Virtual Box NAT Port Forwarding does not work on a specific machine

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Philip86
Posts: 1
Joined: 2. Dec 2021, 15:03

Virtual Box NAT Port Forwarding does not work on a specific machine

Post by Philip86 »

I have configured the following NAT network in VirtualBox 6.1.26 r145957 (Windows 10 - 64 bit):

Code: Select all

    <NATNetwork networkName="MY_NAT" network="192.168.111.0/24" ipv6="0" ipv6prefix="fd17:625c:f037:2::/64" advertiseDefaultIPv6Route="0" needDhcp="1" enabled="1">
      <PortForwarding4>
        <Forwarding name="SSH" proto="1" hostip="127.0.0.1" hostport="2211" guestip="192.168.115.20" guestport="22"/>
      </PortForwarding4>
      <Mappings>
        <Loopback4 address="127.0.0.1" offset="2"/>
      </Mappings>
    </NATNetwork>
My virtual machine uses this NAT network so I can connect per SSH to the guest.
I'm using NAT, because it is the only way for me to connect to the VM while I'm connected to my company's network through VPN.

This solution worked for a couple of months but now I'm getting the message: "Network error - Connection refused" when connecting to 127.0.0.1:2211 with putty or from the console using the "ssh" command.

I have made no change in the Virtual Box & VM configuration and unfortunately I don't know what else could have changed, so I tried the following things to understand/fix the problem:

- Executed "netstat -na -p tcp" on the command line -> Result: There is no listening socket for 127.0.0.1:2211 - so port forwarding seems not to work

- Changed hostip in VirtualBox port forwarding settings to 0.0.0.0 -> Doesn't work

- Asked a colleague to log in with his windows domain user account on my machine and try to connect -> Doesn't work

- Temporarily deactivated the firewall -> Doesn't work

- Tried to run the same VM + Configuration on a colleague's machine -> Port forwarding & SSH connection works fine (!)

- Used qemu on my machine with same port forwarding settings and image -> Port forwarding & SSH connection works fine (!)

- Finally I reinstalled my whole system, but the SSH connection still cannot be established

VBoxSVC.log (replaced company-specific IPs/domains by ...):

Code: Select all

01:55:19.258515          Launched VM: 77255088 pid: 16872 (0x41e8) frontend: GUI/Qt name: MY_VM
01:55:24.962176          Load [C:\Program Files (x86)\Sun xVM VirtualBox\ExtensionPacks\Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack\win.amd64\VBoxHostWebcam.DLL] vrc=VINF_SUCCESS
01:55:25.195888          ERROR [COM]: aRC=VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80bb0005) aIID={85632c68-b5bb-4316-a900-5eb28d3413df} aComponent={SessionMachine} aText={Saved screenshot data is not available (VERR_NOT_SUPPORTED)}, preserve=false aResultDetail=-37
01:55:25.584780          VM 'MY_VM' starts using NAT network 'MY_NAT'
01:55:25.584825          HostDnsMonitorProxy::GetDomainName: ...
01:55:25.585052          Saving settings file "C:\DATEN\Virtualbox\VirtualBox.xml" with version "1.14-windows"
01:55:25.592135          HostDnsMonitorProxy::GetNameServers:
01:55:25.592153            name server 1: ...
01:55:25.592161            name server 2: ...
01:55:25.592169            name server 3: ...
01:55:25.592399          Saving settings file "C:\DATEN\Virtualbox\VirtualBox.xml" with version "1.14-windows"
01:55:25.596664          Saving settings file "C:\DATEN\Virtualbox\VirtualBox.xml" with version "1.14-windows"
01:55:25.607645          NetworkServiceRunning: started 'VBoxNetDHCP.exe', pid 00004b20
01:55:25.614115          NetworkServiceRunning: started 'VBoxNetNAT.exe', pid 00002fcc
01:55:25.614167          Started NAT network 'MY_NAT'
Important: Even though VBoxNetNAT.exe seems to be executed there is no MY_NAT.log created. On the other machines it is there and shows that the ports are successfully forwarded.

Any idea what could be the problem or how I can debug it?
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