I'm using VirtualBox running at Win XP and guest Linux OS Fedora 16 with bridged networking (eth4). It's was working without problem for ages regardless static or dynamic addresses via DHCP (manually switched in network configuration) were used depending at what location I was connected.
Because I use putty to log in guest Linux periodical putty reconfiguration (IP) annoyed me so I enabled second network adapter (eth5) configured as Host-only Ethernet adapter providing "static-enough" address via DHCP. putty is configured to login to this address. This interface (eth5) works as intended but the bridged networking behaves randomly.
Mostly eth4 does not get IP address, I can see DHCP discover request at host when intercepting interface (ethereal). But there is neither response or transmission to the gateway to inquire DHCP server. I'm not sure if I could see transmitted request but I believe the response should be visible. Seems that windows driver is blocking traffic. I cannot see it in firewall log (but I think there is UDP/TCP only). When I switch off/on cable checkbox option in VirtualBox I can see action in dmesg and attempt to get IP address in ethereal. When I do sudo dhclient -r eth4 nothing happens, strace says that probably first tries to send broadcast (0.0.0.0) following by a previous DHCP lease (gateway 192.168.0.1) taken from /var/lib/dhclient/dhclient.leases.
Sometimes both host and guest (eth4) are working as expected (at least some time). Sometimes after guest Fedora boot eth4 get IP but stop working host interface (gateway can be reached/pinged from guest but not from host). When I started guest with "cable-to-guest" disconnected and pinged gateway from host console. I could see that it stopped working when I enabled cable for guest.
I cannot get what's difference.
I'm connected to the LAN via Gigabit NIC or wireless card. There is no difference in behaviour.
After reinstallation to slightly newer Vbox 4.3.36 it seemed problem was fixed. But it was false hope as after a while it got to problems again.
The main issue is that even I remove second Host-only adapter I'm not able to get working as it was working before (i.e.reliably).
Has anybody encountered similar problem or does anybody has idea how to debug problem at low Virtual bridged networking driver level?
