The "dhcpserver" commands allow you to control the DHCP server that is built into VirtualBox. You may find this useful when using internal or host-only networking. (Theoretically, you can enable it for a bridged network as well, but that will likely cause conflicts with other DHCP servers in your physical network.)
Use the following command line options:
If you use internal networking for a virtual network adapter
of a virtual machine, use VBoxManage dhcpserver add
--netname <network_name>, where
<network_name> is the same
network name you used with VBoxManage modifyvm
<vmname> --intnet<X>
<network_name>.
If you use host-only networking for a virtual network adapter
of a virtual machine, use VBoxManage dhcpserver add
--ifname <hostonly_if_name> instead, where
<hostonly_if_name> is the
same host-only interface name you used with
VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname>
--hostonlyadapter<X>
<hostonly_if_name>.
Alternatively, you can also use the --netname option as with
internal networks if you know the host-only network's name; you can
see the names with VBoxManage list
hostonlyifs (see Section 8.3, “VBoxManage list”
above).
The following additional parameters are required when first adding a DHCP server:
With --ip, specify the IP
address of the DHCP server itself.
With --netmask, specify the
netmask of the network.
With --lowerip and
--upperip, you can specify the
lowest and highest IP address, respectively, that the DHCP server
will hand out to clients.
Finally, you must specify --enable
or the DHCP server will be created in the disabled state, doing
nothing.
After this, VirtualBox will automatically start the DHCP server for given internal or host-only network as soon as the first virtual machine which uses that network is started.
Reversely, use VBoxManage dhcpserver
remove with the given --netname
<network_name> or --ifname
<hostonly_if_name> to remove the DHCP server again
for the given internal or host-only network.
To modify the settings of a DHCP server created earlier with
VBoxManage dhcpserver add, you can use
VBoxManage dhcpserver modify for a given
network or host-only interface name.