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R
Sun VirtualBox
User Manual
Version 3.0.0
c 2004-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
http://www.virtualbox.org
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Contents 1 Introduction 9 1.1 Virtualization basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.2 Software vs. hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMDV) - . . . . . . . . . 11 1.3 Features overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.4 Supported host operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 1.5 Supported guest operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 1.6 64-bit guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Contents 3.4.2 Changing removable media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3.4.3 Saving the state of the machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3.4.4 Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 3.5 The Virtual Disk Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 3.6 Deleting virtual machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 3.7 Virtual machine settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 3.7.
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Contents 5.5 iSCSI servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 5.5.1 Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking . . . . . . . . . . . 80 6 Virtualnetworking 82 6.1 Virtual networking hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 6.2 Introduction to networking modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 6.3 “Not attached” mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 6.4 Network Address Translation (NAT) . . . . . . . . .
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Contents 8.14 VBoxManage createhd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117 8.15 VBoxManage modifyhd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118 8.16 VBoxManage clonehd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118 8.17 VBoxManage convertfromraw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119 8.18 VBoxManage addiscsidisk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 8.19 VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Contents 11 Troubleshooting 144 11.1 General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144 11.1.1 Collecting debugging information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144 11.1.2 Guest shows IDE errors for VDI on slow host file system . . . . .144 11.1.3 Responding to guest IDE flush requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145 11.2 Windows guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146 11.2.1 Windows bluescreens after changing VM configuration . . . . .
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Contents 12.10Version 2.0.4 (2008-10-24) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174 12.11Version 2.0.2 (2008-09-12) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176 12.12Version 2.0.0 (2008-09-04) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178 12.13Version 1.6.6 (2008-08-26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179 12.14Version 1.6.4 (2008-07-30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .180 12.15Version 1.6.2 (2008-05-28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Contents 14.2.7 Slirp license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239 14.2.8 liblzf license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239 14.2.9 libpng license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .240 14.2.10lwIP license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .240 14.2.11libxml license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241 14.2.12libxslt licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241
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1 Introduction Sun VirtualBox is a collection of powerful virtual machine tools, targeting desktop computers, enterprise servers and embedded systems. With VirtualBox, you can virtu- alize32-bitand64-bitoperatingsystemsonmachineswithIntelandAMDprocessors, either by using hardware virtualization features provided by these processors or even entirely in software, at your option. You can find a brief feature overview in chapter 1.3, Features overview, page 13; see chapter 12, Change log, page 155 fo
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1 Introduction ground, however, VirtualBox intercepts certain operations that the guest performs to make sure that the guest does not interfere with other programs on the host. The techniques and features that VirtualBox provides are useful for several scenar- ios: • Operating system support. With VirtualBox, one can run software written for one operating system on another (for example, Windows software on Linux) without having to reboot to use it. You can even install an old operating system su
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1 Introduction performance of the guest code on your machine, we had to go through a lot of optimizations that are specific to certain operating systems. So while your favorite operating system may run as a guest, we officially support and optimize for a select few (which, however, include the most common ones). See chapter 1.5, Supported guest operating systems, page 17 for further informa- tion. Virtualmachine(VM). When running, a VM is the special environment that VirtualBox creates for your gu
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1 Introduction There are two ways in which VirtualBox can achieve virtualization: either entirely in software or, with newer processors, using certain hardware features. • Forsomeyears,IntelandAMDprocessorshavehadsupportforso-called “hard- ware virtualization”. This means that these processors aid virtualization soft- ware such as VirtualBox in intercepting potentially dangerous operations that a guestoperatingsystemmaybeattemptingandinpresentingvirtualhardwareto a virtual machine. These hardwar
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1 Introduction Warning: Do not run other hypervisors (open-source or commercial virtu- alization products) together with VirtualBox! While several hypervisors can normally be installed in parallel, do not attempt to run several virtual ma- chines from competing hypervisors at thesame time. VirtualBox cannot track what another hypervisor is currently attempting to do on the same host, and especially if several products attempt to use hardware virtualization features such as VT-x, this can crash t
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1 Introduction • Clean architecture; unprecedented modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a clean separationofclientandservercode. Thismakesiteasytocontrolitfromseveral interfaces at once: for example, you can start a VM simply by clicking on a button in the VirtualBox graphical user interface and then control that machine from the command line, or even remotely. See chapter 7, Alternative front-ends; remote virtual machines, p
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1 Introduction – Full ACPI support. The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is fully supported by VirtualBox. This eases cloning of PC images fromrealmachinesorthird-partyvirtualmachinesintoVirtualBox. Withits unique ACPI power status support, VirtualBox can even report to ACPI- aware guest operating systems the power status of the host. For mobile systems running on battery, the guest can thus enable energy saving and notify the user of the remaining power (e.g. in fullscreen modes
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1 Introduction 1.4 Supportedhostoperatingsystems Currently, VirtualBox is available for the following host operating systems: • Windows hosts: – Windows XP, all service packs (32-bit) – Windows Server 2003 (32-bit) 2 – Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit ). – Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit) – Windows 7 beta (32-bit and 64-bit) • Apple Mac OS X hosts: Intel hardware is required, all versions of Mac OS X 3 supported; please see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 213 also. 4 • Linux hosts (32
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1 Introduction 1.5 Supportedguestoperatingsystems Since VirtualBox is designed to provide a generic virtualization environment for x86 systems, it may run operating systems of any kind, even those that are not officially supported by Sun Microsystems. However, our focus is to optimize the product’s per- formance for a select list of guest systems: WindowsNT4.0 All versions/editions and service packs are fully supported; how- ever, there are some issues with older service packs. We recommend to in
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1 Introduction 1.6 64-bitguests Starting with Version 2.0, VirtualBox also supports 64-bit guest operating systems. Starting with Version 2.1, you can even run 64-bit guests on a 32-bit host operating system, so long as you have sufficient hardware. In particular, 64-bit guests are supported under the following conditions: 1. You need a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization support (see chapter 1.2, Software vs. hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMDV) - , page 11). 2. You must enable hard
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2 Installation As installation of VirtualBox varies depending on your host operating system, we pro- vide installation instructions in four separate chapters for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris, respectively. 2.1 InstallingonWindowshosts 2.1.1 Prerequisites ForthevariousversionsofWindowsthatwesupportashostoperatingsystems,please refer to chapter 1.4, Supported host operating systems, page 16. In addition, Windows Installer 1.1 or higher must be present on your system. This should be the cas
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2 Installation Networking This package contains extra networking drivers for your Windows host that VirtualBox needs to support Host Interface Networking (to make your VM’s virtualnetworkcardsaccessiblefromothermachinesonyourphysicalnetwork). DependingonyourWindowsconfiguration, youmayseewarningsabout“unsigned drivers”orsimilar. Pleaseselect“Continue”onthesewarningsasotherwiseVirtualBox might not function correctly after installation. The installer will create a “VirtualBox” group in the programs
