How to SSH to a VirtualBox guest externally throug

Question

I have a Ubuntu VM running on my Windows 7 machine. How do I set it up so that I can access the webserver externally through SSH?

I found steps (Setup SSH access between VirtualBox Host and Guest VMs) to be able to ssh to my guest from my host, but that still leaves me with the problem of accessing it through my router.

I suppose that I could install an SSH server on my Windows machine and then tunnel a few times (though I'm not 100% sure what to use in terms of local, dynamic, etc. or how to set up multiple tunnels?), but is there a way to make the VM directly accessible to my router so I could directly port forward to it?

Answer 1

Keeping the NAT adapter and adding a second host-only adapter works amazing, and is crucial for laptops (where the external network always changes).

http://muffinresearch.co.uk/archives/2010/02/08/howto-ssh-into-virtualbox-3-linux-guests/

Remember to create a host-only network in virtualbox itself (GUI -> settings -> network), otherwise you can't create the host-only interface on the guest.

Answer 2

Follow below steps to login to your ubuntu VM running in virtual box from the host machine using putty (Without port forwarding):

1. On Virtualbox manager select the vm, click on settings icon. Then go Networks and enable two adaptors as below:

   • Adaptor 1 (For internet access): Attached to -> NAT, Advanced -> Check the cable connected.
   • Adaptor 2: Attached to -> Host only adaptor, Advanced -> Check the cable connected and Promiscuous mode -> Allow all.

2. Start the ubuntu vm.

3. Login to the VM as root.

4. Edit the file '/etc/network/interfaces' as below and save it:

   auto lo
   iface lo inet loopback
   
   auto eth0
   iface eth0 inet dhcp
   
   auto eth1
   iface eth1 inet dhcp
   

5. Restart the VM.

6. Login to the VM and run below command to check the IP allocated to eth1:

   ifconfig
   

7. Use this IP to open putty session for the VM.

Answer 3

A good explanation about how to configure port forwarding with NAT is found in the VirtualBox documents: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html#natforward

Answer 4

Use NAT network adapter and Add port forward. Mention actual host ip.Do not use 127.0.0.1 or localhost.

Answer 5

On secure networks setting your network to bridge might not work. Administrators could only allow one mac address per port or even worse block the port should the switches detect multiple macs on one port.

The best solution in my opinion is to set up additional network interfaces to handle additional services you would like to run on your machines. So I have a bridge interface to allow for bridging when I take my laptop home and can SSH into it from other devices on my network as well as a host only adapter when I would like to SSH into my VM from my laptop when I am connected to the eduroam wifi network on campus.

Answer 6

The best way to login to a guest Linux VirtualBox VM is port forwarding. By default, you should have one interface already which is using NAT. Then go to the Network settings and click the Port Forwarding button. Add a new Rule. As the rule name, insert "ssh". As "Host port", insert 3022. As "Guest port", insert 22. Everything else of the rule can be left blank.

or from the command line

VBoxManage modifyvm myserver --natpf1 "ssh,tcp,,3022,,22"

where 'myserver' is the name of the created VM. Check the added rules:

VBoxManage showvminfo myserver | grep 'Rule'

That's all! Please be sure you don't forget to install an SSH server in the VM:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

To SSH into the guest VM, write:

ssh -p 3022 user@127.0.0.1

Where user is your username within the VM.