Connect to the host machine from a VirtualBox guest OS?

Question

I'd essentially like to access my host computer from the guest in VirtualBox. Is there an IP address given for my host which I can use from the guest? Are there extra steps required to set this up? I'd like to access my host's Apache, FTP, and SSH services.

Answer 1

In the default setup, you should be able to reach your host through your default gateway, in my case 10.0.2.2. You can easily determine this IP address in Windows via ipconfig. It should dump out something like this:

Windows IP Configuration


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.2.15
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.0.2.2

In Unix/Linux based guests, use the netstat -rn command. It should dump out something like this:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags   MSS Window  irtt Iface
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U         0 0          0 wlan0
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U         0 0          0 wlan0
0.0.0.0         192.168.1.1     0.0.0.0         UG        0 0          0 wlan0

In case one, my default gateway is 10.0.2.2, in the second case, its 192.168.1.1.

Answer 2

Another way to do this is to use a "Host" type of virtual network. That gives you an interface in the guest OS with an address on a local subnet different from the "outer world" subnet(s) that your host machine is on. To make this work, you have to make sure of a few things:

• Your VM has a "host only" adapter configured;
• Your host services need to be listening on all local adapters, or at least the ones you want to be able to contact;
• Your host will get its own virtual adapter, and you'll want to figure out its IP address and add it to the "hosts" file in your guest OS (however that works for the guest OS; on Windows XP, it's just the "hosts" file buried in C:/WINDOWS/system32/drivers/etc). Give it a name you want to use for the host's host name.

Once you've done this, you should be able to "see" the host from the VM via the name you coded into the host file.

For example, on my Ubuntu 11.04 host, I get a "vboxnet0" virtual interface on 192.168.56.1. The adapters in the machines come up with something like 192.168.56.101. I don't need to go in to my VMs, but I presume that'd be possible via a symmetric change to the host's host file. I add

192.168.56.1 mymachine

to the guest OS host files, and they can (for example) see my host machine's web server at

http://mymachine/whatever

You can of course have both bridged and host-only adapters set up.

Answer 3

You can create shared folders in VirtualBox. This will automatically create a 'network share' within Virtual Box to access folders in your Host OS.

Here's a decent step by step in a Windows XP guest OS:

http://www.giannistsakiris.com/index.php/2007/09/28/virtualbox-access-shared-folders-from-windows-xp-guest-os/

Answer 4

Here is another solution to this issue by using an additional network interface and setting traffic destined for the host to route over an additional interface.