Hello Everyone,
I have setup Virtualbox OSE in Debian Etch and my guest OS is XP. I am using Samba and bridged mode networking in order to use the 'Host Interface' feature that allows the host and guest OS to talk to each other in the same subnet. I am facing a problem of networking in the guest XP. It's ethernet interface has stopped receiving any packets so it is no longer on the net.
The History: The virtual HDD is on an NTFS partition so Etch was first upgraded to kernel 2.6.22 in order to use ntfs-3g. Then Virtualbox OSE was installed manually from the tar ball on the VBox site. It took a long time to compile and install but everything went smoothly. Initially Virtualbox was used in NAT mode so everything was fine and net was up and running in the guest XP. Then as per instructions on various websites, uml-utilities and bridge-utils were installed and the tap0 interface was set up. In Etch, Samba was installed as per various website instructions. At one time the 2 OSs even talked to each other and I could access shared folders. However after correcting some minor mistakes in my setup and rebooting the machine, the guest XP canot receive any packets. Once, manually changing the /dev/net/tun ownership even let me get communication back again. However the joy was short lived and after a reboot, even duplicating the same process yielded no results. Now everything is as per the book with proper startup entries but still no packets received by the guest OS. The brctl showstp br0 command shows that both eth0 and tap0 are alive and kicking in forwarding mode.
The Mystery: What is amazing is that when I cross checked my Virtualbox by booting it with a live Kubuntu CD, it was and is always able to get its IP address by DHCP from my ADSL router and internet was up and running too. However the OS booted from the virtual HDD cannot get its net up. It was even knocked off and a new virtual disk and OS was loaded but still no result.