How to access localhost from VirtualBox using a smartphone?

Question

I want to access VirtualBox's localhost using a smartphone for me to see how the website looks like in a phone.

More Details:

• Host OS - Windows 7 Pro
• Guest OS - Ubuntu 16.0.4 LTS
• SmartPhones' OS - Android and iOS

Answer 1

You actually shouldn't need this, most browsers have a "responsive design view mode" which you can activate by pressing F12 to activate the developer console and clicking on the mobile phone/tablet icon on the left of it.

But to answer your question, yes, this can be done through port forwarding.

• Go to the settings for the Ubuntu VM, and select the "Network" tab.
• Make sure that the "Attached to" value is "NAT".
• Click on the "Advanced" dropdown and click on the "Port Forwarding" button.
• Click on the "+" symbol to add a port forwarding rule. Say, you have a server running in Ubuntu in port 80, so enter 80 in the "Guest Port" value. Now, say, you want to access the server on port 8080 of the host machine, so type in 8080 for the "Host Port" value.
• Click on "OK" on the windows to save your settings.

At this point, you can access your server on your host machine by typing in localhost:8080.

To open it on your phone, connect the phone and the computer on the same network (such as a WiFi hotspot). Determine the local IP address of your computer with ipconfig /all. For example, if the IP is 192.168.1.1, type in 192.168.1.1:8080 on your phone.