virtualbox.org

Hi,

Am pretty new to this so apologies if I'm missing something obvious - I have searched the forums but can't quite find the answer to my probem.

Basically, I am trying to set up a test web server in an Ubuntu Server guest in a Windows 7 host. I have managed to get the web server up and running and serving pages onto other machines on the lan (by going directly to the IP of the guest) using host-only networking or bridged mode but I am unable to get to the server from the outside world using the domain name. I have set up port forwarding on my router so that http requests are going to the guest server IP but nothing happens... is this because of the bridging?

Anyway, any advice as to what network mode I need the guest to be in and other settings would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nick

You might want to make sure that your provider is not filtering port 80 on their side. Lot of carriers now are to keep you from serving Web Pages from your home.
You can verify that by putting the IP address of the inbound connection in a browser on the local lan and see if it brings up the web page, if not then switch the port to 81 on the web server and in the browser use the same IP and add :81 at the end. If it works then they are filtering the port.

Hi, thanks for your post. Not sure what you mean by inbound IP address... Do you mean the IP address of my network as seen by the outside world? If so, entering this gives me either the setup page of my router, or if I have port 80 forwarded to the virtual server it just times out...

Actually the address you used is the NIC port of the router, that is still on the private address. If you look in the setup page of the router usually in the statistics section you will see the inbound address. That is the one that the outside world sees.

Yeah, that's the address I've been using (as confirmed by a WAN IP lookup)...

Try this one http://www.whatsmyip.org/ This is what the world sees as your IP address.

Yeah, that's the same IP address.

I've also tried using different port numbers with the same result and I'm sure my ISP aren't filtering.

I have now tried with NAT and explicitly forwarding ports using: Which serves up the page when I enter the host IP address or loopback address in a browser on the LAN, and have forwarded port 80 on the router to the host, but I still can't see anything from the "outside world", so same as when I was using host-only networking and bridging.

I realise this is probably a networking \ forwarding problem and not strictly a VirtualBox issue...

Win7 Firewall? Something has to be blocking it.

But if you have a router why are you using anything else with Bridged?

Ok, turns out it IS working, I just can't access the server using the external IP address or domain name from any local machine on my LAN... it serves pages fine to people outside... still leaves me kinda stuck but I'm getting there.

Sorry about that and thanks for the help!