VirtualBox network adapter always active and connected in Windows
I'm using VirtualBox on Windows 10 so I have a virtual network card (a network interface) called VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter enabled and connected.
The thing is, unlike my other interfaces and virtual cards this one never disconnect even when VirtualBox isn't working. For example my NordVPN virtual adapter disconnect when I'm not connected to a VPN, my Wi-Fi adapter disconnect when the Wi-Fi is disabled. The VirtualBox adapter is always active and connected.
Everything works fine, I don't have a particular issue with connectivity or anything. I'd just like to know why does it never unplug and how could I disconnect it when I'm not using VirtualBox?
1 Answer
I have a virtual network card (a network interface) called VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter enabled and connected.
Host Only is connected to the Host machine and not to Internet (like NAT is).
So there is no issue for it to be connected when the VM is running (and so also is the Host).
Here is some useful information on VirtualBox Host Only setups.
There are lots of articles about the Host Only setup missing. So I think what you see is normal.
3With host-only networking, virtual box doesn't try to use a physical network adapter on the host. Instead in VirtualBox you can create one or more (up to 8) virtual adapters for connections between the host and virtual machines created in VirtualBox on the host.
A VirtualBox host-only adapter can also function as a DHCP server to assign ip addresses to VirtualBox virtual machines. The host machine (and other virtual machines if any) can then connect to the virtual machines using these ip addresses using ssh or sftp (provided an ssh server is running on the virtual machine).
This does mean virtual machines using host-only can't access the outside world, but in particular, the host should be able to use ssh to login to a virtual machine (with an ssh server running) and sftp to transfer files between the host and the virtual machine.
