Tutorial: Setting up local virtual Linux machine

In this tutorial we will:

install virtualization software
create a virtual machine (VM)
install Linux on the VM
and finally assign an IP to the VM

As free virtualization software, we use VirtualBox from Oracle. The software is available for Windows, OS X, Linux and Solaris.

The machine must provide a network bridge for the VM so that the virtualized server can communicate with the router. This also means that the VM is only accessible via the local network. If you still want to access the VM from outside, you will have to face further challenges. Consequently, the router must be reconfigured so that requests go to the VM via certain ports using port forwarding. It must also be taken into account that the IP of the Internet connection can change. That's where techniques like Dynamic DNS usually help. A free provider, for example, is No-Ip. However, we will content ourselves with the local variant for the time being, as it would otherwise go beyond the scope of this tutorial.