Read somewhere about using “macvtap” device for bridged network…
Getting strange inconsistent behaviour…
I have a RHEL9 VM in KVM and it’s getting a DHCP lease from my router…
I can SSH to my NAS on same VLAN from the RHEL9 VM, I can SSH to a ThinkPad running Ubuntu 24.04. I can’t SSH to my desktop machine hosting KVM on its LAN IP address…
Neither can I SSH to the RHEL9 VM from the machine hosting it… But can get to it from anywhere else…
Bizarre… Same deal with ping…
I can always do that.
There must be something strange about RHEL or your host?
And you have bridged network? So your VM’s are exposed to the LAN?
I’m just evaluating Qemu/KVM and virt-manager as well, and I’m also stuck on bridged network to the VM. I need it because otherwise the VM cannot find and use the printer advertised on DNS/SD over the LAN.
Other than that Qemu is ready to replace Virtualbox. 
Edit: thinking a bit more, there are samba shares too which would be nice to be accessible to the VM.
No I have the default NAT option.
When I start the VM and do ip addr it displays the IP of the VM’s emulated ethernet interface. From the host I can ping that IP or ssh to it. Similarly for the other computer on my LAN … it can see my VM.
I do not use external access.
The only thing that would stop that would be if sshd were not running in the VM, or of ssh on the host were configured not to use all interfaces.
VM should be able to see anything connected to the LAN, including your router and ethernet printers. My printers are configured with static IP’s… that may help.
Not in my house!!! I have tried both and VirtualBox wins everytime!!!
No - I should have mentioned - I get the exact same symptom in a Ubuntu VM… It’s not a Red Hat thing… it’s a “macvtap” thing 
For the time being - I reckon I’ll go back to NAT - but - will investigate setting up a proper bridge… I can do that - but I’m worried about breaking the networking for my main desktop…
I might hook up a USB 3 gigabit dongle and try and set that up as a bridge…
I’ve got virt-manager setup and configured on my ThinkPad too… the main “NIC” on that is WiFi - i.e. I mostly use it as a laptop - “untethered” by wires or cables…
I tried to export / migrate / convert a VBox Windows XP to qemu - it just constantly bluescreens - and - eats my cursor - so I have to go to another machine and kill virt-manager… (I could have just ctrl+alt [left] - I’ve now configured it to ctrl+al [right] so I don’t have to take my left hand off the mouse - which I now know).
Did the same with a UTM (Mac M1 version of UTM that’s a nice front end to QEMU) qcow2 file - and it worked - kinda… But seems to have hung (without bluescreening). It’s asking for a VGA driver - WTF? And even driver for NIC I think (VirtIO Balloon)…
You like Vbox because its GUI is Windows-like.
I certainly miss how easy it is to setup bridged networking in VBox! It’s basically a “no brainer” (but still manages to stump Kali numpties)…
I’ve tried several things already - plugged in a USB 3 gigabit dongle - use nm-connection-editor to create a bridge… still not working… might try the TTY version of that (nmtui I think) next…
and if that doesn’t work - I’ll try again using all nmcli commands…
and that didn’t work either - VM on the bridge is not getting a DHCP lease - and when I set it to manual static IP - can’t ping anything else…
Reckon I’ll go back to NAT for the time being… NFS and internet works over NAT… about to find out if ResilioSync client works via NAT…
I must admit I have not tried bridged network in virt-manager
but
I thought all that would be needed was to switch the menu item from NAT to Bridge? … but no, I read that one needs to configure a bridge in the host? Never done that.
I think their terminology confuses… Is not the NAT option technically a bridge too?.. with NAT on top of it.
I am curious. Will have a try at a bridge.
No - an ethernet bridge “bridges” the same ethernet VLAN across devices… NAT is always a separate VLAN / IP network… So NAT is more of a portal than a bridge
UPDATE :
I configured “ProxyJump” in my ~/.ssh/config (it’s actually an “include” argument in my ~/.ssh/config)
ProxyJump setting is the IP address of the machine hosting KVM / virsh et cetera - i.e. my AMD desktop running Ubuntu 24.04…
It works - there’s a fair bit of a lag (noticeable - I’ve used ProxyJump before and it was almost transparent and instantaneous) - but it works…
e.g. from my Pi4 running Raspbian - I can ssh to the RHEL 9 VM hosted on my desktop machine’s KVM / virsh… There’s about 25-35 seconds delay - that’s noticeable :
╭─x@frambo ~/.ssh
╰─➤ ssh flangipanny
Activate the web console with: systemctl enable --now cockpit.socket
Register this system with Red Hat Insights: rhc connect
Example:
# rhc connect --activation-key <key> --organization <org>
The rhc client and Red Hat Insights will enable analytics and additional
management capabilities on your system.
View your connected systems at https://console.redhat.com/insights
You can learn more about how to register your system
using rhc at https://red.ht/registration
Last login: Tue Aug 19 11:03:03 2025 from 192.168.122.1
So using virt-manager with a bridge involves putting a VM (or 2) on the same LAN as the host
but
using virt-manager with NAT involves it setting up its own LAN of VM’s
Thanks. I was confused on that.
Well, in the future even you may consider a change.
Might be worth the license fee!!!
They’re following the Broadcom “enshittification” rule book - but then Oracle have been buying great products and turning them into shit for decades… they actually got VirtualBox when they bought Sun Microsystems…
I think my issue with bridged networking - is - I need to have just one NIC and default interface on my host O/S… delete my ethernet connection and use the bridge from my desktop machine?
Dunno why it needs to be so… VirtualBox can do it - why can’t I use any of the NICs on my desktop machine…
Not sure if I want to tamper with my desktop’s ethernet settings…
Can’t really afford to - as my desktop is my Synergy server for my two Macs… So it’s back to NAT… It’s gotta be possible, surely, to have two NICS one dedicated as a bridge for KVM guests!
That’s something Virtualbox does better for sure.
Anyway, the thing is opensource, so the network part possibly could be borrowed?
I’m going to do some messing around with it next week - but right now can’t risk dropping out my desktop’s ethernet when I need it for work - and - to drive the keyboard and mouse on my work Mac computers…
Which really means job for “weekend after next”…
I still can’t believe how difficult it is to dedicate a separate NIC to doing “pass through” bridge networking using Linux native shit…
I’m almost 100% sure the few KVM servers I’ve managed in the past had separate NICs - i.e. one for remote access / management, a seperate one, or several for hosting VMs… That latter - maybe all that “bridged” stuff is taken care of by network switches? I don’t have that luxury…
I have been trying
When I use default NAT I get virbr0 in the host
If I define another network in addition to the default, and if I make that a ‘routed’ network, I get virbr1 in the host
It tells me that virbr1 IS a bridge
So I assume I dont have to create a bridge, what I have to do is plug one of my host ethernet devices ( I have 2) into the virbr1 bridge… like this
sudo ip link set enp17s0 master virbr1
I tried that, plugged in enp17s0 which is my local static net, and it disabled the local net… could not ping anything on the local net… I could ping the VM so the virtual network is working.
So did I plug it in wrong?.. or do I maybe have to give the bridge an IP on the local net?
I am lost.
I get the same… I expected my guest to get an IP address via DHCP from my router (the way bridged adaptor works in VirtualBox) - but no… So I manually configure IP address… Still can’t reach anything on my LAN… But with NAT - my guests can reach stuff on my LAN (via two hops)… So sticking with NAT for the time being…
So you used the virbr1 bridge that virt-manager creates?
Everything I read talks about creating a bridge … why do that? … you already have a bridge virbr1
Did I do the right thing creating a ‘routed’ network?
Have a look at this
Ignore the crap about creating a bridge.
What do you think of the rest of it?
It says that after linking the NIC to the bridge, we need to flush the IP of the NIC, give it a new IP, and add a route.
Should I try that?
BTW… I have both virbr0 (which is NAT) and virbr1 ( which is routed) and virt-manager calls both of them bridges. That is different to your definition of a bridge? I think virt-manager has a loose terminology?.. for example
" In summary: The “default network with NAT” in virt-manager uses a bridge to manage the virtual machines’ connectivity, but it’s the NAT functionality that provides the outbound internet access and hides the VMs from the local network, not a direct bridge to your physical network. "
That gives ‘bridge’ 2 meanings in the one sentence. I says the default network uses a bridge that does not bridge to anything?