You already have a local development environment set up using MAMP (MAMP uses port 8888 so your localhost is accessed at http://localhost:8888 and custom sites, assuming you have set any up, are available at http://whatever:8888).

Naturally you need to test your sites in Internet *barf* Explorer so you have set up a virtual environment to do this. I am using Sun’s fantastic, open source application VirtualBox. The question is, how do you access your local sites from within VirtualBox? Launching IE and going to http://localhost:8888 does not work… hmmm.

Turns out, the address you need to point at is http://10.0.0.2:8888. That will get you to MAMP’s htdocs directory, i.e. your http://localhost:8888!

Now that is useful but it doesn’t get give you access to your custom sites. Here is how you access those!

1. Open your Windows host file. It is found here: C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
2. Under the bit that says: 127.0.0.1 localhost add the following (using whatever your actual project is called): 10.0.2.2 whatever

That’s it! Now you can visit http://whatever:8888 using IE from within your virtual Windows environment.