Document Outline

• 1 First steps
  • 1.1 Why is virtualization useful?
  • 1.2 Some terminology
  • 1.3 Features overview
  • 1.4 Supported host operating systems
  • 1.5 Installing and starting VirtualBox
  • 1.6 Creating your first virtual machine
  • 1.7 Running your virtual machine
    • 1.7.1 Keyboard and mouse support in virtual machines
    • 1.7.2 Changing removable media
    • 1.7.3 Saving the state of the machine
  • 1.8 Snapshots
  • 1.9 Virtual machine configuration
  • 1.10 Deleting virtual machines
  • 1.11 Importing and exporting virtual machines
• 2 Installation details
  • 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 Configuring virtual machines
  • 3.1 Supported guest operating systems
  • 3.2 64-bit guests
  • 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: hardware vs. software virtualization
  • 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)
• 4 Guest Additions
  • 4.1 Introduction
  • 4.2 Versions
  • 4.3 Windows Guest Additions
    • 4.3.1 Installing the Windows Guest Additions
    • 4.3.2 Updating the Windows Guest Additions
    • 4.3.3 Unattended Installation
    • 4.3.4 Manual file extraction
    • 4.3.5 Windows Vista networking
  • 4.4 Linux Guest Additions
    • 4.4.1 Installing the Linux Guest Additions
    • 4.4.2 Video acceleration and high resolution graphics modes
    • 4.4.3 Updating the Linux Guest Additions
  • 4.5 Solaris Guest Additions
    • 4.5.1 Installing the Solaris Guest Additions
    • 4.5.2 Uninstalling the Solaris Guest Additions
    • 4.5.3 Updating the Solaris Guest Additions
  • 4.6 OS/2 Guest Additions
  • 4.7 Folder sharing
  • 4.8 Seamless windows
  • 4.9 Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)
  • 4.10 Hardware 2D video acceleration for Windows guests
  • 4.11 Guest properties
• 5 Virtual storage
  • 5.1 Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI
  • 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
  • 5.7 Writing CDs and DVDs using the host drive
  • 5.8 iSCSI servers
    • 5.8.1 Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking
• 6 Virtual networking
  • 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 Bridged networking
  • 6.5 Internal networking
  • 6.6 Host-only 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 Common third-party RDP viewers
    • 7.4.2 VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-only server
    • 7.4.3 Step by step: creating a virtual machine on a headless server
    • 7.4.4 Remote USB
    • 7.4.5 RDP authentication
    • 7.4.6 RDP encryption
    • 7.4.7 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 Networking settings
    • 8.5.3 Serial port, audio, clipboard, VRDP and USB settings
  • 8.6 VBoxManage import
  • 8.7 VBoxManage export
  • 8.8 VBoxManage startvm
  • 8.9 VBoxManage controlvm
  • 8.10 VBoxManage discardstate
  • 8.11 VBoxManage snapshot
  • 8.12 VBoxManage openmedium / closemedium
  • 8.13 VBoxManage storagectl / storageattach
    • 8.13.1 VBoxManage storagectl
    • 8.13.2 VBoxManage storageattach
  • 8.14 VBoxManage showhdinfo
  • 8.15 VBoxManage createhd
  • 8.16 VBoxManage modifyhd
  • 8.17 VBoxManage clonehd
  • 8.18 VBoxManage convertfromraw
  • 8.19 VBoxManage addiscsidisk
  • 8.20 VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata
  • 8.21 VBoxManage setproperty
  • 8.22 VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove
  • 8.23 VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove
  • 8.24 VBoxManage metrics
  • 8.25 VBoxManage guestproperty
  • 8.26 VBoxManage dhcpserver
• 9 Advanced topics
  • 9.1 VirtualBox configuration data
  • 9.2 Automated Windows guest logons
  • 9.3 Automated Windows system preparation
  • 9.4 Custom external VRDP authentication
  • 9.5 Secure labeling with VBoxSDL
  • 9.6 Custom VESA resolutions
  • 9.7 Multiple monitors for the guest
  • 9.8 Releasing modifiers with VBoxSDL on Linux
  • 9.9 Launching more than 120 VMs on Solaris hosts
  • 9.10 Using serial ports
  • 9.11 Using a raw host hard disk from a guest
    • 9.11.1 Access to entire physical hard disk
    • 9.11.2 Access to individual physical hard disk partitions
  • 9.12 Allowing a virtual machine to start even with unavailable CD/DVD/floppy devices
  • 9.13 Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine
    • 9.13.1 Configuring the address of a NAT network interface
    • 9.13.2 Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network interface
    • 9.13.3 Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT
    • 9.13.4 Binding NAT sockets to a specific interface
    • 9.13.5 Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode
    • 9.13.6 Using the host's resolver as a DNS proxy in NAT mode
  • 9.14 Configuring the maximum resolution of guests when using the graphical frontend
  • 9.15 Configuring the BIOS DMI information
  • 9.16 Configuring the guest time stamp counter (TSC) to reflect guest execution
  • 9.17 Configuring the hard disk vendor product data (VPD)
• 10 VirtualBox programming interfaces
• 11 Troubleshooting
  • 11.1 General
    • 11.1.1 Collecting debugging information
    • 11.1.2 Guest shows IDE/SATA errors for file-based images on slow host file system
    • 11.1.3 Responding to guest IDE/SATA flush requests
  • 11.2 Windows guests
    • 11.2.1 Windows bluescreens after changing VM configuration
    • 11.2.2 Windows 0x101 bluescreens with SMP enabled (IPI timeout)
    • 11.2.3 Windows 2000 installation failures
    • 11.2.4 How to record bluescreen information from Windows guests
    • 11.2.5 No networking in Windows Vista guests
    • 11.2.6 Windows guests may cause a high CPU load
  • 11.3 Linux and X11 guests
    • 11.3.1 Linux guests may cause a high CPU load
    • 11.3.2 AMD Barcelona CPUs
    • 11.3.3 Buggy Linux 2.6 kernel versions
    • 11.3.4 Shared clipboard, auto-resizing and seamless desktop in X11 guests
  • 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
  • 11.6 Solaris hosts
    • 11.6.1 Cannot start VM, not enough contiguous memory
    • 11.6.2 VM aborts with out of memory errors on Solaris 10 hosts
• 12 Change log
  • 12.1 Version 3.1.0 Beta 2 (2009-11-19)
  • 12.2 Version 3.0.12 (2009-11-10)
  • 12.3 Version 3.0.10 (2009-10-29)
  • 12.4 Version 3.0.8 (2009-10-02)
  • 12.5 Version 3.0.6 (2009-09-09)
  • 12.6 Version 3.0.4 (2009-08-04)
  • 12.7 Version 3.0.2 (2009-07-10)
  • 12.8 Version 3.0.0 (2009-06-30)
  • 12.9 Version 2.2.4 (2009-05-29)
  • 12.10 Version 2.2.2 (2009-04-27)
  • 12.11 Version 2.2.0 (2009-04-08)
  • 12.12 Version 2.1.4 (2009-02-16)
  • 12.13 Version 2.1.2 (2009-01-21)
  • 12.14 Version 2.1.0 (2008-12-17)
  • 12.15 Version 2.0.8 (2009-03-10)
  • 12.16 Version 2.0.6 (2008-11-21)
  • 12.17 Version 2.0.4 (2008-10-24)
  • 12.18 Version 2.0.2 (2008-09-12)
  • 12.19 Version 2.0.0 (2008-09-04)
  • 12.20 Version 1.6.6 (2008-08-26)
  • 12.21 Version 1.6.4 (2008-07-30)
  • 12.22 Version 1.6.2 (2008-05-28)
  • 12.23 Version 1.6.0 (2008-04-30)
  • 12.24 Version 1.5.6 (2008-02-19)
  • 12.25 Version 1.5.4 (2007-12-29)
  • 12.26 Version 1.5.2 (2007-10-18)
  • 12.27 Version 1.5.0 (2007-08-31)
  • 12.28 Version 1.4.0 (2007-06-06)
  • 12.29 Version 1.3.8 (2007-03-14)
  • 12.30 Version 1.3.6 (2007-02-20)
  • 12.31 Version 1.3.4 (2007-02-12)
  • 12.32 Version 1.3.2 (2007-01-15)
  • 12.33 Version 1.2.4 (2006-11-16)
  • 12.34 Version 1.2.2 (2006-11-14)
  • 12.35 Version 1.1.12 (2006-11-14)
  • 12.36 Version 1.1.10 (2006-07-28)
  • 12.37 Version 1.1.8 (2006-07-17)
  • 12.38 Version 1.1.6 (2006-04-18)
  • 12.39 Version 1.1.4 (2006-03-09)
  • 12.40 Version 1.1.2 (2006-02-03)
  • 12.41 Version 1.0.50 (2005-12-16)
  • 12.42 Version 1.0.48 (2005-11-23)
  • 12.43 Version 1.0.46 (2005-11-04)
  • 12.44 Version 1.0.44 (2005-10-25)
  • 12.45 Version 1.0.42 (2005-08-30)
  • 12.46 Version 1.0.40 (2005-06-17)
  • 12.47 Version 1.0.39 (2005-05-05)
  • 12.48 Version 1.0.38 (2005-04-27)
  • 12.49 Version 1.0.37 (2005-04-12)
• 13 Known limitations
• 14 Third-party licenses
  • 14.1 Materials
  • 14.2 Licenses
    • 14.2.1 GNU General Public License (GPL)
    • 14.2.2 GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
    • 14.2.3 Mozilla Public License (MPL)
    • 14.2.4 MIT License
    • 14.2.5 X Consortium License (X11)
    • 14.2.6 zlib license
    • 14.2.7 OpenSSL license
    • 14.2.8 Slirp license
    • 14.2.9 liblzf license
    • 14.2.10 libpng license
    • 14.2.11 lwIP license
    • 14.2.12 libxml license
    • 14.2.13 libxslt licenses
    • 14.2.14 gSOAP Public License Version 1.3a
    • 14.2.15 Chromium licenses
    • 14.2.16 curl license
• 15 VirtualBox privacy policy
• Glossary