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Consider a virtual box deployed inside my Host windows machine. I noticed that
It gets assigned its own IP address. Does that mean that they behave as two totally
different machines? Like two machines located in different places?
Will all types of networking operate in this way as if they are two different machines?
I noticed that my windows host machine IP is 192.168.1.7 whereas of WSL virtual box
172.24.44.19
Although if I type ipconfig on my windows command prompt I do see the following:
Ethernet adapter vEthernet (WSL):

Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::cda7:aa90:3e1a:335f%71
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 172.24.32.1
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.240.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Which shows that windows host machine is aware of the guest machine
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  • 172.24.32.1 and 172.24.44.19 are on entirely different subnets. What makes you think they are aware of each other?
    – Ramhound
    Commented Aug 5, 2021 at 20:01

2 Answers 2

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I noticed that my windows host machine IP is 192.168.1.7 whereas of WSL virtual box 172.24.44.19

This is NAT networking which is default.

On one hand, they are separate machines and, if you do nothing, they are not aware of each other, except that the host machine runs a DHCP server for the guest.

On the other hand, you can connect them by using IP addressing and normal connection methodologies.

So you have a great deal of flexibility.

I have two Linux machines as Guests of Windows 10, on a NAT Network, and I can use SMB in Linux to map folders in Windows 10.

So lots of flexibility and opportunity to set up tests like VPN (which need different subnets).

In many ways a NAT guest works just like a remote machine.

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From an extrrnal POV those machines very likely share the same external IP address. Externally it would present much like 2 systems on the same network.

I wonder if you are thrown off by the IP address 172.24.44.19 - this address behaves similarly to an address starting 192.168 or 10. - tt is paart of a slightly lesser known range between 172.16.x.x and 172.31.x.x - all of these ranges are considered private networks behind NAT and are covered by RFC1918.

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  • Thanks for pointing out that they behave similarly and are private networks. Is there any logic behind to keep those particular ranges as private? Or a good way to remember them. It seems there is lot of things to remember in Networking...
    – Juan
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 13:59
  • I dont know why those specific ranges were assigned as private - probably because they were available when this initiative was created - ir it was a bit arbitrary. There us a little bit of archaic meaning as the first octet used to define the range, but that was befire netmasks were a thing - in the very early days if the Internet.
    – davidgo
    Commented Aug 6, 2021 at 19:33

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