How to SSH to a VirtualBox guest externally through a host?

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.

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.

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 [email protected]

Where user is your username within the VM.

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