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I currently have two Ubuntu 14.04 virtual machines running on a windows 7 host. The virtual machines are configured to use a bridged network adapter.

When the host machine is hardlined to the internet, the virtual machines are able to ping the outside world as well as be ping by the outside world.

When the host machine is on a wireless network, the virtual machines cannot ping the outside world, and the outside world is not able to ping the virtual machines.

When connected to a wireless network, I receive the 'Destination host unreachable' error when pinging either from the virtual machines to outside, or from outside to the virtual machines.

It may be worth noting that these virtual machines are being run inside VirtualBox. Also something which may be applicable here, section 6.5 of the virtualbox manual states:

Bridging to a wireless interface is done differently from bridging to a wired interface, because most wireless adapters do not support promiscuous mode. All traffic has to use the MAC address of the host's wireless adapter, and therefore VirtualBox needs to replace the source MAC address in the Ethernet header of an outgoing packet to make sure the reply will be sent to the host interface. When VirtualBox sees an incoming packet with a destination IP address that belongs to one of the virtual machine adapters it replaces the destination MAC address in the Ethernet header with the VM adapter's MAC address and passes it on. VirtualBox examines ARP and DHCP packets in order to learn the IP addresses of virtual machines.

I'm not sure what may be causing this issue. Accessing these virtual machines from the outside world when switching between networks is necessary in my situation. Any ideas as to what may be going on?

Thanks in advance for any help!

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  • What is your version of VirtualBox? (Edit the answer into the question) And are you using DHCP for the guests?
    – Joe P
    Commented Jun 14, 2017 at 20:44
  • I have VirtualBox vms working bridged to a wireless interface; it works fine most of the time, but I do have an issue with it when the host wifi goes down and reconnects. In your case, do you start the vms after the host wifi is up?
    – Joe P
    Commented Jun 14, 2017 at 20:46
  • Just to provide some value to those who may stumble upon this issue in the future: The source of this problem stems from a setting within virtualbox. Open virtualbox, and under the Settings > Network > Adapter page, there is a name field. If attempting to connect to the virtual machines over a wired connection, select your host machines Ethernet adapter. If attempting to connect to the virtual machines over a wireless connection, select your host machine's wireless adapter. Hope this helps someone out there!
    – J0991
    Commented Jun 14, 2017 at 21:17
  • You could add that as an answer (it's fine to answer your own questions) - that is where future visitors will look for answers!
    – Joe P
    Commented Jun 14, 2017 at 21:21

1 Answer 1

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Just to provide some value to those who may stumble upon this issue in the future: The source of this problem stems from a setting within virtualbox. Open virtualbox, and under the Settings > Network > Adapter page, there is a name field. If attempting to connect to the virtual machines over a wired connection, select your host machines Ethernet adapter. If attempting to connect to the virtual machines over a wireless connection, select your host machine's wireless adapter. Hope this helps someone out there!

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