Problem setting up DHCP with Virtual Box

[Daniel Carrera <dcarrera%gmail.com@localhost>]

Hello,

I have a situation here that looks like either a documentation bug or a 
software bug. I am running NetBSD 5.1 on VirtualBox. Due to a known 
issue with VirtualBox, I have to run VB with the command:


VBoxSDL --norawr0 --startvm NetBSD


The problem I'm having is with networking and DHCP. This is what I did:

1) I can confirm that the ethernet card is detected but has no IP:

# ifconfig -a
pcn0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLE,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
        address: 08:00:27:7a:5b:67
        media: Ethernet autoselect (autoselect)

2) I have configured DHCP:

# grep dhclient /etc/rc.conf
dhclient=YES


But when I try to start dhcp nothing happens... literally nothing. The 
command just returns without any comment. Like this:

# sh /etc/rc.d/dhclient start
#


No output, no delay, no error message, no DHCPDISCOVER... nothing. The 
instruction to run the above command comes from here:

http://www.netbsd.org/docs/network/dhcp.html#configure-dhcp


After a few reboots and about half an hour of Googling and poking around 
at VirtualBox and NetBSD I took a look at the dhclient script:


----------------------%<----------------------
# grep -v ^# /etc/rc.d/dhclient

$_rc_subr_loaded . /etc/rc.subr

name="dhclient"
rcvar=$name
command="/sbin/${name}"
pidfile="/var/run/${name}.pid"

load_rc_config $name
run_rc_command "$1"
----------------------%<----------------------


Ok, I see that at some point it is supposed to run /sbin/dhclient so I 
thought I'd run that directly:


----------------------%<----------------------
# /sbin/dhclient
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.3
copyright 2004-2005 Internet Systems Consortiium
...
Aug 6  00:42:53  dhclient: Corrupt lease file - possible data loss!
Corrupt lease file - possible data loss!
Listening on BPF/pcn0/...
Sending on   PBF/pcn0/...
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on pcn0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
DHCPOFFER from 10.0.2.2
DHCPREQUEST on pcn0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 10.0.2.2

bound to 10.0.2.15 -- renewal in 42424 seconds.
----------------------%<----------------------

I can confirm that after this, internet works fine (aka I can ping 
Google). I don't know if the "corrupt lease file" is a big deal (it 
sounds bad) but other than that, it looks great.

So, going back to /etc/rc.d/dhclient, it looks like something must have 
happened in the "$_rc_subr_loaded" line (I don't really know what it 
does) that made the script fail before it got anywhere.

Cheers,
Daniel.
--
I'm not overweight, I'm undertall.