Introduction and Description:
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This article is small attempt to explain how to connect GNU/Linux and FreeBSD using Virtual Box.
So here we are going to bridge GNU/Linux(Open-SUSE) and FreeBSD. Remember that here BSD(guest) is installed inside Virtual Box running on Open-SUSE(host).
Prerequisite:
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I assume that you have successfully installed FreeBSD on the virtual box and you know a bit of networking. Lastly you must have enabled bridging in the kernel if you have recompiled it most recently (Bridging is enabled by-default in most generic kernels)
So my host OS is OpenSUSE-11.3 and guest OS is FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE(GENERIC). My Virtual Box version is: 3.2.6_OSE r63112.
Configuring Open-SUSE:
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Login as root and type:
# ifconfig -a
the output will be similar to this one:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1B:FC:1E:AD:9C
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:25 Base address:0xc000
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:53 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:53 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:4552 (4.4 Kb) TX bytes:4552 (4.4 Kb)
If you have selected network adapter ‘type: Bridge‘ in Virtual Box then an additional entry will be:
vboxnet0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 0A:00:27:00:00:00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3228 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:212309 (207.3 Kb)
Configuring FreeBSD:
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If you have entered the valid IP address for your guest OS which FreeBSD’s sysinstall obviously ask for, go to your BSD box(root) and type:
# ifconfig -a
the output will be similar to this one:
em0: flags=8843 metric 0 mtu 1500 options=9b ether 08:00:27:f5:13:2f inet 192.168.1.14 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255 media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT ) status: active lo0: flags=8049 metric 0 mtu 16384 options=3 inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2 inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
Yes in FreeBSD your first ethernet card is called em0 and lo0 is your loop back device.
Main configuration:
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If you have successfully reached here, I assure you the rest is cake walk 🙂
In simple words a Bridge is a device which links two physical networks together. In this case ‘eth0′ is actually a physical device(your ethernet card on OpenSUSE), but ’em0′ is virtual(on FreeBSD). Don’t worry, Virtual Box makes it look like real by adding an entry vboxnet0 in ifconfig. So when you type ifconfig -a (on Open-SUSE), you see an additional entry of vboxnet0.
Physical network do have their own IP addresses, so go to BSD box and check if you have given em0 its valid IP address. In my case em0 have IP of 192.168.1.14(you can make out from the output above). If em0 have valid IP, logout of the BSD(we are not going to touch it until we setup the bridge)
Login as root to Open-SUSE. Now we have to create a bridge, and then add the two interfaces(eth0 and vboxnet0) to it. Remember em0 is the name given by BSD to its NIC, in Linux term, it is called eth0. em0 get converted to vboxnet0 in Linux because virtual Box created
it(which is running on Open-SUSE). we can’t bridge eth0 and em0 in this case as em0 is virtual NIC(in BSD term). Linux see’s em0 as vboxnet0
so
em0 = vboxnet0
if we create second NIC in Virtual Box, then BSD will see it as em1 whereas Linux will see it as vboxnet1 and so on.
em1 = vboxnet1
em2 = vboxnet2
.
.
.
em(n) = vboxnet(n)
More practical scenario can be a real system with two NIC’s(say eth0 and eth1). Both NIC’s are connected to two separate networks. And we have to bridge both the NIC’s, eventually we will bridge the networks.
Creating Bridge:
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type:
# brctl addbr br0
here br0 is the name of our bridge. If you check by typing ipconfig -a. You will have an additional entry like.
br0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1B:FC:1E:AD:9C
inet addr:192.168.1.11 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:3239 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:216180 (211.1 Kb)
Please ignore the IP address entry. We haven’t assigned IP to our br0
Now to add eth0 to br0 type:
# brctl addif br0 ethO
and then add vboxnet0 to br0 by typing:
# brctl addif br0 vboxnet0
And now… because we have connected the two ethernet cards together, they now form one large subnet. We are actually on one subnet, namely br0. We can forget about the fact that br0 is actually [eth0 + vboxnet0] in disguise; we will only deal with br0 from now on. Because we are only on one subnet, so we only need one IP address for the bridge. This address will be assigned to br0. eth0 and eth1 should not have IP addresses allocated to them.
# ifconfig eth0 0.0.0.0
# ifconfig vboxnet 0 0.0.0.0
and finally assign an IP to br0
# ifconfig br0 192.168.1.11
You can check your bridge status by typing:
# brctl show br0
and you are done !
check by pinging from each OS to other
on BSD type:
% ping 192.168.1.11
because the bridge is on Open-SUSE
on Linux type:
$ ping 192.168.1.14
if pinging works, congrats, you have successfully bridge the gap between GNU/linux and FreeBSD.
and now its up to you, if you want to grow your network by adding more systems or bridges. Try out ssh, ftp, telnet, http etc. on your network. Even physical systems are now capable to connect to your (virtual)BSD with the IP address 192.168.1.14
Good luck!
Ref:
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1) bridge-utils-1.2 HOWTO, By: Lennert Buytenhek
2) Linux Bridge+Firewall Mini-HOWTO version 1.2.0 By: Peter Breuer (ptb@it.uc3m.es)
3) Filtering Bridges, By: Alex Dupre(ale@FreeBSD.org)