Topic: SME 7.3 and virtualization through Sun VirtualBox

[Luke Franklin]

I've finally managed to get SME Server 7.3 working as a virtual machine using Sun Microsystem's VirtualBox.

I'm completely new to this and it is all a learning experience but basically I want to setup SME to be a gateway and a web server while vitualized, how I want to do this:

I have Vista Home as my host for VirtualBox.
I have Mepis as a guest on VirtualBox
I have SME Server 7.3 as a guest on VirtualBox

Mepis is connecting to SME and then to the internet through a virtualized internal network in VirtualBox (Working already)
SME is connecting to the Vista then to the internet through NAT in VirtualBox (Working already)
Vista connects to my router then to the internet through wireless LAN (Working already)
Router connects to the internet through an ADSL 256kbps Bigpond internet account. (Working too)

What I want to do is get SME to serve web pages to the domain Advanced-Software-Solutions.com - This domain is only for testing and is currently being managed by GoDaddy.

How do I get all this going? I'm only doing this for the experience. I'm guessing I'm going to do some sort of port forwarding or something.

Basically I have got this so far:
WWW < Wireless ADSL Router < Vista Home < VirtualBox < NAT < SME Server < Mepis
I want it to be:
WWW <> Wireless ADSL Router <> Vista Home VirtualBox <> NAT (or other) <> SME Server < Mepis
"<" marks web requests going out and ">" marks web requests going out.
So when I get a web request for a web page on the domain Advanced-Software-Solutions.com I want it forwarded all the way along the chain to SME.

Thanks in advance.

[arne]

An issue will be if the Adsl connection receives ip address dynamically, in such a way that it is changing. I believe Godaddy does not have any solution for this. Try to read your external ip: http://www.myip.dk Turn off the ADSL router and check the external IP again. Does it change ?

(At my connection the ip change very slowly, approx one time per month. I use http://dyndns.dk/ as address for this, and it works quite well. ) (I also use GoDaddy, but not for my home server with dynamic ip.)

An option could be to use the GoDaddy domain against some fixed ip at a web hotel, and then link up the home server via a dyndns address. (I am doing smething that is slightely like this, and I use virtual SmoothWall as gateway in front of a few virtual SME servers. Host system Centos 64 + Vmware server.)

[Luke Franklin]

I have fixed my main problems, including the dynamic IP and routing port 80 to SME server but now VirtualBox crashes after awhile, no idea why, only started when I configured VirtualBox to forward web requests to SME.