VBoxNetAdpCtl outright doesn't work/can't create host-only network

[jchv]

Bug Description

Attempting to create a host-only network gives the following error:

I understand that networking is not the priority here, but it's unclear how one can even create a host-only network. Is it possible? I have been spelunking the Virtualbox source code to no avail trying to figure out how this might work in driverless mode. I would be very grateful if I could get some pointers!

The message about networking in the README doesn't imply that host-only networking can't work, but if it can't right now, maybe it would be good to explicitly add that to the note about networking. :(

How to Reproduce

Try to create a host-only network in the UI.

You can also reproduce it directly via the VboxNetAdpCtl command:

$ VBoxNetAdpCtl add
VBoxNetAdpCtl: Error while adding new interface: failed to open /dev/vboxnetctl: No such file or directory

VM configuration

(Not applicable.)

[tpressure]

Unfortunately, it's not possible right now and we currently don't have funding to work on a good solution for bridged and host-only networking ( see #25 ).

Since this is a question that we get a lot from the community, we just enabled github-sponsors . If we get sufficient momentum, we would be able to provide a nice networking solution that works identical to vanilla VirtualBox.

[jchv]

For what it's worth, I did wind up joining the sponsors since VirtualboxKVM is my preferred way to use VBox, but it seems, unfortunately, that nobody else has followed suit. Here's to hoping some day the networking issue can see some improvements in some way. (Or maybe the KVM backend can even be upstreamed? I certainly wish.)

[tpressure]

@jchv we are very well aware of your sponsorship. Thanks a lot for doing this, it's very much appreciated.

Side note: you can do bridged networking with virtualbox-kvm, but it does not work as easy as with the vboxnetadp kernel module. You have to setup a tun/tap device, and configure the bridge via the command line.