Hi folks,

I'm just new to Linux and I need some help.

I setup a small network at home that comprise of:

1. Desktop
OS = Windows XP
IP = 192.168.1.101
Using Virtualbox, I installed RHEL 5 as guest OS.
Virtualbox host-only Network: IP=192.168.56.1

2. Laptop
OS = Windows XP
IP = 192.168.1.102
Using Virtualbox, I also installed RHEL 5 as guest OS.
Virtualbox host-only Network: IP=192.168.56.1

The router's address is 192.168.1.254 and is connected to the internet.

With those settings, everything is working fine. The RHEL5-Desktop can connect to the internet, and to 192.168.1.101(Desktop XP) and 192.168.1.102(Laptop XP) through smbclient. The RHEL5-Laptop can also do the same. Both RHEL5-Desktop and RHEL5-Laptop are using DHCP.

The problem is I want to connect RHEL5-Desktop to RHEL5-Laptop through ssh. I tried assigning static IP to either RHEL5-Desktop or RHEL5-Laptop with the router's address as default gateway and the connection became pretty messed-up. I tried other things like leaving the default gateway blank or changing the Virtualbox host-only to 192.168.56.2 but still no luck.

I hope somebody can give me a detailed instruction on how to do this correctly. I'd really appreciate it.

you cant have 2 machines on the same network with the same ip address... change one of your virtual machines and it should work fine...