virtualbox.org

Hi

Sorry if this has been answered, but I cannot find the answer, and it feels like I've done nothing but search, try and fail.

Anyway, I use VirtualBox for Development servers. They run on my Windows 10 desktop, and everyone is using Ubuntu 16.04.
This works great if I am at home, using NAT and Host-only Adapter (and this took me ages to sort out itself). However, I find myself needing to access and work on these Development Environments away from home.

I can remote desktop my home PC with TeamViewer, but I don't know how to remote access the guest machines, as though they are true physical servers.

I tried Bridged, to no avail (I admit I may have been doing it wrong), but could it do with my ISP or firewall at home?

Read this:
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch07.html

Using NAT you will need to setup port forwarding and then access the guest with the host IP and guests port number.

Thanks, but that's a bit overwhelming for me (just so much text).

I've got it so there is NAT, which allows me to access the internet, Host-only, which allows me to access from Host, and also Bridged, which allows other devices to access the guest via the IP.

So:
with NAT, I can access the site on the Guest with 10.0.2.15 or 127.0.0.1;
with Host-only, I can access the site from my Host, with 192.168.56.101 (which I changed myself), this also allows SSH;
and with Bridged, I can access the Guest from my phone, using 192.168.1.95 (which I cannot change for some reason).

However, this is all connected to my home network.

I'm not sure what progress I'm making - accessing it from my phone is a step forward, but only when connected to the WiFi and not using data/different network.

I don't want a remote display, I simply want it to run as a normal web server, being able to access it from an external source, such as on my phone using data.

External might be a problem. Your router as well as you provider need to allow this. Some if not most providers block port 80 and a few more to prevent you from having a web server but that might be worked around by choosing a different port on the web server. Then it becomes an issue with forwarding on the router. All of this assumes that you only have one public address.