Sun xVM VirtualBox^®

User Manual

Version 2.0.4 Edition

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

http://www.virtualbox.org

Copyright © 2004-2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Virtualization basics
1.2. Software vs. hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V)
1.3. Features overview
1.4. Supported host operating systems
1.5. Supported guest operating systems
1.6. 64-bit guests

2. Installation

2.1. Installing on Windows hosts

2.1.1. Prerequisites
2.1.2. Performing the installation
2.1.3. Uninstallation
2.1.4. Unattended installation

2.2. Installing on Mac OS X hosts

2.2.1. Performing the installation
2.2.2. Uninstallation
2.2.3. Unattended installation

2.3. Installing on Linux hosts

2.3.1. Prerequisites
2.3.2. The VirtualBox kernel module
2.3.3. USB and advanced networking support
2.3.4. Performing the installation
2.3.5. Starting VirtualBox on Linux

2.4. Installing on Solaris hosts

2.4.1. Performing the installation
2.4.2. Starting VirtualBox on Solaris
2.4.3. Uninstallation
2.4.4. Unattended installation
2.4.5. Configuring a zone for running VirtualBox

3. Starting out with VirtualBox

3.1. Starting the graphical user interface

3.2. Creating a virtual machine

3.3. Basics of virtual machine configuration

3.4. Running a virtual machine

3.4.1. Keyboard and mouse support in virtual machines
3.4.2. Changing removable media
3.4.3. Saving the state of the machine
3.4.4. Snapshots

3.5. The Virtual Disk Manager

3.6. Deleting virtual machines

3.7. Virtual machine settings

3.7.1. General settings
3.7.2. Hard disks
3.7.3. CD/DVD-ROM and floppy settings
3.7.4. Audio settings
3.7.5. Network settings
3.7.6. Serial ports
3.7.7. USB support
3.7.8. Shared folders
3.7.9. Remote display

4. The VirtualBox Guest Additions

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Windows Guest Additions

4.2.1. Installing the Windows Guest Additions
4.2.2. Updating the Windows Guest Additions
4.2.3. Unattended Installation
4.2.4. Windows Vista networking

4.3. Linux Guest Additions

4.3.1. Installing the Linux Guest Additions
4.3.2. Video acceleration and high resolution graphics modes
4.3.3. Updating the Linux Guest Additions

4.4. Solaris Guest Additions

4.4.1. Installing the Solaris Guest Additions
4.4.2. Uninstalling the Solaris Guest Additions
4.4.3. Updating the Solaris Guest Additions

4.5. OS/2 Guest Additions

4.6. Folder sharing

4.7. Seamless windows

5. Virtual storage

5.1. Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA, AHCI

5.2. Virtual Disk Image (VDI) files

5.3. Cloning disk images

5.4. VMDK image files

5.5. iSCSI servers

5.5.1. Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking

6. Virtual networking

6.1. Virtual networking hardware

6.2. Introduction to networking modes

6.3. "Not attached" mode

6.4. Network Address Translation (NAT)

6.4.1. Configuring port forwarding with NAT
6.4.2. PXE booting with NAT
6.4.3. NAT limitations

6.5. Introduction to Host Interface Networking (HIF)

6.6. Host Interface Networking and bridging on Windows hosts

6.7. Host Interface Networking on Mac OS X hosts

6.8. Host Interface Networking and bridging on Linux hosts

6.8.1. Permanent host interfaces and bridging
6.8.2. Creating interfaces dynamically when a virtual machine starts up

6.9. Host Interface Networking on Solaris hosts

6.10. Internal networking

7. Alternative front-ends; remote virtual machines

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Using VBoxManage to control virtual machines

7.3. VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer

7.4. Remote virtual machines (VRDP support)

7.4.1. VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-only server
7.4.2. Step by step: creating a virtual machine on a headless server
7.4.3. Remote USB
7.4.4. RDP authentication
7.4.5. RDP encryption
7.4.6. VRDP multiple connections

8. VBoxManage reference

8.1. VBoxManage list

8.2. VBoxManage showvminfo

8.3. VBoxManage registervm / unregistervm

8.4. VBoxManage createvm

8.5. VBoxManage modifyvm

8.5.1. General settings
8.5.2. Storage settings
8.5.3. Networking settings
8.5.4. Serial port, audio, clipboard, VRDP and USB settings

8.6. VBoxManage startvm

8.7. VBoxManage controlvm

8.8. VBoxManage discardstate

8.9. VBoxManage snapshot

8.10. VBoxManage registerimage / unregisterimage

8.11. VBoxManage showvdiinfo

8.12. VBoxManage createvdi

8.13. VBoxManage modifyvdi

8.14. VBoxManage clonevdi

8.15. VBoxManage convertdd

8.16. VBoxManage addiscsidisk

8.17. VBoxManage createhostif/removehostif

8.18. VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata

8.19. VBoxManage setproperty

8.20. VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove

8.21. VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove

8.22. VBoxManage updatesettings

8.23. VBoxManage metrics

9. Advanced topics

9.1. VirtualBox configuration data

9.2. Automated Windows guest logons (VBoxGINA)

9.3. Custom external VRDP authentication

9.4. Secure labeling with VBoxSDL

9.5. Custom VESA resolutions

9.6. Multiple monitors for the guest

9.7. Releasing modifiers with VBoxSDL on Linux

9.8. Using serial ports

9.9. Using a raw host hard disk from a guest

9.9.1. Access to entire physical hard disk
9.9.2. Access to individual physical hard disk partitions

9.10. Allowing a virtual machine to start even with unavailable CD/DVD/floppy devices

9.11. Configuring the address of a NAT network interface

9.12. Configuring the maximum resolution of guests when using the graphical frontend

9.13. Configuring the BIOS DMI information

10. VirtualBox programming interfaces

11. Troubleshooting

11.1. General

11.1.1. Collecting debugging information
11.1.2. Guest shows IDE errors for VDI on slow host file system
11.1.3. Responding to guest IDE flush requests

11.2. Windows guests

11.2.1. Windows boot failures (bluescreens) after changing VM configuration
11.2.2. Windows 2000 installation failures
11.2.3. How to record bluescreen information from Windows guests
11.2.4. No networking in Windows Vista guests
11.2.5. Windows guests may cause a high CPU load

11.3. Linux guests

11.3.1. Linux guests may cause a high CPU load
11.3.2. AMD Barcelona CPUs

11.4. Windows hosts

11.4.1. VBoxSVC out-of-process COM server issues
11.4.2. CD/DVD changes not recognized
11.4.3. Sluggish response when using Microsoft RDP client
11.4.4. Running an iSCSI initiator and target on a single system

11.5. Linux hosts

11.5.1. Linux kernel module refuses to load
11.5.2. Linux host CD/DVD drive not found
11.5.3. Linux host CD/DVD drive not found (older distributions)
11.5.4. Linux host floppy not found
11.5.5. Strange guest IDE error messages when writing to CD/DVD
11.5.6. VBoxSVC IPC issues
11.5.7. USB not working
11.5.8. PAX/grsec kernels
11.5.9. Linux kernel vmalloc pool exhausted

12. Change log

12.1. Version 2.0.4 (2008-10-24)
12.2. Version 2.0.2 (2008-09-12)
12.3. Version 2.0.0 (2008-09-04)
12.4. Version 1.6.6 (2008-08-26)
12.5. Version 1.6.4 (2008-07-30)
12.6. Version 1.6.2 (2008-05-28)
12.7. Version 1.6.0 (2008-04-30)
12.8. Version 1.5.6 (2008-02-19)
12.9. Version 1.5.4 (2007-12-29)
12.10. Version 1.5.2 (2007-10-18)
12.11. Version 1.5.0 (2007-08-31)
12.12. Version 1.4.0 (2007-06-06)
12.13. Version 1.3.8 (2007-03-14)
12.14. Version 1.3.6 (2007-02-20)
12.15. Version 1.3.4 (2007-02-12)
12.16. Version 1.3.2 (2007-01-15)
12.17. Version 1.2.4 (2006-11-16)
12.18. Version 1.2.2 (2006-11-14)
12.19. Version 1.1.12 (2006-11-14)
12.20. Version 1.1.10 (2006-07-28)
12.21. Version 1.1.8 (2006-07-17)
12.22. Version 1.1.6 (2006-04-18)
12.23. Version 1.1.4 (2006-03-09)
12.24. Version 1.1.2 (2006-02-03)
12.25. Version 1.0.50 (2005-12-16)
12.26. Version 1.0.48 (2005-11-23)
12.27. Version 1.0.46 (2005-11-04)
12.28. Version 1.0.44 (2005-10-25)
12.29. Version 1.0.42 (2005-08-30)
12.30. Version 1.0.40 (2005-06-17)
12.31. Version 1.0.39 (2005-05-05)
12.32. Version 1.0.38 (2005-04-27)
12.33. Version 1.0.37 (2005-04-12)

13. Known issues

A. Third-party licenses

A.1. Materials

A.2. Licenses

A.2.1. GNU General Public License (GPL)
A.2.2. GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
A.2.3. Mozilla Public License (MPL)
A.2.4. X Consortium License (X11)
A.2.5. zlib license
A.2.6. OpenSSL license
A.2.7. Slirp license
A.2.8. liblzf license
A.2.9. libpng license
A.2.10. lwIP license
A.2.11. libxml license
A.2.12. libxslt licenses
A.2.13. gSOAP Public License Version 1.3a

B. VirtualBox privacy policy