Trying to access ipython notebook running on virtual machine

Question

I would really appreciate some help here, basically I'm learning to use tensorflow, I've decided that the easiest way to go about this would be to install ubuntu on either VMware and/or Virtualbox and then access the ipython notebook (came with anaconda) through the browser on the host computer.

I have successfully installed both vmware and virtualbox, I downloaded a ubuntu image and also successfully installed anaconda on both, I get it to work without a problem on both VMs and even installed tensorflow.

Some research online on how to expose the ipython to the host machine suggested port forwarding or ssh tunneling, none of these have worked (very likely I'm doing it wrong). Can someone please help? think of me as a newbie.

Answer 1

Generally you must edit the jupyter configuration file to allow network access to the notebook server. See this link: http://jupyter-notebook.readthedocs.org/en/latest/public_server.html for details. (Even if it is not a "public" server, you still intend to access the notebook server living in the VM from the host machine via a network connection...)

Here is a quotation from the linked documentation that indicates by default, you can only access the notebook via the localhost.

By default, a notebook server runs locally at 127.0.0.1:8888 and is accessible only from localhost. You may access the notebook server from the browser using http://127.0.0.1:8888 .