misc/187700: FreeBSD Guest in Virtual Box NAT environment - PCnet-FAST III(Am79C973) and Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM) cards - not receiving IP address

[Sastry Tumuluri]

>Number:         187700
>Category:       misc
>Synopsis:       FreeBSD Guest in Virtual Box NAT environment - PCnet-FAST III(Am79C973) and Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM) cards - not receiving IP address
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Mar 18 16:30:00 UTC 2014
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Sastry Tumuluri
>Release:        10.0-RELEASE (amd64), 9.2-RELEASE (amd64)
>Organization:
Government of Haryana
>Environment:
FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE #0 r260789: Thu Jan 16 22:34:59 UTC 2014 root at snap.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64
>Description:
I'm trying to use FreeBSD 10.0-RELEASE (amd64) on VirtualBox (3.2.x and 3.3.8) with the network setting (on VirtualBox) in NAT mode.

When I choose either of these adapters in VirtualBox Settings->network->NAT->Advanced:
-- PCnet-FAST III(Am79C973) 
-- Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM)
Upon boot, there is no IP address and the VM can't reach out to the internet. 

I tried assigning the IP address manually, but still can't reach out (ping can't reach the VirtualBox-internal default gateway: 10.0.2.2)

Boot time messages show 6x DHCPDISCOVER but no DHCPOFFER response.
Manually invoking dhclient shows the same symptom (6x DHCPDISCOVER, no DHCPOFFER).

The following adapters seem to work (obtain the IP address 10.0.2.15 from VirtualBox and get out to the Internet) just fine:
-- Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM) -- default
-- Intel PRO/1000 T Server (82543GC)
-- PCnet-PCI II(Am79C970A)

All the five adapters work fine on other guest OSes (e.g., xubuntu Linux).

Other info: 
1. All this, on Acer Travelmate 8372 running Xubuntu 13.10 (all updates and patches are current) as Host OS. I haven't tried this on any other system (will do if someone feels it may be relevant).

2. The problem exists in 9.2-RELEASE (amd64) as well.


>How-To-Repeat:

>Fix:


>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: