How to access Apache2 virtual host from VirtualBox (or any VM)

Question

I am running Ubuntu 11.04, I have setup my localhost so I access my sites at

site1.local  
site2.local  

By setting up virtual hosts and adding entries to my hosts file.

I want to test them in IE so I have installed VirtualBox with Windows.

My question is, How can I access site1.local from the virtual machine?

Solution

Ah, It's as easy as pie.

In your windows Virtual Machine edit your hosts file

c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

And link your virtual hosts to 10.0.2.2, If you are just using localhost then replace

127.0.0.1 localhost with 10.0.2.2 localhost

So my hosts file looks like

10.0.2.2 localhost
10.0.2.2 site1.local
10.0.2.2 site2.local

Comments

[manafire]

The networking mode is NAT. I've seen other articles suggest different methods using bridged.

[Brad]

This worked for me, using Microsoft's IE images, it gave me a file permission message when I tried to save the host file changes in notebook. If that happens, just right click the notepad program and run as administrator, then open the hosts file within that, that made it work.