How to get VirtualBox machine to show up as an “attached device” on home router?

Question

I have Windows Server 2008 R2 running on a VirtualBox vm inside Mac OS X. I put it in "bridged mode" in hopes that it would receive an IP address through DHCP and become visible as an "attached device" to which I could forward HTTP traffic on port 80.

Indeed it has received a valid 192.168.x.x address and has the router's IP as a default gateway. But it does not show up at an "attached device" as do all other devices getting IP addresses from the router.

Am I doing something wrong here, or is this to be expected? Am I on the right track?

Thanks.

EDIT:

The router is a NetGear N150 Wireless Router, and I'm accessing it through the browser-based NetGear Smart Wizard.

Answer 1

The phrasing of "attached devices" and the description in the manual makes me think this list is a list of devices discovered with UPnP.

If UPnP is enabled on the router (it appears to be by default in the manual) try enabling UPnP in the Windows Server 2008 R2 VM. Go Start --> Run --> services.msc. Set the services SSDP Discovery and UPnP Device Host to Automatic start, and start each service (note that UPnP won't start without SSDP already running). You may need to specify a firewall exception for these services. SSDP uses port 1900, and I believe the Device Host uses the same.

SSDP Discovery should allow the VM to be discovered. UPnP Device Host allows more functionality. UPnP and SSDP are disabled by default on Windows Server due to the potential security issues with a system automatically searching for and communicating with arbitrary devices on a network.