• Diff for "VirtualNetworking"

There is not much info here yet. This page is devoted to describing how to configure debian to be able to use a virtual network on your system that lets different virtualization applications to work together and be able to talk to each other on the virtual network.

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Virtual Networking

Getting User Mode Linux networked with VirtualBox

Introduction

The method outlined below will help get user-mode-linux machines and VirtualBox machines working on the same "virtual network". In this routine, we will be creating a primary tap interface and bridging it. This is not the same as bridging the local ethernet interface, and the virtual machines will only be accessible from the host system.

In this guide, I will be using some abbreviations. The term "uml" will be used to refer to a user-mode-linux virtual machine. The term "vbox" will be used to refer to a virtualbox machine. The term "VM" (or "vm") will be used for an unspecified virtual machine (either uml or vbox). Also there will be some assumptions being made that you may want to change. It will be assumed that your local network interface will be called eth0. It will also be assumed that the virtual network that you'll be creating is on 10.1.0.0/24, with the host being 10.1.0.1 and the main uml machine on 10.1.0.2 .

This guide will also make use of a persistent uml machine to run the dhcp server and the nameserver for the virtual network. This is not really necessary, as you can choose to run those programs on the host system. It is useful, however, if you wish to keep the configuration on the host system at a minimum, and also to minimize the requirement for root access on the host system.

These instructions can be modified to use vde2. Doing this will allow you to also use qemu and kvm machines on the same network. Using vde2 would probably be the optimal setup for this guide, but since I'm not using it at the moment, these instructions will have to suffice.

One final note. These instructions will assume that you are either familiar with the programs and/or procedures detailed here, or are willing to read up on them. These instructions aren't meant to be howto's for using rootstrap, setting up a bridged network, configuring dhcp3-server, etc. I will try to provide links to places where you can learn how to do these things, but this guide isn't meant to be a replacement for those instructions.

Prepare Host System

Install Requirements

Required packages on host system:

• bridge-utils

• uml-utilities

• rootstrap

• virtualbox-ose (you may need to build the modules with [:ModuleAssistant:module-assistant], from virtualbox-ose-source)

You will need to add your user to these groups: uml-net and vboxusers

You will need to log out entirely and possibly kill every process being run by that user in order to finalize the addition to the groups (slay is a good command for this). The rest of the guide will assume that this has already been done.

Prepare TAP Interface

Edit /etc/network/interfaces and add these lines:

        auto tap0
        iface tap0 inet static
                address 10.1.0.1
                netmask 255.255.255.0
                tunctl_user uml-net

The ip address can be changed according to your needs, but the rest of the guide will assume that it's set to 10.1.0.1 .

Edit /etc/default/uml-utilites and set UML_SWITCH_OPTIONS="-tap tap0".

Now you can stop uml-utilities:

sudo /etc/init.d/uml-utilities stop

Bring up the new tap interface:

sudo ifup tap0

Now start uml-utilities again:

sudo /etc/init.d/uml-utilities start

This should start the uml_switch on tap0.

At this point, you will probably want to enable masquerading to get the tap network access to the local network or internet. You will only have to do this once here, since later, we will write scripts to help manage this.

sudo su
 iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
echo '1' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
exit

Don't bother reading below here

Prepare Rootstrap

my rootstrap.conf:

[global]
fstype=ext2
## I have about 100M or so free using a 1G 
## filesystem.  I'm not running much more than
## the standard, plus dhcp3-server, bind9 and 
## some extra stuff like xemacs, rsync, slay, etc.
initialsize=1024
freespace=0
modules=network mkfs mount debian uml umount
PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
## we will set the memory back down to 32M once
## the rootstrap is over, but having it high is
## helpful for installing the system
umlargs=mem=128M
## you don't really need this one, but it can be 
## informative, and will help when you run into problems
debug=true

[network]
## the rest of the guide will assume that this
## hostname is being used, but you can change
## this, just be aware that this hostname will 
## be used in the guide.
hostname=nethead

## most of this was just uncommented from
## the example rootstrap.conf file and the
## ip's were modified.
interface=eth0
transport=daemon
uml=10.1.0.2
netmask=255.255.255.0
control=/var/run/uml-utilities/uml_switch.ctl
data=/var/run/uml-utilities/uml_switch.data
gateway=10.1.0.1
## get the nameserver from /etc/resolv.conf
## and replace this option
nameserver=10.1.0.1

[debian]
dist=lenny
mirror=http://10.1.0.1/debian
exclude=pcmcia-cs setserial

[base-config]
root_password=rootstrap

[uml]
kernel_modules=copy
kernel_modules_dir=/usr/lib/uml/modules

Prepare TAP Bridge

add this to network interfaces no auto here, bring this interface up when you login to the desktop

iface br0 inet static
        address 10.1.0.1
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        broadcast 10.1.0.255
        bridge_ports tap0
        bridge_stp off
        bridge_fd 2.5
        post-up /etc/network/br0-interface up
        post-down /etc/network/br0-interface down

save this in /etc/network/br0-interface replace username with the your user name

set -e
ubd0=/path/to/uml/images/nethead

case "$1" in 
    up)
    
    iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
    echo '1' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
    su -l -c "env TERM=console linux ubd0=$ubd0 eth0=daemon con=pts mem=32m umid=nethead" username &
    ;;
    down)
    su -l -c "uml_mconsole nethead halt" username
    iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
    echo '0' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
    ;;
esac

Make VirtualBox Machine

set -e
IF="$1"
BRIDGE=br0
case "$2" in
    up)
        # ensure that the TAP device is down
        sudo VBoxTunctl -d $IF >/dev/null 2>&1
        # Create a TAP network device
        sudo VBoxTunctl -u $LOGNAME -t $IF >/dev/null 2>&1
        # Bring it up (without IP address)
        sudo ifconfig $IF up
        # Add it to the bridge
        sudo brctl addif $BRIDGE $IF
        # Tell VirtualBox the name of the interface
        echo $IF
        ;;
    down)
        sudo VBoxTunctl -d $IF >/dev/null 2>&1
        ;;
esac

See also

• VirtualBox