I am running a Debian server as a VM in VirtualBox, which itself is running on a (real) Windows 7 computer.
For test purposes, I need to be able to access a web application running on the Debian VM via a web browser which is running on the actual host Windows computer (but the website should not be accessible from anywhere else on the internet). The VM itself does also need to have a functioning connection to the internet so that it can download software updates, etc.
Using a browser running on the VM OS, it is possible to access the website using the (dummy) hostname (FQDN) of the VM (with the default single virtual network interface set up and automatically configured for NAT), and I can access the internet in general, but trying to access the website via the (small) VM window is rather inconvenient and not very desirable.
From the VirtualBox networking documentation it looks as though I perhaps may need to set up an (additional?) bridged virtual network interface in order to make the webserver on the VM available to the real host computer, but I am afraid I am not finding the instructions clear.
I have tried to create a new virtual interface via the VirtualBox Network Settings, and have set it as "Bridged Adapter", but this only seems to have set up an IPv6 address automagically somehow (and has not created an IPv4 address setup?). If it is relevant, our site does not yet support IPv6, and so the website on the VM probably needs to be accessible to the real host OS via IPv4?
Although I can access the site home page on the host OS via the IPv6 IP address, as soon as I try to add an URI path in the address bar, this reverts to the (fake) hostname of the virtual computer, and so I can't access the rest of the site.
Am I proceeding in the right direction, or is using NAT with port forwarding (also listed on the network page), perhaps also an option?
I'm afraid I'm not finding the VirtualBox documentation much help at all, and any clarification of what I need to do would be much appreciated.