Virtualbox "port forward" from Guest to Host

Question

Here is my setup:

- Host: Windows XP
- Guest: Ubuntu 10.04
- Networking: NAT

I am setting an Apache web server on the Guest, but I want to be able to do this on the Windows machine:

- go to the browser, type http://localhost:8000

Also, I tried to change my networking to bridge and I got a new IP. But when I tried to do http://:8000, it says that it could not connect.

Answer 1

Network communication Host -> Guest

Connect to the Guest and find out the ip address:

ifconfig 

example of result (ip address is 10.0.2.15):

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:AE:36:99
          inet addr:10.0.2.15  Bcast:10.0.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

Go to Vbox instance window -> Menu -> Network adapters:

• adapter should be NAT
• click on "port forwarding"
• insert new record (+ icon)
  • for host ip enter 127.0.0.1, and for guest ip address you got from prev. step (in my case it is 10.0.2.15)
  • in your case port is 8000 - put it on both, but you can change host port if you prefer

Go to host system and try it in browser:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

or your network ip address (find out on the host machine by running: ipconfig).

Network communication Guest -> Host

In this case port forwarding is not needed, the communication goes over the LAN back to the host.

On the host machine - find out your netw ip address:

ipconfig

example of result:

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.5.1

On the guest machine you can communicate directly with the host, e.g. check it with ping:

# ping 192.168.5.1
PING 192.168.5.1 (192.168.5.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.5.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=2.30 ms
...

Firewall issues?

@Stranger suggested that in some cases it would be necessary to open used port (8000 or whichever is used) in firewall like this (example for ufw firewall, I haven't tested):

sudo ufw allow 8000