VirtualBox bridged network not working as expected

Question

I am having hard time getting a bridged network to work with VirtualBox. The idea is to have the host as well as one or more guests on same LAN.

Using NAT (default) I do get access to the Internet and any node on the LAN when working from one of the VM guests. However, no LAN node including the host can access (or ping) guests in the VM.

I need to be able to use any guest as if it was a physical computer on the network (need to be accessed by any machine on LAN). According to my understanding of the VirtualBox documentation, this should be Bridged mode.

I think I set it correctly, well, actually there is not much to it:

1. Select Bridged mode in VM network setup
2. Select physical NIC of the host to connect the bridge to
3. Start VM

When I do this, each VM does get new IP address that corresponds to LAN settings:

192.168.1.100
192.168.1.102
192.168.1.103

where host is 192.168.1.80 / 255.255.255.0 (IP addresses above 100 are served by DHCP server).

This seem to be correct based on what I know about Ethernet. From the VM I can ping other nodes like 192.168.1.50 and I still get Ethernet access.

However I STILL cannot ping any of the other VMs (those that are running, of course). I cannot ping them from other VMs, from the host or from other nodes on the LAN. Aside from fact that IP addresses handed to guests are now local, this still acts the same as the NAT setup.

What is going on? What am I missing?

Answer 1

If the VMs you cannot ping are not using bridged networking, then you can't ping them because they are behind virtual NAT routers.

If they are using bridged networking, then their operating systems may have firewalls turned on.