Help with external access to HA on Virtual Box

[michaelkrtikos (Michail Kritikos)]

Hello to all,

I am a new Home Assistant user and i have installed HA on a windows machine via Virtual Box using the official vdi. I set the network to bridged as stated in the installation guide and i have access on my network. As you can understand i would like to be able to access it outside of my network so i created a dynamic dns on duckDNS and set up the DuckDNS add-on in HA including the configuration of the add-on and the extra lines in the configuration.yaml

I gave my virtual box a static IP from the router and also set the IP as static in HA and forwarded the ports: 80, 443 and 8123. Here is a screenshot of my IP forwards in the router:

When i check with “canyouseeme.org” i cannot see the ports open. However, other ports seem to be open (for example plex). This leads me to the assumption that the open ports are not seen by Virtual Box. Did anyone manage to set external access with Virtual Box?

Thank you very much in advance
With Kind Regards
Michael

[AllHailJ (J Gent)]

I took the easy route. I use Nabu Casa as it is only $5.00 per month. It just works and I get to give some money to HA. It may not be for you. I can offer no constructive advice past Nabu Casu. Sorry!

[iSenne (Senne Tijdeman)]

It’s been a long time since I worked with Virtual box, but it should work. I think there are a few things to consider though.

You don’t need to forward all the ports to your HA. If you are using SSL (which I recommend) you can forward 443 → 8123, but you could also try 8123 → 8123.

Installing TLS/SSL using Let's Encrypt

This guide has been migrated from our website and might be outdated. Feel free to edit this guide to update it, and to remove this message after that. This guide is for users running Home Assistant Core. If you are using Home Assistant do not use this guide. Instead, use the DuckDNS add-on for Home Assistant. This guide was added on 16/03/2017 and was valid at the time of writing. This guide makes the following assumptions: You can access your Home Assistant instance ac…

I assume that you are forwarding to your virtual box IP address. That should work, but you must consider that the virtual box is running on a physical computer (server) and probably uses the same NIC. If the OS (say Windows) blocks the ports in its firewall, it will not reach the Virtual Box.

And last is your internet provider. Some providers block ports for the users. Mostly it’s port 25 (SMTP), but some providers are more aggressive with blocking ports. Maybe you could try another port (9999 → 8123) and access via http://youripordns:9999

I think, as @AllHailJ suggested, that Nabu Casa is the simplest (and best option) to easily remote access your HA, especially if you’re not really experienced with networks and security. It has default SSL and you don’t have to open any ports

Another option (which is my preference over opening ports) is using VPN on your home network.

[michaelkrtikos (Michail Kritikos)]

Hello, thank you very much for the guide, I will have a look!