Networking – How to Connect to a Web Server Running in a VM in NAT Mode

I think there are two ways to do this:

1. Make sure both VM instances use NAT as the networking connection and make sure doesn't block
2. Open the VPC image in VMWare player and set both to use HOST only - the VMs will see each other and the HOST but not see outside of your machine.

I would choose option 2 only because when testing I prefer to have my VMs and websites isolated from the rest of the world. If you choose NAT then the VMs can access outside your HOST (machine running the VMs) if your HOST has internet/network access.

NAT is used if you want the VM to share the same IP address as the computer it's running on.

If you want it to have it's own IP address, switch the VM's virtual network adapter to bridged mode. You can then let the VM get an IP from DHCP, or assign one manually.

You can make servers accessible through the VM's NAT if you really want, but you have to set up port forwarding on the VM. It's much easier just to use bridge mode.

If you want the site to be accessible through your phone's cellular data connection as well, set up port forwarding on your Internet router as @Pierre above explains.