Access a host service from within a VM

This should serve as a reminder to me of how to use services or websites that I’m developing on MacOS from within a windows VM. This is useful when the back-end services are cross-platform, but needs to be called from windows-specific software.

The VM I’m currently using is Parallels. A helpful document for this was this gist.

1. Ensure that the service or website isn’t just listening on localhost, but rather on 0.0.0.0. In an aspnet core service for example this can be configured by adding “applicationUrl”: “http://0.0.0.0:5000;https://0.0.0.0:5001" to the launchSettings.json.
2. Access the url in the VM using either the Mac’s hostname, or the name that computers on the local network can access it located in System Preferences > Sharing, or the IP address 10.211.55.2. The gist link mentioned earlier explains where this IP address comes from.

I followed a couple of false trails — people suggested using the bridged networking mode of the VM for example and using port forwarding. This turned out to be unnecessary and the default shared network is acceptable.