Qemu Networking: NAT

Configuring Network Address Translation (NAT) is a useful way to network virtual machines in a desktop environment (particularly, when using wireless networking). A NAT network will allow your guests to fully access the network, allow networking between your host and guests, but prevent the guests from being directly visible on the physical network.

Overview

To configure a NAT network, first create an /etc/qemu-ifup script that creates a bridge without any physical ports. Configure that bridge with a static IP address as the gateway for your virtual network. Using iptables, create rules that will masquerade traffic from that bridge to the host network. Finally, run dnsmasq on that bridge interface to act as a DHCP and DNS server for the virtual network.

See the script below for an example of such a script.

Using

First, install the bridge utilities, iptables, and dnsmasq:

On Fedora:

yum install bridge-utils iptables dnsmasq 

Copy the qemu-ifup script from this wiki, save it to /etc/qemu-ifup, and make sure that the file has execute permission/

chmod 755 /etc/qemu-ifup 

Now launch qemu with tap networking configuring your guests to use DHCP. They should get a valid IP address and be able to access the network.

qemu -net tap -net nic linux.img 

Troubleshooting

• I get an error about /dev/net/tun permissions

Currently, you need to run qemu as root to use tun/tap networking

Script

#!/bin/sh
#
# Copyright IBM, Corp. 2010  
#
# Authors:
#  Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
#
# This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, version 2.  See
# the COPYING file in the top-level directory.

# Set to the name of your bridge
BRIDGE=br0

# Network information
NETWORK=192.168.53.0
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=192.168.53.1
DHCPRANGE=192.168.53.2,192.168.53.254

# Optionally parameters to enable PXE support
TFTPROOT=
BOOTP=

do_brctl() {
    brctl "$@"
}

do_ifconfig() {
    ifconfig "$@"
}

do_dd() {
    dd "$@"
}

do_iptables_restore() {
    iptables-restore "$@"
}

do_dnsmasq() {
    dnsmasq "$@"
}

check_bridge() {
    if do_brctl show | grep "^$1" > /dev/null 2> /dev/null; then
	return 1
    else
	return 0
    fi
}

create_bridge() {
    do_brctl addbr "$1"
    do_brctl stp "$1" off
    do_brctl setfd "$1" 0
    do_ifconfig "$1" "$GATEWAY" netmask "$NETMASK" up
}

enable_ip_forward() {
    echo 1 | do_dd of=/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward > /dev/null
}

add_filter_rules() {
do_iptables_restore <<EOF
# Generated by iptables-save v1.3.6 on Fri Aug 24 15:20:25 2007
*nat
:PREROUTING ACCEPT [61:9671]
:POSTROUTING ACCEPT [121:7499]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [132:8691]
-A POSTROUTING -s $NETWORK/$NETMASK -j MASQUERADE 
COMMIT
# Completed on Fri Aug 24 15:20:25 2007
# Generated by iptables-save v1.3.6 on Fri Aug 24 15:20:25 2007
*filter
:INPUT ACCEPT [1453:976046]
:FORWARD ACCEPT [0:0]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [1605:194911]
-A INPUT -i $BRIDGE -p tcp -m tcp --dport 67 -j ACCEPT 
-A INPUT -i $BRIDGE -p udp -m udp --dport 67 -j ACCEPT 
-A INPUT -i $BRIDGE -p tcp -m tcp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT 
-A INPUT -i $BRIDGE -p udp -m udp --dport 53 -j ACCEPT 
-A FORWARD -i $1 -o $1 -j ACCEPT 
-A FORWARD -s $NETWORK/$NETMASK -i $BRIDGE -j ACCEPT 
-A FORWARD -d $NETWORK/$NETMASK -o $BRIDGE -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT 
-A FORWARD -o $BRIDGE -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-port-unreachable 
-A FORWARD -i $BRIDGE -j REJECT --reject-with icmp-port-unreachable 
COMMIT
# Completed on Fri Aug 24 15:20:25 2007
EOF
}

start_dnsmasq() {
    do_dnsmasq \
	--strict-order \
	--except-interface=lo \
	--interface=$BRIDGE \
	--listen-address=$GATEWAY \
	--bind-interfaces \
	--dhcp-range=$DHCPRANGE \
	--conf-file="" \
	--pid-file=/var/run/qemu-dnsmasq-$BRIDGE.pid \
	--dhcp-leasefile=/var/run/qemu-dnsmasq-$BRIDGE.leases \
	--dhcp-no-override \
	${TFTPROOT:+"--enable-tftp"} \
	${TFTPROOT:+"--tftp-root=$TFTPROOT"} \
	${BOOTP:+"--dhcp-boot=$BOOTP"}
}

setup_bridge_nat() {
    if check_bridge "$1" ; then
	create_bridge "$1"
	enable_ip_forward
	add_filter_rules "$1"
	start_dnsmasq "$1"
    fi
}

setup_bridge_vlan() {
    if check_bridge "$1" ; then
	create_bridge "$1"
	start_dnsmasq "$1"
    fi
}

setup_bridge_nat "$BRIDGE"

if test "$1" ; then
    do_ifconfig "$1" 0.0.0.0 up
    do_brctl addif "$BRIDGE" "$1"
fi