The best way to login to a guest Linux VirtualBox VM is port forwarding. By default, you should have one interface already which is using NAT. Then go to the Network settings and click the Port Forwarding button. Add a new Rule. As the rule name, insert “ssh”. As “Host port”, insert 3022. As “Guest port”, insert 22. Everything else of the rule can be left blank.

or from the command line

VBoxManage modifyvm myserver --natpf1 "ssh,tcp,,3022,,22"

where ‘myserver’ is the name of the created VM. Check the added rules:

VBoxManage showvminfo myserver | grep 'Rule'

That’s all! Please be sure you don’t forget to install an SSH server in the VM:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

To SSH into the guest VM, write:

ssh -p 3022 [email protected]

Where user is your username within the VM.