Allowing SMB shares on VMWare workstation was secure, as the "LAN" being 
used entirely was logical internal to the machine and environment; no 
real external LAN access was allowed as the physical NIC(s) on the 
machine were never exposed nor directly communicating with the logical 
internal network.

I was hoping to able to do the same thing with VirtualBox.  However, I 
cannot find any equivalent to xsmbrowser for either Linux or MS Win XP 
Pro so that I can find the "real" share, etc., name fields that MS Win 
finds.

Yasha Karant

On 06/30/2011 01:03 AM, JR van Rensburg wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-06-29 at 20:47 -0700, Yasha Karant wrote:
>> Although I have access to true network printing resources, for the
>> local
>> printer attached to my local workstation, I do *NOT* want to make my
>> printer accessible over the physical LAN to anyone.  I also do not in
>> general need the MS Win XP guest to print to our true network
>> printing
>> resource that is limited to specialized work my ordinary black toner
>> laser printer cannot properly handle.  However, if I can use the
>> internal vboxnet0 "interface" and IP address for printing, this
>> scheme
>> will work, and as well as Samba (presumably I can deactivate Samba in
>> this case as Virtualbox shared folders provide access to the file
>> system
>> of the Linux host).
>
> I would have thought that opening only port 631 for a specific address
> on the main network would be more secure than allowing smb shares.
> You can limit access to the printer in the cups web interface.
>
>> What specifics cover exporting the local printer, still accessible as
>> as
>> local printer over a physical printer connection (presently, a USB
>> port), over the logical vboxnet0 interface?  Does the Virtualbox
>> "machine" then connect to the IP address of vboxnet0 displayed by the
>> Linux host command ifconfig -a ?  A URL with the specifics will
>> suffice.
> If you try setting up a new printer in cups, it will give you examples
> of address setups.
> As far as the ipaddress goes, it will depend on the routing you have set
> up for the guest. The ipaddress of the printer needs to be the same
> address you have set for the server machine that has the printer.
> I haven't tried it in a virtual environment, but I should imagine that
> you could set up the cups print to use an ipaddress that is visible to
> the guest.
> The vbox guest address should be visible to the SL6 host machine if you
> have set the virtual networks correctly.