How to SSH to a VirtualBox guest externally through a host

Question

I have a Ubuntu VM running on my Windows 7 machine  How do I set it up so that I can access the webserver externally through SSH   I found steps  Setup SSH access between VirtualBox Host and Guest VMs  to be able to ssh to my guest from my host  but that still leaves me with the problem of accessing it through my router   I suppose that I could install an SSH server on my Windows machine and then tunnel a few times  though I m not 100  sure what to use in terms of local  dynamic  etc  or how to set up multiple tunnels    but is there a way to make the VM directly accessible to my router so I could directly port forward to it

User · Answer

A good explanation about how to configure port forwarding with NAT is found in the VirtualBox documents  http   www virtualbox org manual ch06 html natforward

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Simply setting the Network Setting to bridged did the trick for me   Your IP will change when you do this  However  in my case it didn t change immediately  ifconfig returned the same ip  I rebooted the vm and boom  the ip set itself to one start with 192   and I was immediately allowed ssh access

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SSH Back to Your Home   Office VirtualBox Guest Machine From The INTERNET  The answers provided by other users here   How to SSH to a VirtualBox guest externally through a host       helped me to accomplish the task of connecting from out on the internet to my home computer s guest machine  You should be able to connect using computers  tablets  and smart phones  android  IPhone etc   I add a few more step in case it might be helpful to someone else   Here is a quick diagram of my setup    Remote device --- gt  INTERNET -- gt  MODEM -- gt  ROUTER -- gt  HOST MACHINE -- gt  GUEST VM Remote device  ssh client  --- gt  PASS THRU DEVICES --- gt  GUEST VM  ssh server  Remote device  leave ssh port 3022  --- gt  INTERNET -- gt  MODEM -- gt  ROUTER  FWD frm p3022 to p3022 -- gt  HOST MACHINE  FWD frm p3022 to p22  -- gt  GUEST VM  arrive ssh port 22    The key for me was to realize that ALL connections was PASSING-THROUGH intermediary devices to get from my remote PC to my guest virtual-machine at home --Hence port forwarding   Notes    Need ssh client to request a secure connection and a running ssh server to process the secure connection    I will forward the port 3022 as used in the chosen answer from above  Enter your IPs where needed  home modem router  host IP  guest IP etc    Names chosen are just examples-use or change    1 Create ssh tunnel to port 3022 on your modem s IP   router s external IP address   ssh client device possible commands  ssh -p 3022 user-name home external IP  2 Port forward   we are passing thru the connection from router to host machine   Also make sure firewall  IPtable rules on router is allowing ports to be forward  open if needed  Router s Pfwd SCREEN required entries  AppName SSH Fwd  Port from  3022  Protocol both  UDP TCP   IP address hostIP address  Port to 3022  everything else can be blank   DD-WRT router software resources   Info    DD-WRT Port Forwarding DD-WRT Static DHCP   3 Host Machine Firewall  open port 3022  so forwarded port can pass thru to guest machine   Host Machine  Install VirtualBox  guest additions  and guest machine if not done already Configure guest machine and then follow the Network section below I used VirtualBox GUI to setup guest s network- easier than CLI If you want to use other methods refer to   VirtualBox manual ch06 html natforward   4 Some suggest using Network Bridge adapter for guest   access to LAN and other machines on your LAN  This also pose an increase security risk  because now your guest machine is now exposed to LAN machines and possibly the INTERNET hackers if firewall not setup properly  So I selected Network adapter attached to NAT for less exposure to bridged security risks   On the guest machine do the following    Guest Machine VirtualBox Network settings  Adapter 1  Attached to NAT Guest Machine VirtualBox Port Forwarding Rule  Name External SSH  Protocol TCP  Host Port  3022  Guest Port 22  Host amp guest IPs leave blank click on advance in Network section then click on Port forwarding to enter rules Guest Machine Firewall  open port 22  so ssh connection can enter Guest Machine  Make sure that ssh server is installed  configured properly  and running LINUX test to see if ssh server running w command  sudo service ssh status Can check netstat to see if connection made to port 22 on the guest machine   Also there are different ssh servers and clients depending on platform using    wikipedia Secure Shell wikipedia Comparison of SSH servers wikipedia Comparison of SSH clients   For Ubuntu Users    ubuntu community  SSHOpenSSH Configuring ubuntu community  OpenSSH Keys   That should be it  If I made a mistake or want to add anything -feel free to do so-- I am still a noob   Hope this helps someone  Good luck

User · Answer

Follow below steps to login to your ubuntu VM running in virtual box from the host machine using putty  Without port forwarding     On Virtualbox manager select the vm  click on settings icon  Then go Networks and enable two adaptors as below    Adaptor 1  For internet access   Attached to -  NAT  Advanced -  Check the cable connected  Adaptor 2  Attached to -  Host only adaptor  Advanced -  Check the cable connected and Promiscuous mode -  Allow all   Start the ubuntu vm  Login to the VM as root  Edit the file   etc network interfaces  as below and save it   auto lo iface lo inet loopback  auto eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp  auto eth1 iface eth1 inet dhcp  Restart the VM  Login to the VM and run below command to check the IP allocated to eth1   ifconfig  Use this IP to open putty session for the VM

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For Windows host  you can     In virtualbox manager    select ctrl G in your virtualbox manager   then go to network pannel add a private network   make sure that activate DHCP is NOT selected   In network management  windows    Select the newly created virtualbox host only adapter and the physical network card Right-Click and select  Make bridge   Enjoy

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Keeping the NAT adapter and adding a second host-only adapter works amazing  and is crucial for laptops  where the external network always changes    http   muffinresearch co uk archives 2010 02 08 howto-ssh-into-virtualbox-3-linux-guests   Remember to create a host-only network in virtualbox itself  GUI -  settings -  network   otherwise you can t create the host-only interface on the guest

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On secure networks setting your network to bridge might not work  Administrators could only allow one mac address per port or even worse block the port should the switches detect multiple macs on one port   The best solution in my opinion is to set up additional network interfaces to handle additional services you would like to run on your machines  So I have a bridge interface to allow for bridging when I take my laptop home and can SSH into it from other devices on my network as well as a host only adapter when I would like to SSH into my VM from my laptop when I am connected to the eduroam wifi network on campus

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You can also initiate a port forward TO your HOST  OR ANY OTHER SERVER  from your Guest    This is especially useful if your Guest is  locked  or can t otherwise complete the ModifyVM option  e g  no permission to VBoxManage     Three minor requirements are 1  you are can log into the VirtualBox Guest  via  console  GUI  another Guest  etc   2  you have an account on the VirtualBox HOST  or other Server   and 3  SSH and TCP forwarding is not blocked    Presuming you can meet the 3 requirements  these are the steps    On the Guest  run netstat -rn and find the Gateway address to the default route destination 0 0 0 0   Let s say it s  10 0 2 2    This  Gateway  address is  one of  the VirtualBox Host virtual IP s   On the Guest  run ssh -R 2222 localhost 22  10 0 2 2 where  10 0 2 2  is the VirtualBox server s IP address -OR- any other server IP you wish to port forward to  On the Host  run ssh 10 0 2 2 -p2222 where 10 0 2 2 is the default gateway VBHost virtual IP found in step 1   If it is NOT the VirtualBox host you are port forwarding to  then the command is ssh localhost -p2222

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The best way to login to a guest Linux VirtualBox VM is port forwarding  By default  you should have one interface already which is using NAT  Then go to the Network settings and click the Port Forwarding button   Add a new Rule  As the rule name  insert  ssh   As  Host port   insert 3022  As  Guest port   insert 22  Everything else of the rule can be left blank   or from the command line  VBoxManage modifyvm myserver --natpf1  ssh tcp  3022  22    where  myserver  is the name of the created VM  Check the added rules   VBoxManage showvminfo myserver   grep  Rule    That s all  Please be sure you don t forget to install an SSH server in the VM   sudo apt-get install openssh-server   To SSH into the guest VM  write   ssh -p 3022 user 127 0 0 1   Where user is your username within the VM

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Use NAT network adapter and Add port forward  Mention actual host ip Do not use 127 0 0 1 or localhost

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You can also use a Bridged Network  or  Bridge Adapter   in newer versions  in network settings  This will put your VM in a VLAN with your machine  So you can just ssh into the VM like this      ssh user IP OF VM

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Ubuntu 18 04 LTS  Configuration with bridged to see the server ip  and connect without  port forwarding   VirtualBox    right click in server   settings   Network   enable adapter 2    select  bridged    Promiscuous mode  allow all   Check the cable connected   start server  On ubuntu server  edit sudo nano  etc netplan  init yaml file   My sample file    network      ethernets          enp0s3              addresses                 dhcp4  true         enp0s8              addresses   192 168 0 200 24              dhcp4  no             dhcp6  no             nameservers                 addresses   8 8 8 8  8 8 4 4      version  2   Commands that will help you  nano  etc netplan file yaml       file to specify the rules of network reboot now                        restart ubuntu server right now netplan apply                     do after edited   yaml  to apply changes ifconfig -a                       show interfaces with ip  netmask  broadcast  etc    ping google com                   to see if there is internet   Configure Static IP Addresses On Ubuntu 18 04 LTS Server - with NetPlan

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In order to ssh to a Ubuntu VM running in VirtualBox from your host machine  you need to set up two network adapters for the VM   First of all  stop the VM if not yet    Then select the VM and click the Settings menu in the VirtualBox toolbar     Set up Adapter 1    Set up Adapter 2     Note  you don t need to set up any port forwarding    That s it  Once set up  you can start your VM  In your VM  the network configuration will look like below and you ll have Internet access too     Also in your host machine  you can ssh to your VM     Be sure that the SSH server has been installed and up running in the VM     ps aux   grep sshd root 864 0 1 0 5 65512 5392   Ss 22 10 0 00  usr sbin sshd -D   If not  install it     sudo apt-get install openssh-server   Also for your information    My VirtualBox version  5 2 6 r120293  Qt5 6 2   2018 My Ubuntu version  Ubuntu 16 04 3 LTS My host machine  Windows 10

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How to do host-only network  better than bridged  for Solaris 10 and Ubuntu 16 04  Add Host-only interface   Virtualbox   File   Preferences   Network   Host-only Networks   Add Shutdown vm  VM s Settings   Network  First adapter should be Nat  second Host-only  Start cmd exe and run ipconfig  all  You should see lines   Ethernet adapter VirtualBox Host-Only Network            IPv4 Address                        192 168 59 1   Second adapter in guest should also be in 192 168 59    Start VM    Solaris 10   Check settings ifconfig -a  You should see e1000g0 and e1000g1  We are interested in e1000g1  ifconfig e1000g down ifconfig e1000g 192 168 56 10 netmask 255 255 255 0 up Check from host if this interface is reachable  ping 192 168 56 10   Preserve those settings upon reboot    vi  etc hostname e1000g1 192 168 56 10 netmask 255 255 255 0   reboot   Configure ssh service  administering  to login as root  not adviced   Check if ssh is enabled    svcs -a   grep ssh online         15 29 57 svc  network ssh default   Modify  etc ssh sshd config so there is  PermitRootLogin yes   Restart ssh service  svcadm restart ssh   From host check it  ssh root 192 168 56 10   Ubuntu 16 04  List interfaces   ip addr   You should see three interfaces like lo  enp0s3  enp0s8  We will use the third   Edit  etc network interfaces  auto enp0s8 iface enp0s8 inet static     address 192 168 56 10     netmask 255 255 255 0   Then sudo ifup enp0s8  Check if enp0s8 got correct address  You should see your ip      ip addr show enp0s8          inet 192 168 56 10 24 brd 192 168 56 255 scope global secondary enp0s8   If not  you may run sudo ifdown enp0s8  amp  amp  sudo ifup enp0s8  https   superuser com questions 424083 virtualbox-host-ssh-to-guest 424115 424115

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Change the adapter type in VirtualBox to bridged  and set the guest to use DHCP or set a static IP address outside of the bounds of DHCP  This will cause the Virtual Machine to act like a normal guest on your home network  You can then port forward

[ssh] How to SSH to a VirtualBox guest externally through a host?

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