Configuring SSH access for VirtualBox Host to Guest

I have installed VirtualBox with CentOS. I’ve decided that it would be easier to connect VBox from Host terminal via SSH then using Vbox GUI environment. I’ve found this process a little bit difficult and fortunately have solved it.

Now, I want to share my knowledge with you:

Note: <VBoxName> will be the name of the Virtual Box Machine. To find it type command “hostname” on guest machine.

1. Open up the terminal window on Host machine, and run the following:

$ VBoxManage setextradata <VBoxName> “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/HostPort” 2222

1. 1 If you encounter the following error(if not ignore this section),

VBoxManage: error: Could not find a registered machine named “VBoxName”...

$ VBoxManage createvm –name <VBoxName> –register

2.

$ VBoxManage setextradata <VMname> “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/HostPort” 2222

3.

$ VBoxManage setextradata <VMname> “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/GuestPort” 22

4.

$ VBoxManage setextradata <VMname> “VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/Protocol” TCP

5.  Close the guest Machine Window (reboot is not enough)

6. Open up the terminal window on Host machine and run:

$ ssh -l username -p 2222 <localhost>

Where <localhost> is the name of the Host machine.

6.1  If you get the following error(if not ignore this section):

ssh-exchange-identification connection closed by remote host

One of the solution is to start ssh on both HOTS/GUEST machines:

$ /etc/init.d/sshd start

7. That is all, and one more hint: username by which you want to connect to the Guest machine must have password.