Guest and host cannot see each other using linux-kvm and macvtap

I'm migrating a kvm virtual machine from an old host (both hardware and OS) to a new one.

For networking, virt-manager proposed me a new option: macvtap. This looked a good alternative to setting up a bridge on eth0.

So now the guest boots just fine, gets an IP from my local network DHCP server, can reach the internet. The guest also sees other machines on the local network, I can ssh them, etc.

The problem is that the host and the guest do not see each other. I cannot reach the guest from the host using the guest IP, neither can I reach the host from the guest using the host IP. No ping, ssh, http, nothing.

Here is the route -n command from the host:

$ /sbin/route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
0.0.0.0         192.168.0.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0
192.168.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     1      0        0 eth0

(same output from the guest).

I could probably set up a new tun/tap interface dedicated to communication between host and guest but it looks a little bit overkill. Is there a way to make host and guest communicate?

Solution 1:

I asked this question on IRC and it appears that macvtap

injects guest traffic into the network stack too low for that

The solution is then to add a network interface for the guest and the host to communicate, or stay with the old bridged solution...

Solution 2:

virt-manager says explictly that macvtap does not work for host to guest network communications when you set it up. I simply added a second nat based interface, set it up in the guest, and use that to communicate with my host.