VirtualBox port forwarding not working with NAT ad

Question

I'm trying simple port forwarding with VirtualBox and it appears VirtualBox.exe is listening on the host to the port, but not actually forwarding the connection to the guest. I've tried on multiple ports, and I've restarted VirtualBox several times. Guest to host connectivity, on the other hand, is fine. Here's the info:

Host: Win7 x64
Guest: Win7 x64
VirtualBox version: VirtualBox 4.2.10
Firewalls: All firewalls on host and guest disabled.

Virtual Box > Machine Settings > Network
 Adapter 1: 
  Attached to: NAT
  Cable Connected : True
  Port Forwarding:
   Rule 1: TCP, HostIP=127.0.0.1, HostPort=8081, GuestIP=127.0.0.1, GuestPort=8081

On Host:
[VirtualBox.exe]  TCP    127.0.0.1:8081         IBM-6KT5OPCF76P:0      LISTENING

On Guest:
I never get the connection request on port 8081 or any others I've tried.

Any ideas? I'd like to avoid using VirtualBox's bridged adapter for multiple reasons. I was under the impression that NAT port forwarding was relatively straightforward with VirtualBox.

Thanks!

Answer 1

It is not clear which guest OS you are using.

I have faced the same problem.

My host was MAC PC and guest was CentOS 7 on VirtualBox.
I enabled the NAT port forwarding from guest to host at VirtualBox level for both ssh port 22 and http port 80.

However I found that I could not connect to the Apache HTTP server on Centos 7 guest from my MAC PC host on http connection.

To fix it, I have to set the firewalld service to allow port 80 connections.

Answer 2

I faced a similar issue and it turns out to be unsigned drivers in the network stack installed by some corporate proxy interception software called proxycap that were causing virtualbox to error when setting up port forwarding. Check you VM machine logs for the error message while setting up port forwarding and listing the unsigned drivers and uninstall the corresponding application.

Answer 3

Paravirtualized Network* (virtio-net) is the key

1. select your vm that you want for port forwarding.

   • NOTE: Make sure the vm is in stop mode.

2. Select “Settings"

3. Select “Network"
4. Select any free Adapter. Lets say "Adapter 2"
5. Enable "Enable Network Adapter"
6. In Attached to dropdown, select "NAT"
7. Select "Advanced"
8. In Adapter Type: Select “Paravirtualized Network (virtio-net)” [ This is important ]
9. Select “Port Forwarding"
10. In Right hand part of the “port forwarding” dialog box, select “+"

11. Provide the

    • Name: Anything you want. example for ssh, say “ssh"
    • Protocol: Type of protocol [ for ssh: TCP ]
    • Host IP: provide hostname from which host you want to connect to [ over here: 127.0.0.1 ]
    • Host Port: On what port of that Host you want to connect to remote port [ example: 60022 ]
    • Guest IP: Leave it Blank
    • Guest Port: To what port you want to connect from the above host. [ for ssh, the default 22 ]

Answer 4

You've pointed guest ip in wrong manner it should be ip of guest (if you're statically assign ip address to guest) or leave it empty. Note you're pointed host ip as 127.0.0.1 it means that port you're forwarding will be accessible only from port (if it isn't what you're desired it should be empty as well).

VBoxManage modifyvm "win" --natpf1 ",tcp,,8081,,8081"

perhaps this is something you've wanted to do. (please look here for more details)

Answer 5

Faced similar issue on Mac host, Fedora guest setup. Was trying to access http web server running on port 8000 of guest machine from host machine. Opening port 8000/tcp with firewall-cmd on guest machine solved problem.

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8000/tcp