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I have two virtual machines both running on a Linux host (Fedora 16). I set both adapters as attached to NAT. When I boot them up they both have their default gateway set to 10.0.2.2. They also both have the same IP address (10.0.2.15). They are both on the same adapter (adapter 1). I don't know why they are getting assigned the same IP address, and shouldn't the default gateway be 10.0.2.1 since the subnet address is 10.0.2.0 and the netmask is 255.255.255.0. Is there something I am missing, has this happened to anyone before? How do I get the VirtualBox DHCP working properly?

VirtualBox DHCP is working properly.

There is nothing wrong with having all of your machines getting the same address in NAT configuration. All VMs are isolated from each other so there is no risk of conflict. They are also not on the same adapter. Each VM has its own virtualized hardware including NICs.

The default gateway also need not to be 10.0.2.1. Although it is a common practice to have it at the lower IP address, it can be any IP in the subnet range.

Also, there is no "real" dhcp service, everything is hardcoded in the VirtualBox code, although if you are not happy with the default IP addresses you can fine tune the NAT engine.

Your virtual machines will get the same IP address from any DHCP service as long as they have the same Ethernet MAC address (a hardware address, unique like a fingerprint, set by the hardware manufacturer of your network device).

Since you are running virtual machines, they have virtual hardware and therefore they "fake" the MAC address. You have to make sure no two machines have the same Ethernet hardware address.

You can set the Ethernet MAC address of your virtual machine in VirtualBox in the hardware network section (it looks like this: 3c:08:51:05:24:8a)

You can check it in your running VM:

sudo ifconfig



en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

    options=2b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_HWTAGGING,TSO4>

    ether 3c:08:51:05:24:8a 

    media: autoselect (none)

    status: inactive

In VirtualBox control panel go to File -> Preferences -> Network

Select NAT Networks tab, create a new "NatNetwork" by clicking + button at side and press OK.

Now select each VM go to Settings -> Network

In Attached to: option choose NAT Network and select "NatNetwork" and press OK.

Restart all the VMs.

Now VMs have different network address.

They will get their default gateway from the dhcp server - so it will be whatever is set up in there. You will need to look at the dhcp server to see what it is delivering (generally just set it in the server config to be whatever you want it to be)

With regard to the two adapters having the same address, this is most likely down to the configuration you have set in Virtualbox. If they are clones then you may need to explicitly give one a new MAC address.

Check the network configurations for each and see if they think they are the same.

If different, you could temporarily set a fixed IP for each one at the dhcp server (assigned by MAC address)

Have a look at this section from the VirtualBox manual for more information.

Two settings need to be changed.

1) In VM box side - Console VMware client software change the network settings (ie) add a new nat on network settings.
2) In VM machine side - Refresh the Mac address for each VM.

open network setting for each vm, click on advanced > click the refresh button beside the mac addr. Get a different one on both and you are all set