In the overview panel, click on Windows Firewall Properties
3. Click on Public Profile Tab, Protected network connections, and unselect Virtual Host-Only Network

That's it! You can disable the adapter from Domain and Private Profile as well but you should not have to. The root cause of the problem seems to be that the host-only adapter is set to public instead of private, but I never did manage to find a solution to change that setting for the host-only adapter.

My solution assumes that you trust the communication between the host and the guest while keeping the firewall active for other adapters. If you want to be more narrow in what you let through between the host and guest VM, you can also edit the individual inbound and outbound rules to allow certain traffic through.

This solution also works when you take your laptop and connect to your work Wi-Fi or tunnel in through VPN which may change your local subnet.

** I found that using VirtualBox's shared folder performance is abysmal (5x slower for my project) - hence the CIFS.*.

Answer 2

Try this: http://www.sysprobs.com/enable-ping-reply-windows-7 - It has worked for me in the past.

Solutions:

1) Disable the firewall completely in windows 7, which is not recommended.

2) Create an exceptional rule for ICMP echo request to reply ping commands in existing firewall, without disabling it completely.

ICMP Rule in Windows 7 Firewall

Follow the steps steps to create a rule. These steps are similar to enable ping in Windows Vista

Also Check how to enable ping in Windows XP

1) Go to Windows Firewall in Control panel

Enable Windows 7 Ping in Firewall

You can see, Windows Firewall status is On. Click on Advanced settings in left side as mentioned above.

2) Select Inbound Rule, Right clink on it and select New Rule…

Enable Windows 7 Ping in Firewall

3) Select Custom (Custom Rule) at last and press Next.

4) Leave All programs and go to Next.

Enable Windows 7 Ping in Firewall

5) Click on Protocol type and select ICMP4 as shown below. ICMP4 is the protocol used in ping command when your network is communicating with IPv4.

Enable Windows 7 Ping

6) Since we are going to apply this rule for any IP, means responds to any IP addresses coming with echo request, select ‘Any IP addresses’ in next screen. You can add specific IP addresses also, if you want your windows 7 computer to respond to them only for ICMP echo request (ping )

Enable Windows 7 Ping

7) Allow the connection in next screen, press Next.

8.) Keep the all three check boxes checked in the next screen, to apply this rule any type of network you connected.

9) Give a name to this rule. This name will be showing under Inbound Rules in Windows Firewall. In future you can delete the rule by this name.

Enable Windows 7 Ping in Firewall

Click Finish.

10) That’s it; these are easy steps to enable ping in windows 7 and the rule will be immediately applied and appeared in inbound rules. Now, Windows 7 computer will be responding to ICMP echo ping requests without disabling or stopping the windows firewall.