I have a Linux Mint 19.0 host machine running two VMs - one is an Ubuntu Server (console only) and the other is Linux Mint 19.3 with a GUI. I plan to run Kubernetes in the Server instance and control it using kubectl in the GUI. To get there, I first want to build a network path between the two VMs, so I can ping each from the other.
Amongst several resources, I've been using this guide to understand how to do this. The essence of that piece is that one can use an "Internal Network" VirtualBox network type (as a secondary network on top of the default one) to connect two or more VMs, and that the only thing one needs to watch out for is that the network is the same for all VMs that need to join the network.
However, I tried that, and it did not work for me. I was expecting a new (virtual) network device to pop up in both VMs. Using ifconfig, nothing showed in the Server, and although the GUI VM showed the adapter, it repeatedly failed to connect.
I found another doc resource that I need a "Bridged Adapter". I swapped both VMs to this, and here one needs to select an on-host adapter, so I have left it set on the only host adapter for both VMs. This gets me closer - the network is autodetected in the GUI VM and connects successfully. However there is no similar luck in my Server VM - ifconfig gives me nothing new.
I have ensured that Guest Additions is installed on both VMs.
Finally, I found some advice to manually configure a static IP, so I tried this in the Server VM: ,
# /etc/network/interfaces
iface enp0s8 inet static
address 192.168.43.188
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.43.255
gateway 192.168.43.1
dns-nameservers 192.168.43.1
However I don't have much confidence that this is not a legacy file, and the change has made no difference. I am probably at the stage of flailing around trying random things, which is not very productive. What can I try next to configure this? I feel that this task should be very straightforward.
Observation
So the problem is just in the console VM - I think the full GUI VM is OK. I noticed one strange thing, which is that if I do a ifconfig in the server VM, I get configurations for both enp0s3 and lo. However, if I do ifquery --list, I get a device only for lo.
That suggests to me that the if commands are not being used (and indeed I had to install ifconfig manually). I will try to see if there are any other commands that could be used to bring network devices up or down.
Update
As per comment advice I have tried creating a VirtualBox network device, thus:
- Name:
vboxnet0 - Adapter tab: "Configure Adapter Automatically" (ticked)
- DHCP Server tab: "Enable Server" (ticked)
I click "Apply" and get a dialogue box that says NS_ERROR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED.
I will try experimenting with other network types.