I really like VirtualBox for testing new ideas.  However, I am not a huge fan of the VirtualBox preview console when working with Linux instances.

So I typically use Putty to ssh into the local instance as needed.  Seems to work pretty good for me.  Below are some configuration settings I needed to make to get things working.

1. Download and install ssh client such as Putty.
   • http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html
2. Configure the appropriate network settings for your VM.  I typically use Bridged Adapter as it seems to replicate my VM as a physical server closely.  (From a networking perspective)
   • Great link that reviews the networking mode options
     • https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html#network_bridged
3. Once you have your VM running, you should be able to view your VM’s IP.
   • ip addr show (Run this command for Red Hat)
   • You should see something like this “inet 192.168.1.34” in the results.  This is the IP you will use to ssh into the VM.
4. In my case, I did not see any IP address initially.  If I ran dhclient and then the above command, I would see an IP from my router.
5. To help automate the DHCP process, I configured the network adapter to use DHCP and activate the network adapter on any reboot.
   • /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3
     • DEVICE=enp0s3
     • BOOTPROTO=dhcp
     • ONBOOT=yes

Now I can use all my nice ssh clients with ease when working with VB.