Greetings Laine,
I would start troubleshooting by making sure that the dhcp server is running, and that you can communicate between the machine with DHCP server and the guest once a manual IP is assigned. Then use tcpdump or wireshark at different places on the path between those two to see how far the DHCP request is getting out, whether a response is being sent by the server, and if so how far the response is getting back (i.e. on the host, run tcpdump on the guest's tap device; if you see the DHCP request there, then run tcpdump on the bridge, if you see it there, run it on the tap device for the guest, if you see it there, then run tcpdump inside the guest; then check the dhcp server logs to see if it's receiving requests. While you're doing all of this, you can also be noticing whether or not a DHCP response is arriving at each step (and if you see the response, you can skip looking further ahead in the packet path, since you know by inference that it made it all the way to the DHCP server). Once you find the point that the packet is blocked, you'll be better able to determine why.
alright, I'll try that, thanks.
I've ran tcpdump on the vm's tap device, here is what I see: 01:42:15.404754 IP 0.0.0.0.bootpc > 255.255.255.255.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from 52:54:00:5a:4c:8c (oui Unknown), length 548 01:42:15.405075 IP Broadcom.Home.bootps > 10.0.0.40.bootpc: BOOTP/DHCP, Reply, length 300 01:42:15.735893 STP 802.1d, Config, Flags [none], bridge-id 8000.52:54:00:6b:1b:92.8003, length 35 01:42:17.718941 STP 802.1d, Config, Flags [none], bridge-id 8000.52:54:00:6b:1b:92.8003, length 35 01:42:17.846918 IP6 fe80::fc54:ff:fe5a:4c8c > ff02::2: ICMP6, router solicitation, length 16 01:42:19.702944 STP 802.1d, Config, Flags [none], bridge-id 8000.52:54:00:6b:1b:92.8003, length 35 01:42:20.450441 ARP, Request who-has 10.0.0.40 tell Broadcom.Home, length 28 I think that issue is this: 01:42:20.450441 ARP, Request who-has 10.0.0.40 tell Broadcom.Home, length 28 I'm not sure if this is expected but looks like my dhcp server ignores it. any thoughts on the matter? Dagg.