Starting with version 4.2, VirtualBox allows for limiting the maximum bandwidth used for network transmission. Several network adapters of one VM may share limits through bandwidth groups. It is possible to have more than one such limit.
Note
VirtualBox shapes VM traffic only in the transmit direction, delaying the packets being sent by virtual machines. It does not limit the traffic being received by virtual machines.
Limits are configured through
VBoxManage. The example below creates a
bandwidth group named "Limit", sets the limit to 20 Mbit/s and assigns the
group to the first and second adapters of the VM:
VBoxManage bandwidthctl "VM name" add Limit --type network --limit 20m VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --nicbandwidthgroup1 Limit VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --nicbandwidthgroup2 Limit
All adapters in a group share the bandwidth limit, meaning that in the example above the bandwidth of both adapters combined can never exceed 20 Mbit/s. However, if one adapter doesn't require bandwidth the other can use the remaining bandwidth of its group.
The limits for each group can be changed while the VM is running, with changes being picked up immediately. The example below changes the limit for the group created in the example above to 100 Kbit/s:
VBoxManage bandwidthctl "VM name" set Limit --limit 100k
To completely disable shaping for the first adapter of VM use the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --nicbandwidthgroup1 none
It is also possible to disable shaping for all adapters assigned to a bandwidth group while VM is running, by specifying the zero limit for the group. For example, for the bandwidth group named "Limit" use:
VBoxManage bandwidthctl "VM name" set Limit --limit 0