Oracle Virtual Box provides a simple virtualisation environment for testing configurations. Most notably we can use OVB to provide test guest OS environments for MFEL.

However, the networking can be a little tricky. So here is a small guide on getting your VM working on a network.

Please note: the Bridge Networking which is the type we would normally use, doesn't work if you are on the Ericsson Wireless network. We think this network is clever enough to only allow a single IP to be allocated to the device (no matter what mode you pick, you are nearly always relying on NAT).

For network configuration, VirtualBox (5.1) provides the following network modes:

• Not attached“ mode (not connected)
• Network Address Translation (NAT)
• Nat Network
• Bridged networking (network bridge)
• Internal networking (internal network)
• Host-only networking (Host-only adapter)
• Generic

In this mode, the guest system will see a network card, whose (virtual) cable has been disconnected.

NAT is the simplest option from the point of view of the guest system for accessing external networks. External access to the guest system (such as accessing a web server installed on a guest system) is not possible.
Note: Even from the host system, the services on the guest system cannot be accessed. If access should be possible, an additional interface can be configured using Host-only networking.

This is the mode you will most likely use. In this mode, the guest system will receive direct access to the network, to which the host system has been connected.

Warning! Using this mode on the Ericsson wireless will result in the VM not getting an IP Address, this is due to the system behind the wireless routers being clever enough to know it has already issued and IP to the host, and won't issue any more IP Addresses.

Only those guest systems that have been connected to the same internal network will be able to communicate with each other in the internal network configuration. Communication with the host system or another network outside of VirtualBox will not be possible.

In this mode, communication between connected guest systems and the host system is possible.

For the Generic networking Mode there are two possible Sub-Modes:
• UDP Tunnel • VDE (Virtual Distributed Ethernet) networking