Cosmos DB Emulator on Mac with M2 Chip - ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED when using local IP

Question

I am trying to run the Cosmos DB Emulator on my Mac with an M2 chip. I followed the official Microsoft documentation that suggests using Parallels to run Windows and then install the Cosmos DB Emulator on the virtual machine.

Following the guide, I executed the following command in the Windows environment:

Microsoft.Azure.Cosmos.Emulator.exe /AllowNetworkAccess /Key=C2y6yDjf5/R+ob0N8A7Cgv30VRDJIWEHLM+4QDU5DE2nQ9nDuVTqobD4b8mGGyPMbIZnqyMsEcaGQy67XIw/Jw==

The emulator starts, and I can access it using https://localhost:8081/_explorer/index.html within the virtual machine. However, I am unable to access it from my Mac using the local IP address obtained via ipconfig. I keep getting an ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED error.

Upon investigating further with netstat -a | findstr 8081, I noticed that the emulator is listening on 127.0.0.1:8081. I suspect this might be the reason I cannot connect using the local IP.

Here are some additional details:

• Parallels network settings: Running in "shared" mode.
• I attempted port forwarding using Parallels, but it didn't resolve the issue.
• I tried the "nofirewall" flag, deleted the contents of %LOCALAPPDATA%\CosmosDBEmulator, disabled the firewall, and added allow rules without success.

Steps I've taken so far:

1. Executed the emulator command in the Windows environment.
2. Checked netstat for listening addresses.
3. Tried port forwarding via Parallels.
4. Tried the "nofirewall" flag, deleted emulator contents, disabled firewall, and added allow rules.