VirtualBox

From Docunext Technology Wiki

VirtualBox is a virtualization system for running virtual machines, it is produced by Oracle. I haven't tried it in awhile, but since Sun is continuing to release it under the GPL, I'd like to try it again.

VirtualBox on Debian

apt-get install virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.26-1-openvz-amd64
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  linux-image-2.6.26-1-openvz-amd64
Suggested packages:
  linux-doc-2.6.26
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  linux-image-2.6.26-1-openvz-amd64 virtualbox-ose-modules-2.6.26-1-openvz-amd64
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 79 not upgraded.
Need to get 45.4kB/21.1MB of archives.
After this operation, 84.9MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

I'm glad that Lenny includes a package for virtualbox modules that is compatible with another Lenny package that I need - an OpenVZ Kernel! That installed OK, now I'm installing virtualbox-ose:

apt-get install virtualbox-ose
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libaudio2 libdrm2 libgl1-mesa-glx libglu1-mesa libidl0 libmng1 libqt3-mt libxmu6 libxxf86vm1
Suggested packages:
  nas libqt3-mt-mysql libqt3-mt-odbc libqt3-mt-psql virtualbox-ose-source
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libaudio2 libdrm2 libgl1-mesa-glx libglu1-mesa libidl0 libmng1 libqt3-mt libxmu6 libxxf86vm1 virtualbox-ose
0 upgraded, 10 newly installed, 0 to remove and 79 not upgraded.
Need to get 11.3MB/11.6MB of archives.
After this operation, 35.1MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

Grrr...:

# virtualbox
Qt WARNING: VirtualBox: cannot connect to X server

Can this be used with VNC, like QEMU and KVM? YES! No problem, it was a piece of cake with tightvncserver. I'm trying out Nexenta, hopefully it will run OK!

Networking

Need to use bridge-utils. This works for me, just had to do:

VBoxAddIF vbox0 root br0

(I'm running the vm as root - bad docunext!)

Then on the VirtualBox gui for my vm, I selected host interface, and entered vbox0. (This is described on the Debian Wiki!)

Network Device Emulators

The VirtualBox open source edition doesn't include the e1000 (doh), and I'm having trouble getting OpenWRT to recognize the AMD PC Network interface. Grrr. Is is supported? *

Releasing the mouse

Right arrow key -> and the CNTL key.

Error message: VirtualBox can't operate in VMX root mode.

/etc/init.d/kvm stop

Thanks: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-975007.html

Virtual Box Guest Tools

When running an Ubuntu guest on a Windows host, a colleague suggested I install the VirtualBox guest tools to improve performance. I did - it involved running a script that compiled some custom kernel modules, which afterwards made perfect sense.

The logic behind installing custom virtualization tools on guests was supported by the fact that VMWare has guest tools too.

Links

VirtualBox

From Docunext Technology Wiki

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