Research Review of VirtualBox

By Vishal Thakur (17BIT0076)

Abstract –
VirtualBox is a free and open-source software, which allows usage of different operation
systems from remote or local virtual machines without changing the default operating system
or formatting the storage medium. Developed initially by Innotek but it was acquired by Sun
Microsystems in 2008, which was then acquired by Oracle in 2010. VirtualBox may be
installed on a number of hosts including Linux, macOS, Windows etc. It supports the creation
and management of guest virtual machines running versions and derivations
of Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, Solaris, Haiku, OSx86 and macOS.

Introduction –
Virtualization provides a cost-effective solution for delivering hands-on education remotely.
Various virtualization software packages are currently available. Virtual machines, or VMs,
have turned out to be necessary pieces of business-arranged figuring. A virtual machine goes
about as an emulator of a PC, executing programs like one.
VirtualBox a piece of software that allows you to run operating systems within. It can give an
organization adaptability, in that, any networking configurations or installed applications will
be set up separately from the host computer, but rather will dwell in the software.

Uses for VirtualBox –

Virtualisation technology emulates underlying hardware and therefore your guest operating
system (i.e. OS running inside a VM) is not aware that it is running on Virtualized hardware.
Furthermore, industry uses virtualisation technologies due to the following reasons
Snapshots - snapshots are point in time images of your VM, so if you goof up while you are
doing some changes and there is a high chance you will when you are learning, you can
revert to the pre-change snapshot.
Clones - easy way to duplicate your virtual machines
Different Networking adapters to suit the varying needs of your lab setup when you are
learning a new technology, for example if you want a completely isolated network try
internal network or if you need internet access try bridged and all variations in the middle.
Testing Software Compatibility without risk of permanent hardware damage – you can test
new network protocols and services like a caching server and test it using a virtual network of
VM’s that are interconnected through the same methods as real ones using virtual ports and
sockets. So, you can reduce chances of hardware damages during the testing phase.
How I used Virtual Box –
I used Virtual box to create a virtual network between two VMs, one running Ubuntu and
docker and the other running Windows, the ubuntu system was acting as a caching server for
various services like gaming services such as steam where the game will be downloaded only
once and after that it will be grabbed from the caching server using a dns wall that checks for
availability in the server before the internet. This resulted in speed gains of upwards of 10x
and is completely based on the networking hardware in place. I did not have proper
networking equipment or multiple machines to play with, but VirtualBox, as a free tool came
in handy with its easy setup and easy to use networking solutions.

Advantages of using VM’s on VirtualBox–

You can utilize different working framework situations on a similar PC.
When you make your virtual machine, you make a virtual hard disk. In this way, everything
on that machine can crash, however on the off chance that it does, it won't influence the host
machine.
There are security advantages to running virtual machines. For instance, in the event that you
have to run a use of faulty security, you can run it in a guest working framework. Along these
lines, in the event that the application causes harm, at that point it will be just transitory after
the guest is closed down. Virtual machines likewise consider better security crime scene
investigation by checking visitor working frameworks for lacks and enabling the client to
isolate it for examination.

Disadvantages of using VM’s on VirtualBox –

Virtual machines are less productive than genuine machines since they get to the equipment
by implication. Running programming over the host working framework implies that it
should ask for access to the equipment from the host. That will moderate the ease of use.
At the point when a few virtual machines are running on a similar host, execution might be
blocked if the PC it's running on needs adequate power. Your virtual machine still uses the
assets of your host machine. The more dominant the host PC, the more rapidly the virtual
machine will run.
A virtual machine can be contaminated with the shortcomings of the host machine. For
instance, process seclusion is a component typically utilized by working frameworks. In any
case, there are bugs that disregard it. A normal PC without virtual machines would then just
be influenced. However, a PC with various virtual machines would then taint each of those
"machines" too.
Merits of using VirtualBox over other Software’s –
File size – Smaller file size compared to alternatives like VMware. VirtualBox installations
generally are of around under 100 mb and usually around 70 mb, but the competing
software’s, such as VMware have installation sizes of upwards of 600MB
Ease of Installation – Ubuntu users can simply install VirtualBox from the repository. Simply
open the Synaptic Package Manager, check the VirtualBox and click Apply to install. For
another Linux distro, there is also Debian and rpm package available for download. For
VMware server, only if you like to compile and build the source code from command line.
Speed Advantage – The real advantage of VirtualBox over VMware server lies in its
performance. VirtualBox apparently runs faster than VMware server. A timed experiment of
an installation of Windows 7 as the guest OS took 20 mins in VirtualBox and 35 mins on
VMware server. A similar test on the booting time of the guest OS also shows favour to
VirtualBox with a timing of 45secs compared to 1min 39 secs on VMware server.
Guest Integration and Driver Support – After the complete installation of the guest operating
system, you can insert the guest add on virtual disk in the supported VM to install all
necessary display and basic drivers in one go. This makes the process of a new OS
installation pretty painless.
Remote File Sharing – While using VMware server, I had to install and configure Samba on
the Ubuntu host so as to access the files in the guest OS. In VirtualBox, the remote file
sharing feature is built right in the package. Setting up remote file sharing is easy and you
only need to do it once: point the file path to the directory that you want to share.
Integration with Host OS – In VirtualBox, there is this mode call ‘seamless mode ‘where you
can integrate the guest OS with the host OS. With this mode on, you can access the
applications from the guest OS right from the host’s desktop. There is no need for you to
traverse between the guest and the host. VMware server does not have this feature, although
you can find the ‘unity ‘mode that does the same thing in VMware Workstation.
Most Important of all, It is Completely free – Other alternatives to VirtualBox usually offer a
freeware version of their product for personal use but you have to use a licence to use it for
professional or organizational purposes.

Conclusion –
Both VirtualBox and VMware are viable virtualization solutions for educational
purposes. VirtualBox is free, lightweight, but somewhat feature-limited. If the user
needs to run multiple virtual machines concurrently on their personal computers in a
decentralized fashion, VirtualBox is a better choice because not everyone has a high-end
machine with a lot of memory and VirtualBox can easily run on even low-end hardware.
References –

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