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Create a Network For Guests and Host Machine

At the Virtualbox manager interface below, start by creating a network on which the host
and guests will operate.
Go to File –> Preferences or hit Ctrl + G :

Virtualbox Preferences Window


From the following interface, there are two options; choose Host-only Networks by clicking
on it. Then use the + sign on the right to add a new host-only network.

Set Guest Network


Below is a screen shot showing a new host-only network has been created called vboxnet0.
Virtualbox Preferences Window
If you want, you can remove it by using the - button in the middle and to view the
network details/settings, click on the edit button.
You can as well change the values as per your preferences, such as the network address,
network mask, etc.
Note: The IPv4 address in the interface below is the IP address of your host machine.
Host Network Details
In the next interface, you can configure the DHCP server that is if you want the guest
machines to use a dynamic IP address (make sure it is enabled before using it). But I
recommend using a static IP addressfor the virtual machines.
Now click OK on all network settings interfaces below to save the changes.

Set Guest Static IP aAddress

Configure Virtual Machine Network Settings


Note: You can follow the steps below for every virtual machine that you want to add on
the network to communicate with the host machine.
Back at the virtual box manager interface, select your guest virtual machine such
as Ubuntu 16.10server or CentOS 7 and click on the Settings menu.
Configure VM Settings
Configure Adapter to Connect Virtual Machine to Host
Choose the Network option from the interface above. Afterwards, configure first network
card (Adapter 1) with the following settings:
Check the option: “Enable Network Adapter” to turn it on.
In the field Attached to: select Host-only Adapter
Then select the Name of the network: vboxnet0
As in the screen shot below and click OK to save the settings:

Enable Network Adapter for Guest VM


Configure Adapter to Connect Virtual Machine to Internet
Then add a second network card (Adapter 2) to connect virtual machine to the Internet via
the host. Use the settings below:
Check the option: “Enable Network Adapter” to activate it.
In the field Attached to: select NAT

Enable Network Adapter for VM

Setup Static IP Address for Guest Virtual Machine


At this stage, power on the guest virtual machine, login and configure static IP address.
Run the command below to show all the interfaces on the guest machine and allocated IP
addresses:
$ ip add
Configure Static IP Address for VM
From the screen shot above, you can see that there are three interfaces enabled on the
virtual machine:
lo – loopback interface
enp0s3 (Adapter 1) – for host-only communication which is using the DHCP as set in one
of the previous steps and later configured with a static IP address.
enp0s8 (Adapter 2) – for connection to the Internet. It will use DHCP by default.
On Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint
Important: Here, I used Ubuntu 16.10 Server: IP address: 192.168.56.5.
Open the file /etc/network/interfaces using your favorite editor with super user
privileges:
$ sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces
Use the following settings for the interface enp0s3 (use your preferred values here):
auto enp0s3
iface enp0s3 inet static
address 192.168.56.5
network 192.168.56.0
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.56.1
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 192.168.56.1
Save the file and exit.
Then restart network services like so:
$ sudo systemctl restart networking
Alternatively, reboot the system and closely, check if the interface is using the new ip
addresses:
$ ip add
On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
Important: For this section, I used CentOS 7: IP address: 192.168.56.10.
Begin by opening the file for enp0s3 – host-only network
interface; /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3 using your favorite editor with
super user privileges:
$ sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3
Create/modify the following settings (use your preferred values here):
BOOTPROTO=static
ONBOOT=yes
IPADDR=192.168.56.10
NETWORK=192.168.56.0
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.56.1
DNS=8.8.8.8 192.168.56.1
NM_CONTROLLED=no #use this file not network manager to manage interface
Save the file and exit. Then restart network service as follows (you can as well reboot):
$ sudo systemctl restart network.service
Check if the interface is using the new IP addresses as follows:
$ ip add

Manage Virtual Machines From Host Using SSH


On the host machine, use SSH to manage your virtual machines. In the following example,
am accessing the CentOS 7 (192.168.56.10)server using SSH:
$ ssh tecmint@192.168.56.10
$ who

Connect Guest VM using SSH


That’s it! In this post, we described a straightforward method of setting up a network
between a guest virtual machines and the host. Do share your thoughts about this tutorial
using the feedback section below.
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