How can other users access SharePoint on a virtual machine on my computer?

Question

I am configuring VirtualBox to run Sharepoint 2013 to be able to share some files with some other people (not many, so performance shouldn't be an issue).

How are the other people going to connect to SharePoint though? I have found several guides online explaining how to install and/or configure SharePoint but I haven't read anything about how to use it after the installation is complete.

Answer 1

Your root question sounds like a basic network connection. You can configure the network connectivity for your VM to allow connections to the network which would allow others to connect to it (along with you) from the browser on their computers.

I would not recommend running a VM on your computer as a production environment even for a small team. If you are strictly looking to share files, and do not have a server available then you might consider something like SkyDrive for the file sharing.

Update:

Here are some resources for configuring SharePoint. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262957.aspx

As part of the installation you will create a web application that is accessible via an address. It could be based on the server name, something like http://servername or a fully qualified name like http://my.sharepoint.com. If your VM is connected to (not isolated from) the network, they will be able to access it via that address.

Please note, you will want to connect it to your domain, in order to be able to use the user's domain accounts to access it.