Oracle's VirtualBox
from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox
Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox)
is a hypervisor for x86 computers from Oracle Corporation. Developed initially by Innotek GmbH,
it was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008 which was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2010.
VirtualBox may be installed on a number of host operating systems,
including: Linux, OS X, Windows Vista, Solaris, and OpenSolaris. There are also ports to FreeBSD[4] and Genode.[5]
It supports the creation and management of guest virtual machines running versions and derivations of
Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, Solaris, Haiku, OSx86 and others,[6] and limited virtualization of OS X guests on Apple hardware.[7][8]
For some guest operating systems, a "Guest Additions" package of device drivers and system applications is
available[9][10] which typically improves performance, especially of graphics.[11]
Original author(s) Innotek GmbH
Developer(s) Oracle Corporation
Initial release 15 January 2007; 8 years ago
Stable release 5.0.6[1] (2 October 2015; 3 days ago) [±]
Written in C, C++, x86 Assembly
Operating system Windows, OS X, Linux and Solaris[2]
Size 61–112 MB depending on platform[3]
Type Hypervisor
License Base Package (USB support only for USB 1.1): GNU General Public License version 2 (Optionally CDDL for most files of the source distribution), "Extension Pack" (including USB 3.0 support): PUEL
Website www.virtualbox.org
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch02.html
etc...
Table of Contents
1. First steps
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html
1.1. Why is virtualization useful?
1.2. Some terminology
1.3. Features overview
1.4. Supported host operating systems
1.5. Installing VirtualBox and extension packs
1.6. Starting VirtualBox
1.7. Creating your first virtual machine
1.8. Running your virtual machine
1.8.1. Starting a new VM for the first time
1.8.2. Capturing and releasing keyboard and mouse
1.8.3. Typing special characters
1.8.4. Changing removable media
1.8.5. Resizing the machine's window
1.8.6. Saving the state of the machine
1.9. Using VM groups
1.10. Snapshots
1.10.1. Taking, restoring and deleting snapshots
1.10.2. Snapshot contents
1.11. Virtual machine configuration
1.12. Removing virtual machines
1.13. Cloning virtual machines
1.14. Importing and exporting virtual machines
1.15. Global Settings
1.16. Alternative front-ends
2. Installation details
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch02.html
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. Performing the installation
2.3.4. The vboxusers group
2.3.5. Starting VirtualBox on Linux
2.4. Installing on Solaris hosts
2.4.1. Performing the installation
2.4.2. The vboxuser group
2.4.3. Starting VirtualBox on Solaris
2.4.4. Uninstallation
2.4.5. Unattended installation
2.4.6. Configuring a zone for running VirtualBox
3. Configuring virtual machines
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html
3.1. Supported guest operating systems
3.1.1. Mac OS X guests
3.1.2. 64-bit guests
3.2. Emulated hardware
3.3. General settings
3.3.1. "Basic" tab
3.3.2. "Advanced" tab
3.3.3. "Description" tab
3.4. System settings
3.4.1. "Motherboard" tab
3.4.2. "Processor" tab
3.4.3. "Acceleration" tab
3.5. Display settings
3.6. Storage settings
3.7. Audio settings
3.8. Network settings
3.9. Serial ports
3.10. USB support
3.10.1. USB settings
3.10.2. Implementation notes for Windows and Linux hosts
3.11. Shared folders
3.12. Alternative firmware (EFI)
3.12.1. Video modes in EFI
3.12.2. Specifying boot arguments
4. Guest Additions
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Installing and Maintaining Guest Additions
4.2.1. Guest Additions for Windows
4.2.2. Guest Additions for Linux
4.2.3. Guest Additions for Solaris
4.2.4. Guest Additions for OS/2
4.3. Shared folders
4.3.1. Manual mounting
4.3.2. Automatic mounting
4.4. Drag'n Drop
4.4.1. Supported formats
4.5. Hardware-accelerated graphics
4.5.1. Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)
4.5.2. Hardware 2D video acceleration for Windows guests
4.6. Seamless windows
4.7. Guest properties
4.8. Guest control
4.9. Memory overcommitment
4.9.1. Memory ballooning
4.9.2. Page Fusion
5. Virtual storage
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch05.html
5.1. Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, USB MSC
5.2. Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD)
5.3. The Virtual Media Manager
5.4. Special image write modes
5.5. Differencing images
5.6. Cloning disk images
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch05.html#cloningvdis
5.7. Host I/O caching
5.8. Limiting bandwidth for disk images
5.9. CD/DVD support
5.10. iSCSI servers
6. Virtual networking
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch06.html
6.1. Virtual networking hardware
6.2. Introduction to networking modes
6.3. Network Address Translation (NAT)
6.3.1. Configuring port forwarding with NAT
6.3.2. PXE booting with NAT
6.3.3. NAT limitations
6.4. Network Address Translation Service (experimental)
6.5. Bridged networking
6.6. Internal networking
6.7. Host-only networking
6.8. UDP Tunnel networking
6.9. VDE networking
6.10. Limiting bandwidth for network I/O
6.11. Improving network performance
7. Remote virtual machines
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch07.html
7.1. Remote display (VRDP support)
7.1.1. Common third-party RDP viewers
7.1.2. VBoxHeadless, the remote desktop server
7.1.3. Step by step: creating a virtual machine on a headless server
7.1.4. Remote USB
7.1.5. RDP authentication
7.1.6. RDP encryption
7.1.7. Multiple connections to the VRDP server
7.1.8. Multiple remote monitors
7.1.9. VRDP video redirection
7.1.10. VRDP customization
7.2. Teleporting
8. VBoxManage
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html
8.1. Introduction
8.2. Commands overview
8.3. General options
8.4. VBoxManage list
8.5. VBoxManage showvminfo
8.6. VBoxManage registervm / unregistervm
8.7. VBoxManage createvm
8.8. VBoxManage modifyvm
8.8.1. General settings
8.8.2. Networking settings
8.8.3. Miscellaneous settings
8.8.4. Video Capture settings
8.8.5. Remote machine settings
8.8.6. Teleporting settings
8.8.7. Debugging settings
8.9. VBoxManage clonevm
8.10. VBoxManage import
8.11. VBoxManage export
8.12. VBoxManage startvm
8.13. VBoxManage controlvm
8.14. VBoxManage discardstate
8.15. VBoxManage adoptstate
8.16. VBoxManage snapshot
8.17. VBoxManage closemedium
8.18. VBoxManage storageattach
8.19. VBoxManage storagectl
8.20. VBoxManage bandwidthctl
8.21. VBoxManage showhdinfo
8.22. VBoxManage createhd
8.23. VBoxManage modifyhd
8.24. VBoxManage clonehd
8.25. VBoxManage convertfromraw
8.26. VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata
8.27. VBoxManage setproperty
8.28. VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove
8.29. VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove
8.30. VBoxManage guestproperty
8.31. VBoxManage guestcontrol
8.32. VBoxManage metrics
8.33. VBoxManage hostonlyif
8.34. VBoxManage dhcpserver
8.35. VBoxManage debugvm
8.36. VBoxManage extpack
9. Advanced topics
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html
9.1. VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer
9.1.1. Introduction
9.1.2. Secure labeling with VBoxSDL
9.1.3. Releasing modifiers with VBoxSDL on Linux
9.2. Automated guest logons
9.2.1. Automated Windows guest logons
9.2.2. Automated Linux/Unix guest logons
9.3. Advanced configuration for Windows guests
9.3.1. Automated Windows system preparation
9.4. Advanced configuration for Linux and Solaris guests
9.4.1. Manual setup of selected guest services on Linux
9.4.2. Guest graphics and mouse driver setup in depth
9.5. CPU hot-plugging
9.6. PCI passthrough
9.7. Webcam passthrough
9.7.1. Using a host webcam in the guest
9.7.2. Windows hosts
9.7.3. Mac OS X hosts
9.7.4. Linux and Solaris hosts
9.8. Advanced display configuration
9.8.1. Custom VESA resolutions
9.8.2. Configuring the maximum resolution of guests when using the graphical frontend
9.9. Advanced storage configuration
9.9.1. Using a raw host hard disk from a guest
9.9.2. Configuring the hard disk vendor product data (VPD)
9.9.3. Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking
9.10. Legacy commands for using serial ports
9.11. Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine
9.11.1. Configuring the address of a NAT network interface
9.11.2. Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network interface
9.11.3. Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT
9.11.4. Binding NAT sockets to a specific interface
9.11.5. Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode
9.11.6. Using the host's resolver as a DNS proxy in NAT mode
9.11.7. Configuring aliasing of the NAT engine
9.12. Configuring the BIOS DMI information
9.13. Configuring the custom ACPI table
9.14. Fine-tuning timers and time synchronization
9.14.1. Configuring the guest time stamp counter (TSC) to reflect guest execution
9.14.2. Accelerate or slow down the guest clock
9.14.3. Tuning the Guest Additions time synchronization parameters
9.14.4. Disabling the Guest Additions time synchronization
9.15. Installing the alternate bridged networking driver on Solaris 11 hosts
9.16. VirtualBox VNIC templates for VLANs on Solaris 11 hosts
9.17. Configuring multiple host-only network interfaces on Solaris hosts
9.18. Configuring the VirtualBox CoreDumper on Solaris hosts
9.19. VirtualBox and Solaris kernel zones
9.20. Locking down the VirtualBox manager GUI
9.20.1. Customizing the VM manager
9.20.2. VM selector customization
9.20.3. Configure VM selector menu entries
9.20.4. Configure VM window menu entries
9.20.5. Configure VM window status bar entries
9.20.6. Configure VM window visual modes
9.20.7. Host Key customization
9.20.8. Action when terminating the VM
9.20.9. Action for handling a Guru Meditation
9.20.10. Configuring automatic mouse capturing
9.20.11. Configuring automatic mouse capturing
9.20.12. Requesting legacy full-screen mode
9.21. Starting the VirtualBox web service automatically
9.21.1. Linux: starting the webservice via init
9.21.2. Solaris: starting the web service via SMF
9.21.3. Mac OS X: starting the webservice via launchd
9.22. VirtualBox Watchdog
9.22.1. Memory ballooning control
9.22.2. Host isolation detection
9.22.3. More information
9.22.4. Linux: starting the watchdog service via init
9.22.5. Solaris: starting the watchdog service via SMF
9.23. Other extension packs
9.24. Starting virtual machines during system boot
9.24.1. Linux: starting the autostart service via init
9.24.2. Solaris: starting the autostart service via SMF
9.24.3. Mac OS X: starting the autostart service via launchd
9.25. VirtualBox expert storage management
9.26. Handling of host power management events
9.27. Experimental support for passing through SSE4.1 / SSE4.2 instructions
9.28. Support for keyboard indicators synchronization
9.29. Capturing USB traffic for selected devices
9.30. Configuring the heartbeat service
9.31. Encryption of disk images
9.31.1. Limitations
9.31.2. Encrypting disk images
9.31.3. Starting a VM with encrypted images
9.31.4. Decrypting encrypted images
10. Technical background
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch10.html
10.1. Where VirtualBox stores its files
10.1.1. Machines created by VirtualBox version 4.0 or later
10.1.2. Machines created by VirtualBox versions before 4.0
10.1.3. Global configuration data
10.1.4. Summary of 4.0 configuration changes
10.1.5. VirtualBox XML files
10.2. VirtualBox executables and components
10.3. Hardware vs. software virtualization
10.4. Paravirtualization providers
10.5. Details about software virtualization
10.6. Details about hardware virtualization
10.7. Nested paging and VPIDs
11. VirtualBox programming interfaces
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch11.html
12. Troubleshooting
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch12.html
12.1. Procedures and tools
12.1.1. Categorizing and isolating problems
12.1.2. Collecting debugging information
12.1.3. The built-in VM debugger
12.1.4. VM core format
12.2. General
12.2.1. Guest shows IDE/SATA errors for file-based images on slow host file system
12.2.2. Responding to guest IDE/SATA flush requests
12.2.3. Performance variation with frequency boosting
12.2.4. Frequency scaling effect on CPU usage
12.2.5. Inaccurate Windows CPU usage reporting
12.2.6. Poor performance caused by host power management
12.2.7. GUI: 2D Video Acceleration option is grayed out
12.3. Windows guests
12.3.1. Windows bluescreens after changing VM configuration
12.3.2. Windows 0x101 bluescreens with SMP enabled (IPI timeout)
12.3.3. Windows 2000 installation failures
12.3.4. How to record bluescreen information from Windows guests
12.3.5. No networking in Windows Vista guests
12.3.6. Windows guests may cause a high CPU load
12.3.7. Long delays when accessing shared folders
12.3.8. USB tablet coordinates wrong in Windows 98 guests
12.3.9. Windows guests are removed from an Active Directory domain after restoring a snapshot
12.3.10. Restoring d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll
12.3.11. Windows 3.x limited to 64 MB RAM
12.4. Linux and X11 guests
12.4.1. Linux guests may cause a high CPU load
12.4.2. AMD Barcelona CPUs
12.4.3. Buggy Linux 2.6 kernel versions
12.4.4. Shared clipboard, auto-resizing and seamless desktop in X11 guests
12.5. Solaris guests
12.5.1. Older Solaris 10 releases crash in 64-bit mode
12.5.2. Solaris 8 5/01 and earlier may crash on startup
12.6. FreeBSD guests
12.6.1. FreeBSD 10.0 may hang with xHCI
12.7. Windows hosts
12.7.1. VBoxSVC out-of-process COM server issues
12.7.2. CD/DVD changes not recognized
12.7.3. Sluggish response when using Microsoft RDP client
12.7.4. Running an iSCSI initiator and target on a single system
12.7.5. Bridged networking adapters missing
12.7.6. Host-only networking adapters cannot be created
12.8. Linux hosts
12.8.1. Linux kernel module refuses to load
12.8.2. Linux host CD/DVD drive not found
12.8.3. Linux host CD/DVD drive not found (older distributions)
12.8.4. Linux host floppy not found
12.8.5. Strange guest IDE error messages when writing to CD/DVD
12.8.6. VBoxSVC IPC issues
12.8.7. USB not working
12.8.8. PAX/grsec kernels
12.8.9. Linux kernel vmalloc pool exhausted
12.9. Solaris hosts
12.9.1. Cannot start VM, not enough contiguous memory
12.9.2. VM aborts with out of memory errors on Solaris 10 hosts
13. Security guide
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch13.html
13.1. General Security Principles
13.2. Secure Installation and Configuration
13.2.1. Installation Overview
13.2.2. Post Installation Configuration
13.3. Security Features
13.3.1. The Security Model
13.3.2. Secure Configuration of Virtual Machines
13.3.3. Configuring and Using Authentication
13.3.4. Potentially insecure operations
13.3.5. Encryption
14. Known limitations
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch14.html
14.1. Experimental Features
14.2. Known Issues
15. Change log
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch15.html
15.1. Version 5.0.6 (2015-10-02)
15.2. Version 5.0.4 (2015-09-08)
15.3. Version 5.0.2 (2015-08-13)
15.4. Version 5.0.0 (2015-07-09)
15.5. Version 4.3.28 (2015-05-13)
15.6. Version 4.3.26 (2015-03-16)
15.7. Version 4.3.24 (2015-03-02)
15.8. Version 4.3.22 (2015-02-12)
15.9. Version 4.3.20 (2014-11-21)
15.10. Version 4.3.18 (2014-10-10)
15.11. Version 4.3.16 (2014-09-09)
15.12. Version 4.3.14 (2014-07-15)
15.13. Version 4.3.12 (2014-05-16)
15.14. Version 4.3.10 (2014-03-26)
15.15. Version 4.3.8 (2014-02-25)
15.16. Version 4.3.6 (2013-12-18)
15.17. Version 4.3.4 (2013-11-29)
15.18. Version 4.3.2 (2013-11-01)
15.19. Version 4.3.0 (2013-10-15)
15.20. Older Change log details
A. Third-party materials and 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. MIT License
A.2.5. X Consortium License (X11)
A.2.6. zlib license
A.2.7. OpenSSL license
A.2.8. Slirp license
A.2.9. liblzf license
A.2.10. libpng license
A.2.11. lwIP license
A.2.12. libxml license
A.2.13. libxslt licenses
A.2.14. gSOAP Public License Version 1.3a
A.2.15. Chromium licenses
A.2.16. curl license
A.2.17. libgd license
A.2.18. BSD license from Intel
A.2.19. libjpeg License
A.2.20. x86 SIMD extension for IJG JPEG library license
A.2.21. FreeBSD license
A.2.22. NetBSD license
A.2.23. PCRE license
A.2.24. libffi license
A.2.25. FLTK license
A.2.26. Expat license
A.2.27. Fontconfig license
A.2.28. Freetype license
A.2.29. VPX License
B. VirtualBox privacy information
Glossary
List of Tables
9.1. Host Key customization
9.2. Web service configuration parameters
9.3. VirtualBox watchdog configuration parameters
10.1. Configuration changes in version 4.0 or above
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