How do I access the host machine from the guest machine? [closed]

Question

On the XP machine, find your IP address by going to the command prompt and typing ipconfig. Try replacing the last number with 1 or 2. For example, if your IP address is 192.168.78.128, use http://192.168.78.1:3000.

You can use your host Mac's (or any other Mac on the network) 'local' name:

http://macname.local:3000/

where macname is the network name of your host (or other desired) Mac.

For future visitors: once you've got the IP address figured out, you can add an entry to the Windows hosts file, which is located at C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, to map the IP address to a (virtual) server name. Add a line like this:

192.168.78.1   myrubyapp

Now you can access the site in IE at the address http://myrubyapp:3000

If you use virtual hosts under Apache you'll need this to provide the correct server name.

As this question is quite old and referring to XP, here is an alternative for new OSs;

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If you're rocking Vista or Windows 7 as the Guest OS, and you have Virtual Hosts setup in the Host via Apache, here's how to setup:

In the Host OS, you need to ensure the network connection is done via NAT;

1. Right click the network icon in the VM window (bottom-right)
2. Select "NAT"
3. Select "Connect"
4. Wait for the guest OS reconnect to the network

Then, In the Guest OS;

1. Click Start > Network > Network & Sharing Center
2. Click "View Status" next to the network connection
3. Click "Details"
4. Find "IPv4 Default Gateway"
5. Open Wordpad
6. Edit C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

7. Add a line to the file such as:

   [default-gateway-IP] www.example.com
   [default-gateway-IP] example.com
   

8. Save

9. Try opening http://www.example.com or http://example.com in IE

1. On the XP machine, Start -> Connect To -> Show all connections.
2. Double click Local Area Connection.
3. Click the Support tab.
4. Take the Default Gateway IP <gateway-ip> and hit http://<gateway-ip>:3000 in your browser.

Gotcha: You must have http:// in the address or IE will give you "The webpage cannot be displayed".