SSH into VirtualBox Guest: Connection Refused

Solution 1:

Are you sure the IP is for the guest OS. I had the same problem and it turned out that the IP I had been using all along, the 192.168.56.101 was actually the Windows interface IP and the host OS IP was 192.168.56.103.

You can verify by doing ipconfig / ifconfig on both.

NOTE: I had also setup a static IP which it turns out I didn't need at all. In case you try from the start I found this tutorial to be better.

Solution 2:

None of the other solutions are good because:

1. There is no point to ssh to your guest via bridge if the guest will loose access to internet
2. All the other solutions above tell you to build a rocket to cross the road.

Scenario

• Host Ubuntu Desktop 16.04
• Guest Ubuntu Server 16.04 (Running on Virtual box 5)

Problem

SSH connection refused

Solution

1. Shut your guest Ubuntu down
2. On Virtualbox go to Setting>network>Adapter1>Advanced>Portforwarding
3. Name=SSH Hostport=2022 (or any port but 22) Guestport(22)
4. Reboot your guest
5. On you host open a Putty or whatever you use for SSH
6. ssh [email protected] -p2022 (or any port you mentioned as hostport)
7. Have fun you are in

Solution 3:

The following works for me:

Before:

vboxnet0: 192.168.56.1
eth1:     192.168.56.1

After:

vboxnet0: 192.168.56.1
eth1:     192.168.56.101

So, basically I changed part of the file { /etc/network/interfaces } as follows:

Before:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.56.1
netmask 255.255.255.0 

After:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.56.101
netmask 255.255.255.0 

Works: ssh [email protected]

Solution 4:

You should check that your guest OS firewall is not blocking incoming connections on port 22.

Solution 5:

Maybe it's an issue with access control. To disable it and allow full access, as root:

xhosts +

I had a similar issue with VNC viewer