My setup of internal network with virtual boxes

My goal today, was to setup 4 virtual boxes that can communicate over an internal virtual network, cloning a previously configurated vbox.

I mostly used the GUI.
The network config is as such:

 Note: the bridged interface (so that those vboxes have internet access) has its "Promiscuous Mode" set to "Allow VMs"

Time to clone

Note: Check the Mac reinitialize


Now boot the clone, you'll notice it waits for network configuration.

log in and set /etc/network/interfaces

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
 address 10.0.0.11
 network 10.0.0.0
 netmask 255.255.255.0 

ifconfig -a will show eth3 eth4 .. not want we want

each time you give a new MAC address (in VBox guest settings) Debian and Ubuntu guests udev assigns a new eth number
edit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules or delete the file: it will be recreated @ next boot

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo rm /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

and reboot.

check interfaces

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:9a:a2:5a  
          inet addr:192.168.1.73  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe9a:a25a/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:241 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:156 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:30767 (30.7 KB)  TX bytes:22818 (22.8 KB)

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:d3:7d:59  
          inet addr:10.0.0.11  Bcast:10.0.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fed3:7d59/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:468 (468.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:1184 (1.1 KB)  TX bytes:1184 (1.1 KB)

check physical network dhcp handled the bridged interface

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ping google.com
PING google.com (173.194.41.66) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from lhr08s01-in-f2.1e100.net (173.194.41.66): icmp_req=1 ttl=51 time=39.1 ms

boot another "clone", proceed as aforementioned and check

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ping 10.0.0.11
PING 10.0.0.11 (10.0.0.11) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 10.0.0.11: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=0.049 ms 

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html