Ubuntu IP address from win 8

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 13.10 under Virtualbox on a Win 8 system. The Ubuntu system seems to be fully configured and connected to the internet; I can start a Firefox session from within the Ubuntu VM. I'm having a problem telneting to the VM. Running ifconfig om the VM shows

kenkahn@ubuntu:/etc$ ifconfig

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:c2:8f:8b  
          inet addr:10.0.2.15  Bcast:10.0.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fec2:8f8b/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:8178 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2905 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:8934852 (8.9 MB)  TX bytes:297532 (297.5 KB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:5728 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:5728 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:262190 (262.1 KB)  TX bytes:262190 (262.1 KB)

Running ipconfig under windows shows

C:\Users\kenkahn>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : ken_gateway
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : home

Ethernet adapter Ethernet:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : home
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.30)
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 4C-72-B9-C5-1A-A1
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::64dc:3db:73bc:5d25%2(Preferred)
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.9(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, March 8, 2014 5:37:22 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:37:24 AM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 266879218
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-17-F6-18-B6-4C-72-B9-C5-1A-A1
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

The problem is the VM's IP address, 10.0.2.15, is not accessible from the Windows system. What do I have to do to be able to telnet to the VM? What IP address do I use? Is something not set up correctly? Do I somehow need to configure the VM to get a 192 address?

Answer 1

VirtualBox acts like a separate (virtual) router within your host. So with the standard setting for a virtual interface (NAT) you will not be able to access your host (except by using some tricks mentioned in the VirtualBox manual - look for NAT and port forwarding).

The simpler way to make your guest accessible from the host is to switch the network mode to "bridged". In this mode your guest is a member of your "real" network, gets its IP-address from the real DHCP-server and can be accessed like any real host in your network.

You might have to check that the virtual interface is bridged to the correct real interface on the host (WiFi sometimes is troublesome).

As mentioned by Andreas: don't get used to using telnet - your linux box doesn't have it enabled by default - use ping for testing the accessibility and the install SSH on the guest and use something like putty to access it from your windows host.

Answer 2

I think you configured your VM wrong. If you choose the default options, IIRC you can't contact your VM from the host system since VirtualBox's default settings doesn't use any sofisticated networking stuff available on your host OS (like tun/tap devices on Linux, over whom you could »talk« to your VM), but VirtualBox just acts like a standard networked application (like Firefox or Internet Explorer: every connection your Guest OS initiates is translated into a normal socket connection initiated by VirtualBox).

Thus you can't connect to your Guest OS inside VirtualBox like you can't connect to your web browser. Re-examine your VM's network-adapter settings. On Linux it's called tun/tap, I don't know how Windows calls its pendant.

Also, you really should not use telnet but SSH to connect to a Linux box.