VirtualBox
Sun Microsystems' Virtual Box is a family of virtual
machine products targeting desktop computers, enterprise servers and
embedded systems.
The software is being actively developed with
frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported
guest operating systems and
platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a
dedicated company.
There are two versions of the VirtualBox software. The
full VirtualBox package is released under a proprietary license which
allows using the software free-of-charge for personal and educational
use and evaluation of the product. The VirtualBox Open Source Edition
(OSE) is the edition which has been released under a freely
distribuable license and comes with complete source
code. It is functionally equivalent to the full VirtualBox package,
except for a few features that target enterprise customers.
VirtualBox allows you to run each of your guest
operating systems on its own virtual computer system, which is called a
"virtual machine" (VM). The guest system will run in its VM as if it
were installed on a real computer, according to the VM settings you
have specified. All software running on the guest system does so as it
would on a real machine.
There is considerable latitude in deciding what virtual
hardware will be provided to the guest. VirtualBox comes with
a graphical user interface which greatly simplifies this process. Below
we have two screenshots giving a flavour of the customization options
that are available.
VirtualBox works on any PC with an x86 architecture.
The software supports Intel's hardware virtualization VT-x and has
experimental support for AMD's AMD-V, but does not use either of them
by default. The software comes with special drivers for the Windows
host that enables full USB support inside a virtual machine, and extra networking
drivers to support Host Interface Networking.
To make full use of the system users must install the
Linux Guest addition. The Guest Additions are designed to be installed
inside a virtual machine. They consist of device drivers and system
applications
for the guest operating system that optimize the guest for better
performance and usability. Specifically, they provide better video
support, time synchronization, shared folders, mouse pointer
integration, and seamless windows. For example, without the guest
addition being installed the desktop resolution is limited to only
800x600.
Fortunately, installation of the Linux Guest addition is
a breeze; it only involves the following steps.
sudo apt-get install dkms
mount the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso
run sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
Both of the above screenshows show VirtualBox in action with Ubuntu
8.10 as the guest operating ststem. We have the popular
Firefox, Rhythmbox (an integrated music management application), and
OpenOffice running in the first screenshot,
and GIMP, Freecell (solitaire card game), OpenOffice (again), with a
dialog box ironically proclaiming no proprietary drivers are in use on
this system (although,
of course, it is being run under XP) in the second.
The performance of VirtualBox is very good, and is
roughly on a par with VMware. Networking is fast, audio works
out of the box, the software is stable, and the graphics performance is
sufficient for the majority of tasks. VirtualBox is a very
impressive piece of virtualization software.
Features include:
- Modularity. VirtualBox has a modular design with
internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes
it easy to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you
can start a virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then
control that machine from the command line, or even remotely
- Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The
configuration
settings of virtual machines are stored entirely in XML and are
independent of the local machines. Virtual machine definitions can
therefore easily be ported to other computers
- Guest Additions for Windows and Linux. VirtualBox has
software that can be installed inside Windows and Linux virtual
machines to improve performance and make integration much more seamless
- Shared folders.VirtualBox allows for declaring
certain host
directories as 'shared folders', which can then be accessed from within
virtual machines
- Virtual USB Controllers. VirtualBox implements a
virtual
USB controller and allows you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your
virtual machines without having to install device specific drivers on
the host
Closed-source features
- Supports the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). A virtual
machine can act as an RDP server, allowing you to "run" the virtual
machine remotely on some thin client that merely displays the RDP data
- USB over RDP. With this feature, a virtual machine
that
acts as an RDP server can still access arbitrary USB devices that are
connected on the RDP client
- iSCSI initiator - contains a builtin iSCSI initiator
making it possible to use iSCSI targets as virtual disks without the
guest requiring support for iSCSI
- Serial ATA controller
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