VirtualBox host-only ethernet adapter.
A while back I had VirtualBox installed but I think I deleted it soon afterwards, anyway my broadband and phone line is fucked, so theres no wi-fi network and my ethernet connection kicked in.
This left my server unreachable via the IP address and the DNS service I use, and no amount of tinkering could fix it. It turns out the IP for my computer doesn't match the IP that is showing up in my logs, as it's from a "VirtualBox host-only ethernet adapter" with an American IP address that was apparently left after I uninstalled VirtualBox.
The server can be reached if you use that IP and it works fine with the DNS service, but using this IP negates some of the modifications I made to my config files, things like the server-info and server-status pages are now viewable, the phpmyadmin directory is also accessible remotely, when before it was resticted to local access.
That looks like a pretty sweet vulnerability waiting to be exploited right there, does anyone know where the config files that the virtual adapter is using are located, as it's not using the ones I edited for my xampp installation, also has anyone else encountered this issue when uninstalling a VM ?
Yes, sometimes the uninstallers do not remove additional software required to run the software you originally installed. This virtual adapter was activated when your Ethernet connection turned on, so I would look into the VM installation method as this virtual adapter might be overriding your hardware based Ethernet adapter.
Look in the directory where the virtual adapter has been installed.