Working on some networking basics in Virtual Box.

Server VM is Debian Wheezy with 2 nics. First is NAT to the outside acting as WAN for dhcp server. 2nd is set to an internal virtual network. I have the dhcp server working and it is assigning ip addresses.

Client VM is also Debian Wheezy. Single nic pointed at the internal virtual network. It is getting an ip from the dhcp server and negotiating.

The DHCP server is working. I do have network access between the server and the client. I do not have internet access on the client though. That is where I am lost. Some reading has led me to needing a proxy, I am trying to fiddle with squid but it's above my head so far. Is there an easier way?

Hi,
I'm not sure why are thinking of squid a the solution here. Unless you have not enclosed critical information for this issue, a proxy of any sort - is not what you're missing.

As for VirtualBox(VB) and DHCP - the host (where you have installed VB software), should run a DHCP server by default which is provided with VB, AFAIK, and, any guest you install, as long as its NIC is set to "NAT", should obtain an address from the host, and get a WWW access.
I understand you have installed your own DHCP server on the host, which may not be needed at all.
Can you try shutting down your DHCP server, removing the NIC from the guest (the VM), attaching a new NIC to it, choosing "NAT", and see what happens then ?
First and foremost, does the guest obtain an IP address ?

No. No dhcp on the host. I'm working with an entirely internal virtualized network. The server is a virtual machine. It's network adapter 1 is the wan, Nat mode currently coming in. I have been updating, installing software and such on the server vm. It has internet. The 2nd network adapter is the lan port to a virtual internal network. The only other thing on that virtual internal network is the client. The virtual machine client gets an address and negotiates with the server. It can ping the server and shows an IP in the range I have specified as available for dhcp on the server. The client has internet when set to nat mode but nat isn't being dhcp served from my server vm thereby being pointless.

It's definitley something between the wan and the lan but I don't know where to look. Someone on another forum suggested ip forwarding and iptables but I'm having zero success with either so far.

From the "router" machine (the one with two NIC)Paste the output of
iptables -L -n
and
ifconfig

from the client machine paste the output of
ifconfig

I have to admit I have only skim read this (not in full) --If you are simply trying to get Virtual Box guests to talk to each other then use VboxManage.exe (Windows) and there is a command which allows you to set up a VBOX DHCP service with a user specified DHCP Scope. Once a DHCP Server is set up with a name such as 'vboxdhcp' you can then set the guest network adapter (or at least just one of them) to use internal networking selecting 'vboxdhcp'. (Some configuration in the guest may be necessary if guest is assigned more than one NIC)

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch0...age-dhcpserver

Though I may have misunderstood the request..............