Dear Malcolm,
I don't believe there is any demand for this because the NAT Network
mode was never intended to be used this way.
It really is just an easy way to put a bunch of VMs on a host within
their own network and hide them from the external world.
While what you want to do is normal and standard, it's definitely not
the use case for NAT Network mode.
A typical setup would be a dedicated VM acting as a router/NAT Engine
instead of the NAT Network process, VM that you can configure and that
will do all the work.
That dedicated VM would have a bridged interface on the physical NIC of
the host. Another typical setup would be to replace the dedicated router
VM by the host itself - you would then configure NAT and IP Routing on
the host using iptables and your router VM for the hidden network would
have a host-only interface.
I'll let the devs confirmed I'm not saying anything stupid here :)
Max
On 04/10/16 11:01, Malcolm Clarke wrote:
Dear Maxine
The topology would be as follows
Public |--------| VBox NAT Network process |Private Network 1 10.0.2.0| Router
VM |Private Network 2 10.0.3.
0
With a routable private network behind the NAT router. This is
industry standard.
However the NAT router needs sufficient information to deliver
incoming packets other than for its own subnet to another router,
either because it has static routes, default router or understand RIP.
This is normal.
I understand that the NAT network process is intended to be simple and
support basic functionality, however my topology is industry standard,
and others may wish to do training, etc on this type of configuration.
I would be content with the most basic support, eg default router.
However I do not know the demand for this.
Regards
Malcolm
On 04/10/2016 09:34, Maxime Dor wrote:
Malcolm,
Just to be clear, is this your topology?
Public |--------| VBox NAT Network process |---------| Router VM
|---------| Hidden network
If so, I'm not aware of options to include static routes into the NAT
engine of VirtualBox, but I also don't see why you would need to.
it's the job of the router VM to also do NAT to hide that final
network, else you need the "public" routers to know about that hidden
network but that defeats the point of using NAT in the first place.
If this is your topology, I feel you're just using the wrong tool for
the job.
If your topology is different, let us know and we'll help further!
On 03/10/16 22:34, Malcolm Clarke wrote:
Dear Maxine
The problem is that a packet can eminate from a VM on the hidden
subnet and is correctly routed by the internal router to the NAT
router (the internal server contains the NAT as its default router),
and so the packet is sent to the public network. The NAT router will
correctly create an entry in the mapping table with the return IP
address. However when a packet returns from the public network, even
though the NAT router can substitute the correct destination IP
address for the hidden subnet, it does not have the routing
information to deliver the packet to the internal router for it to
be returned to the VM on the hidden network.
It would therefore require some simple mechanism to add static
routes (or private side default gateway) to the NAT router.
Using a bridge will not work as that would require configuring
"public" routers to deliver packets to the internal router. NAT is
the best solution.
Regards
Malcolm
On 03/10/2016 13:58, Maxime Dor wrote:
Hi Malcom,
That is on purpose - being behind a NAT network means you want to
hide any subnet connect to that network from the outside world.
Any outgoing connection will look like it came from the NAT Router
"public" IP.
If you want to allow specific connections to be allowed in, you
need to configure port forward - so far, I don't think I tell you
anything new.
But if you need the "outside" world to know about "inside"
networks, then NAT is not the right choice. You need to switch to a
non-NAT solution like Bridged mode (or Host-Only with routing
enabled on the host) and the "outside" world needs to know about
those "inside" network with two possibilities:
- Static routes on all routers that need to deal with those subnets
- Internal routing protocol like RIP, EIGRP or OSPF that will
auto-detect routes and populate routing tables of routers.
On 03/10/16 13:30, Malcolm Clarke wrote:
Dear Development Group
I am trying to demonstrate routing in a virtualised network
created using VirtualBox with a FreeBSD server acting as router
between 2 virtual networks. One network is set as NAT Network to
allow access to outside world. However, although packets can be
directed from the router to the NAT router for outward delivery,
the NAT router does not know how to deliver the incoming packets
for the "hidden" subnet.
I wonder if anyone has modified the NAT network to allow simple
static routes or default gateway to support this cnfiguration.
I do not know the interest for this functionality and whether the
work is justified for the use that would be made.
Regards
Malcolm
--
*Malcolm Clarke *BSc (Hons), PhD
Reader in Telemedicine and Data Communication Systems
T+44 (0) 1895 265053
*Brunel University London*
College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences
Department of Computer Science
HNZW011, Heinz Wolff Building, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex,
UB8 3PH
*www.brunel.ac.uk <http://www.brunel.ac.uk/>*
Connect with the university on*Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook*
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--
*Malcolm Clarke *BSc (Hons), PhD
Reader in Telemedicine and Data Communication Systems
T+44 (0) 1895 265053
*Brunel University London*
College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences
Department of Computer Science
HNZW011, Heinz Wolff Building, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex,
UB8 3PH
*www.brunel.ac.uk <http://www.brunel.ac.uk/>*
Connect with the university on*Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook*
_______________________________________________
vbox-dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.virtualbox.org/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev
--
*Malcolm Clarke *BSc (Hons), PhD
Reader in Telemedicine and Data Communication Systems
T+44 (0) 1895 265053
*Brunel University London*
College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences
Department of Computer Science
HNZW011, Heinz Wolff Building, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH
*www.brunel.ac.uk <http://www.brunel.ac.uk/>*
Connect with the university on*Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook*
_______________________________________________
vbox-dev mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.virtualbox.org/mailman/listinfo/vbox-dev
