Oracle VM

VirtualBox R
User Manual

Version 3.2.8
c 2004-2010 Oracle Corporation
http://www.virtualbox.org
Contents

1 First steps 10
1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 Features overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4 Supported host operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5 Installing and starting VirtualBox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.6 Creating your first virtual machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.7 Running your virtual machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1.7.1 Keyboard and mouse support in virtual machines . . . . . . . . . 22
1.7.2 Changing removable media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.7.3 Saving the state of the machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.8 Snapshots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.9 Virtual machine configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.10 Deleting virtual machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.11 Importing and exporting virtual machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.12 Alternative front-ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

2 Installation details 34
2.1 Installing on Windows hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.1.1 Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.1.2 Performing the installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.1.3 Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.1.4 Unattended installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2 Installing on Mac OS X hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.1 Performing the installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.2 Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.2.3 Unattended installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.3 Installing on Linux hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3.1 Prerequisites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3.2 The VirtualBox kernel module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3.3 USB and advanced networking support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.3.4 Performing the installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.3.5 Starting VirtualBox on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4 Installing on Solaris hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4.1 Performing the installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
2.4.2 Starting VirtualBox on Solaris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2.4.3 Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

2
 Contents

2.4.4 Unattended installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

2.4.5 Configuring a zone for running VirtualBox . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

3 Configuring virtual machines 47

3.1 Supported guest operating systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1.1 Mac OS X Server guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.1.2 64-bit guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2 Emulated hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3 General settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3.1 “Basic” tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.3.2 “Advanced” tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.3.3 “Description” tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.4 System settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.4.1 “Motherboard” tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.4.2 “Processor” tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4.3 “Acceleration” tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.5 Display settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6 Storage settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.7 Audio settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.8 Network settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.9 Serial ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.10 USB support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.10.1 USB settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.10.2 Implementation notes for Windows and Linux hosts . . . . . . . 62
3.11 Shared folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.12 Alternative firmware (EFI) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.12.1 Video modes in EFI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

4 Guest Additions 64
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.2 Installing and Maintaining Guest Additions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.1 Guest Additions for Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.2.2 Guest Additions for Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.2.3 Guest Additions for Solaris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
4.2.4 Guest Additions for OS/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.3 Shared folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.4 Seamless windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
4.5 Hardware-accelerated graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.5.1 Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9) . . . . . 79
4.5.2 Hardware 2D video acceleration for Windows guests . . . . . . . 81
4.6 Guest properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.7 Guest control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.8 Memory ballooning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.9 Page Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

3
 Contents

5 Virtual storage 87
5.1 Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.2 Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.3 The Virtual Media Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.4 Special image write modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.5 Differencing images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.6 Cloning disk images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.7 Disk images and I/O caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.8 CD/DVD drive operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.9 Writing CDs and DVDs using the host drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.10 iSCSI servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.10.1 Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking . . . . . . . . . . . 101

6 Virtual networking 103

6.1 Virtual networking hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.2 Introduction to networking modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
6.3 Network Address Translation (NAT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.3.1 Configuring port forwarding with NAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
6.3.2 PXE booting with NAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.3.3 NAT limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.4 Bridged networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
6.5 Internal networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.6 Host-only networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

7 Remote virtual machines 112

7.1 Remote display (VRDP support) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
7.1.1 Common third-party RDP viewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
7.1.2 VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-only server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
7.1.3 Step by step: creating a virtual machine on a headless server . . 114
7.1.4 Remote USB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.1.5 RDP authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.1.6 RDP encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.1.7 Multiple VRDP connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.1.8 Multiple remote monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.1.9 VRDP video redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7.2 Teleporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

8 VBoxManage 121
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8.2 Commands overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
8.3 VBoxManage list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
8.4 VBoxManage showvminfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.5 VBoxManage registervm / unregistervm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.6 VBoxManage createvm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.7 VBoxManage modifyvm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

4
 Contents

8.7.1 General settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

8.7.2 Networking settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
8.7.3 Serial port, audio, clipboard, VRDP and USB settings . . . . . . 137
8.7.4 Remote machine settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
8.7.5 Teleporting settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
8.8 VBoxManage import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
8.9 VBoxManage export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.10 VBoxManage startvm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
8.11 VBoxManage controlvm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
8.12 VBoxManage discardstate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
8.13 VBoxManage snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
8.14 VBoxManage openmedium / closemedium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
8.15 VBoxManage storagectl / storageattach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
8.15.1 VBoxManage storagectl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
8.15.2 VBoxManage storageattach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.16 VBoxManage showhdinfo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.17 VBoxManage createhd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.18 VBoxManage modifyhd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8.19 VBoxManage clonehd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8.20 VBoxManage convertfromraw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.21 VBoxManage addiscsidisk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.22 VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.23 VBoxManage setproperty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
8.24 VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
8.25 VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
8.26 VBoxManage metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
8.27 VBoxManage guestproperty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.28 VBoxManage guestcontrol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
8.29 VBoxManage dhcpserver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

9 Advanced topics 159

9.1 VirtualBox configuration data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
9.2 VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.2.2 Secure labeling with VBoxSDL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.2.3 Releasing modifiers with VBoxSDL on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.3 Automated guest logons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.3.1 Automated Windows guest logons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.3.2 Automated Linux/Unix guest logons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
9.4 Advanced configuration for Windows guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
9.4.1 Automated Windows system preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
9.5 CPU hot-plugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
9.6 Advanced display configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.6.1 Custom VESA resolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

5
 Contents

9.6.2 Configuring the maximum resolution of guests when using the

graphical frontend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
9.6.3 Custom external VRDP authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
9.7 Advanced storage configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
9.7.1 Using a raw host hard disk from a guest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
9.7.2 Configuring the hard disk vendor product data (VPD) . . . . . . 174
9.8 Launching more than 120 VMs on Solaris hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
9.9 Legacy commands for using serial ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
9.10 Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
9.10.1 Configuring the address of a NAT network interface . . . . . . . 175
9.10.2 Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network in-
terface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
9.10.3 Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
9.10.4 Binding NAT sockets to a specific interface . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
9.10.5 Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
9.10.6 Using the host’s resolver as a DNS proxy in NAT mode . . . . . . 177
9.10.7 Configuring aliasing of the NAT engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
9.11 Configuring the BIOS DMI information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
9.12 Fine-tuning timers and time synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
9.12.1 Configuring the guest time stamp counter (TSC) to reflect guest
execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
9.12.2 Accelerate or slow down the guest clock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
9.12.3 Tuning the Guest Additions time synchronization parameters . . 180
9.13 Configuring multiple host-only network interfaces on Solaris hosts . . . 180
9.14 Locking down the GUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

10 Technical background 183

10.1 VirtualBox executables and components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
10.2 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
10.3 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
10.4 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
10.5 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

11 VirtualBox programming interfaces 192

12 Troubleshooting 193
12.1 Procedures and tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
12.1.1 Categorizing and isolating problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
12.1.2 Collecting debugging information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
12.1.3 The built-in VM debugger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
12.2 General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
12.2.1 Guest shows IDE/SATA errors for file-based images on slow host
file system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
12.2.2 Responding to guest IDE/SATA flush requests . . . . . . . . . . . 198
12.3 Windows guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

6
 Contents

12.3.1 Windows bluescreens after changing VM configuration . . . . . 199

12.3.2 Windows 0x101 bluescreens with SMP enabled (IPI timeout) . . 199
12.3.3 Windows 2000 installation failures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
12.3.4 How to record bluescreen information from Windows guests . . 200
12.3.5 No networking in Windows Vista guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12.3.6 Windows guests may cause a high CPU load . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12.3.7 No audio in Windows Vista (64-bit) and Windows 7 guests . . . 201
12.3.8 Long delays when accessing shared folders . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12.4 Linux and X11 guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12.4.1 Linux guests may cause a high CPU load . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
12.4.2 AMD Barcelona CPUs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
12.4.3 Buggy Linux 2.6 kernel versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
12.4.4 Shared clipboard, auto-resizing and seamless desktop in X11
guests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
12.5 Windows hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
12.5.1 VBoxSVC out-of-process COM server issues . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
12.5.2 CD/DVD changes not recognized . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
12.5.3 Sluggish response when using Microsoft RDP client . . . . . . . 204
12.5.4 Running an iSCSI initiator and target on a single system . . . . . 204
12.6 Linux hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
12.6.1 Linux kernel module refuses to load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
12.6.2 Linux host CD/DVD drive not found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
12.6.3 Linux host CD/DVD drive not found (older distributions) . . . . 205
12.6.4 Linux host floppy not found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
12.6.5 Strange guest IDE error messages when writing to CD/DVD . . . 206
12.6.6 VBoxSVC IPC issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
12.6.7 USB not working . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
12.6.8 PAX/grsec kernels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
12.6.9 Linux kernel vmalloc pool exhausted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
12.7 Solaris hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
12.7.1 Cannot start VM, not enough contiguous memory . . . . . . . . 208
12.7.2 VM aborts with out of memory errors on Solaris 10 hosts . . . . 209

13 Known limitations 210

14 Change log 213

14.1 Version 3.2.8 (2010-08-05) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
14.2 Version 3.2.6 (2010-06-25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
14.3 Version 3.2.4 (2010-06-07) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
14.4 Version 3.2.2 (2010-06-02) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
14.5 Version 3.2.0 (2010-05-18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
14.6 Version 3.1.8 (2010-05-10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
14.7 Version 3.1.6 (2010-03-25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
14.8 Version 3.1.4 (2010-02-12) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
14.9 Version 3.1.2 (2009-12-17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

7
 Contents

14.10Version 3.1.0 (2009-11-30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

14.11Version 3.0.12 (2009-11-10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
14.12Version 3.0.10 (2009-10-29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
14.13Version 3.0.8 (2009-10-02) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
14.14Version 3.0.6 (2009-09-09) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
14.15Version 3.0.4 (2009-08-04) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
14.16Version 3.0.2 (2009-07-10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
14.17Version 3.0.0 (2009-06-30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
14.18Version 2.2.4 (2009-05-29) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
14.19Version 2.2.2 (2009-04-27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
14.20Version 2.2.0 (2009-04-08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
14.21Version 2.1.4 (2009-02-16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
14.22Version 2.1.2 (2009-01-21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
14.23Version 2.1.0 (2008-12-17) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
14.24Version 2.0.8 (2009-03-10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
14.25Version 2.0.6 (2008-11-21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
14.26Version 2.0.4 (2008-10-24) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
14.27Version 2.0.2 (2008-09-12) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
14.28Version 2.0.0 (2008-09-04) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

15 Third-party materials and licenses 267

15.1 Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
15.2 Licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
15.2.1 GNU General Public License (GPL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
15.2.2 GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
15.2.3 Mozilla Public License (MPL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
15.2.4 MIT License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
15.2.5 X Consortium License (X11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
15.2.6 zlib license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
15.2.7 OpenSSL license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
15.2.8 Slirp license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
15.2.9 liblzf license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
15.2.10libpng license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
15.2.11lwIP license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
15.2.12libxml license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
15.2.13libxslt licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
15.2.14gSOAP Public License Version 1.3a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
15.2.15Chromium licenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
15.2.16curl license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
15.2.17libgd license . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
15.2.18BSD license from Intel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
15.2.19libjpeg License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
15.2.20x86 SIMD extension for IJG JPEG library license . . . . . . . . . 306

16 VirtualBox privacy policy 307

8
 Contents

Glossary 308

9
1 First steps
Welcome to Oracle VM VirtualBox!
VirtualBox is a cross-platform virtualization application. What does that mean? For
one thing, it installs on your existing Intel or AMD-based computers, whether they are
running Windows, Mac, Linux or Solaris operating systems. Secondly, it extends the
capabilities of your existing computer so that it can run multiple operating systems
(inside multiple virtual machines) at the same time. So, for example, you can run
Windows and Linux on your Mac, run Windows Server 2008 on your Linux server, run
Linux on your Windows PC, and so on, all alongside your existing applications. You
can install and run as many virtual machines as you like – the only practical limits are
disk space and memory.
VirtualBox is deceptively simple yet also very powerful. It can run everywhere from
small embedded systems or desktop class machines all the way up to datacenter de-
ployments and even Cloud environments.
The following screenshot shows you how VirtualBox, installed on a Linux machine,
is running Windows 7 in a virtual machine window:

In this User Manual, we’ll begin simply with a quick introduction to virtualization
and how to get your first virtual machine running with the easy-to-use VirtualBox
graphical user interface. Subsequent chapters will go into much more detail covering
more powerful tools and features, but fortunately, it is not necessary to read the entire
User Manual before you can use VirtualBox.

10
 1 First steps

You can find a summary of VirtualBox’s capabilities in chapter 1.3, Features overview,
page 13. For existing VirtualBox users who just want to see what’s new in this release,
there is a detailed list in chapter 14, Change log, page 213.

1.1 Why is virtualization useful?

The techniques and features that VirtualBox provides are useful for several scenarios:

• Operating system support. With VirtualBox, one can run software written for
one operating system on another (for example, Windows software on Linux or
a Mac) without having to reboot to use it. Since you can configure what kinds
of hardware should be presented to each virtual machine, you can even install
an old operating system such as DOS or OS/2 in a virtual machine if your real
computer’s hardware is no longer supported by that operating system.

• Testing and disaster recovery. Once installed, a virtual machine and its virtual
hard disks can be considered a “container” that can be arbitrarily frozen, woken
up, copied, backed up, and transported between hosts.
On top of that, with the use of another VirtualBox feature called “snapshots”,
one can save a particular state of a virtual machine and revert back to that state,
if necessary. This way, one can freely experiment with a computing environment.
If something goes wrong (e.g. after installing misbehaving software or infecting
the guest with a virus), one can easily switch back to a previous snapshot and
avoid the need of frequent backups and restores.
Any number of snapshots can be created, allowing you to travel back and for-
ward in virtual machine time. You can delete snapshots while a VM is running
to reclaim disk space.
• Infrastructure consolidation. Virtualization can significantly reduce hardware
and electricity costs. Servers today typically run with fairly low average system
loads and are rarely used to their full potential. A lot of hardware potential as
well as electricity is thereby wasted. So, instead of running many such physical
computers that are only partially used, one can pack many virtual machines onto
a few powerful hosts and balance the loads between them.
With VirtualBox, you can even run virtual machines as mere servers for the
VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP), with full client USB support. This
allows for consolidating the desktop machines in an enterprise on just a few RDP
servers, while the actual clients only have to be capable of displaying VRDP data.
• Easier software installations. Virtual machines can be used by software ven-
dors to ship entire software configurations. For example, installing a complete
mail server solution on a real machine can be a tedious task. With virtualization
it becomes possible to ship an entire software solution, possibly consisting of
many different components, in a virtual machine, which is then often called an

11
 1 First steps

“appliance”. Installing and running a mail server becomes as easy as importing

such an appliance into VirtualBox.

1.2 Some terminology

When dealing with virtualization (and also for understanding the following chapters
of this documentation), it helps to acquaint oneself with a bit of crucial terminology,
especially the following terms:

Host operating system (host OS): the operating system of the physical computer
on which VirtualBox was installed. There are versions of VirtualBox for Win-
dows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris hosts; for details, please see chapter 1.4,
Supported host operating systems, page 15. While the various VirtualBox versions
are usually discussed together in this document, there may be platform-specific
differences which we will point out where appropriate.
Guest operating system (guest OS): the operating system that is running inside
the virtual machine. Theoretically, VirtualBox can run any x86 operating sys-
tem (DOS, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD, OpenBSD), but to achieve near-native
performance of the guest code on your machine, we had to go through a lot
of optimizations that are specific to certain operating systems. So while your
favorite operating system may run as a guest, we officially support and optimize
for a select few (which, however, include the most common ones).
See chapter 3.1, Supported guest operating systems, page 47 for details.
Virtual machine (VM). When running, a VM is the special environment that
VirtualBox creates for your guest operating system. So, in other words, you
run your guest operating system “in” a VM. Normally, a VM will be shown as
a window on your computer’s desktop, but depending on which of the vari-
ous frontends of VirtualBox you use, it can be displayed in full-screen mode or
remotely by use of the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP).
Sometimes we also use the term “virtual machine” in a more abstract way. Inter-
nally, VirtualBox thinks of a VM as a set of parameters that determine its behav-
ior. They include hardware settings (how much memory the VM should have,
what hard disks VirtualBox should virtualize through which container files, what
CDs are mounted etc.) as well as state information (whether the VM is currently
running, saved, its snapshots etc.).
These settings are mirrored in the VirtualBox graphical user interface as well as
the VBoxManage command line program; see chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 121.
In other words, a VM is also what you can see in its settings dialog.
Guest Additions. With “Guest Additions”, we refer to special software packages that
are shipped with VirtualBox. Even though they are part of VirtualBox, they are
designed to be installed inside a VM to improve performance of the guest OS and

12
 1 First steps

to add extra features. This is described in detail in chapter 4, Guest Additions,

page 64.

1.3 Features overview

Here’s a brief outline of VirtualBox’s main features:

• Portability. VirtualBox runs on a large number of 32-bit and 64-bit host oper-
ating systems (again, see chapter 1.4, Supported host operating systems, page 15
for details).
VirtualBox is a so-called “hosted” hypervisor (sometimes referred to as a “type 2”
hypervisor). Whereas a “bare-metal” or “type 1” hypervisor would run directly on
the hardware, VirtualBox requires an existing operating system to be installed.
It can thus run alongside existing applications on that host.
To a very large degree, VirtualBox is functionally identical on all of the host
platforms, and the same file and image formats are used. This allows you to
run virtual machines created on one host on another host with a different host
operating system; for example, you can create a virtual machine on Windows
and then run it under Linux.
In addition, virtual machines can easily be imported and exported using the
Open Virtualization Format (OVF, see chapter 1.11, Importing and exporting vir-
tual machines, page 30), an industry standard created for this purpose. You can
even import OVFs that were created with a different virtualization software.
• No hardware virtualization required. For many scenarios, VirtualBox does
not require the processor features built into newer hardware like Intel VT-x or
AMD-V. As opposed to many other virtualization solutions, you can therefore use
VirtualBox even on older hardware where these features are not present. More
details can be found in chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page
185.

• Guest Additions: shared folders, seamless windows, 3D virtualization. The

VirtualBox Guest Additions are software packages which can be installed inside
of supported guest systems to improve their performance and to provide addi-
tional integration and communication with the host system. After installing the
Guest Additions, a virtual machine will support automatic adjustment of video
resolutions, seamless windows, accelerated 3D graphics and more. The Guest
Additions are described in detail in chapter 4, Guest Additions, page 64.
In particular, Guest Additions provide for “shared folders”, which let you access
files from the host system from within a guest machine. Shared folders are
described in chapter 4.3, Shared folders, page 76.
• Great hardware support. Among others, VirtualBox supports:

13
 1 First steps

– Guest multiprocessing (SMP). VirtualBox can present up to 32 virtual

CPUs to a virtual machine, irrespective of how many CPU cores are actually
present in your host.
– USB 2.0 device support. 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. USB support
is not limited to certain device categories. For details, see chapter 3.10.1,
USB settings, page 60.
– Hardware compatibility. VirtualBox virtualizes a vast array of virtual de-
vices, among them many devices that are typically provided by other virtu-
alization platforms. That includes IDE, SCSI and SATA hard disk controllers,
several virtual network cards and sound cards, virtual serial and parallel
ports and an Input/Output Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller
(I/O APIC), which is found in many modern PC systems. This eases cloning
of PC images from real machines and importing of third-party virtual ma-
chines into VirtualBox.
– Full ACPI support. The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
(ACPI) is fully supported by VirtualBox. This eases cloning of PC images
from real machines or third-party virtual machines into VirtualBox. With its
unique ACPI power status support, VirtualBox can even report to ACPI-
aware guest operating systems the power status of the host. For mobile
systems running on battery, the guest can thus enable energy saving and
notify the user of the remaining power (e.g. in fullscreen modes).
– Multiscreen resolutions. VirtualBox virtual machines support screen res-
olutions many times that of a physical screen, allowing them to be spread
over a large number of screens attached to the host system.
– Built-in iSCSI support. This unique feature allows you to connect a vir-
tual machine directly to an iSCSI storage server without going through the
host system. The VM accesses the iSCSI target directly without the extra
overhead that is required for virtualizing hard disks in container files. For
details, see chapter 5.10, iSCSI servers, page 101.
– PXE Network boot. The integrated virtual network cards of VirtualBox
fully support remote booting via the Preboot Execution Environment (PXE).
• Multigeneration branched snapshots. VirtualBox can save arbitrary snapshots
of the state of the virtual machine. You can go back in time and revert the
virtual machine to any such snapshot and start an alternative VM configuration
from there, effectively creating a whole snapshot tree. For details, see chapter
1.8, Snapshots, page 26. You can delete snapshots while the virtual machine is
running.
• Clean architecture; unprecedented modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely
modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a clean
separation of client and server code. This makes it easy to control it from several
interfaces at once: for example, you can start a VM simply by clicking on a button

14
 1 First steps

in the VirtualBox graphical user interface and then control that machine from the
command line, or even remotely. See chapter 1.12, Alternative front-ends, page
33 for details.
Due to its modular architecture, VirtualBox can also expose its full functionality
and configurability through a comprehensive software development kit (SDK),
which allows for integrating every aspect of VirtualBox with other software sys-
tems. Please see chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces, page 192 for
details.

• Remote machine display. You can run any virtual machine in a special
VirtualBox program that acts as a server for the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Pro-
tocol (VRDP), a backward-compatible extension of the standard Remote Desk-
top Protocol. With this unique feature, VirtualBox provides high-performance
remote access to any virtual machine.
VirtualBox’s VRDP support does not rely on the RDP server that is built into
Microsoft Windows. Instead, a custom VRDP server has been built directly into
the virtualization layer. As a result, it works with any operating system (even
in text mode) and does not require application support in the virtual machine
either.
VRDP support is described in detail in chapter 7.1, Remote display (VRDP sup-
port), page 112.
On top of this special capacity, VirtualBox offers you more unique features:
– Extensible RDP authentication. VirtualBox already supports Winlogon
on Windows and PAM on Linux for RDP authentication. In addition, it
includes an easy-to-use SDK which allows you to create arbitrary interfaces
for other methods of authentication; see chapter 9.6.3, Custom external
VRDP authentication, page 169 for details.
– USB over RDP. Via RDP virtual channel support, VirtualBox also allows
you to connect arbitrary USB devices locally to a virtual machine which is
running remotely on a VirtualBox RDP server; see chapter 7.1.4, Remote
USB, page 116 for details.

1.4 Supported host operating systems

Currently, VirtualBox runs on the following host operating systems:

• Windows hosts:
– Windows XP, all service packs (32-bit)
– Windows Server 2003 (32-bit)
– Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit1 ).
1 Support for 64-bit Windows was added with VirtualBox 1.5.

15
 1 First steps

– Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)

– Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
• Mac OS X hosts:2
– 10.5 (Leopard, 32-bit)
– 10.6 (Snow Leopard, 32-bit and 64-bit)
Intel hardware is required; please see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210
also.
• Linux hosts (32-bit and 64-bit3 ). Among others, this includes:
– Ubuntu 6.06 (“Dapper Drake”), 6.10 (“Edgy Eft”), 7.04 (“Feisty Fawn”),
7.10 (“Gutsy Gibbon”), 8.04 (“Hardy Heron”), 8.10 (“Intrepid Ibex”), 9.04
(“Jaunty Jackalope”), 9.10 (“Karmic Koala”), 10.04 (“Lucid Lynx”).
– Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (“sarge”), 4.0 (“etch”) and 5.0 (“lenny”)
– Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 and 5
– Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5
– Fedora Core 4 to 12
– Gentoo Linux
– SUSE Linux 9 and 10, openSUSE 10.3, 11.0, 11.1, 11.2
– Mandriva 2007.1, 2008.0, 2009.1, 2010.0
It should be possible to use VirtualBox on most systems based on Linux kernel
2.6 using either the VirtualBox installer or by doing a manual installation; see
chapter 2.3, Installing on Linux hosts, page 37.
Note that starting with VirtualBox 2.1, Linux 2.4-based host operating systems
are no longer supported.
• Solaris hosts (32-bit and 64-bit4 ) are supported with the restrictions listed in
chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210:
– OpenSolaris (2008.05 and higher, “Nevada” build 86 and higher)
– Solaris 10 (u5 and higher)

1.5 Installing and starting VirtualBox

VirtualBox comes in many different packages, and installation depends on your host
platform. If you have installed software before, installation should be straightforward
as on each host platform, VirtualBox uses the installation method that is most common
and easy to use. If you run into trouble or have special requirements, please refer
2 Preliminary Mac OS X support (beta stage) was added with VirtualBox 1.4, full support with 1.6. Mac OS
X 10.4 (Tiger) support was removed with VirtualBox 3.1.
3 Support for 64-bit Linux was added with VirtualBox 1.4.
4 Support for OpenSolaris was added with VirtualBox 1.6.

16
 1 First steps

to chapter 2, Installation details, page 34 for details about the various installation
methods.
After installation, you can start VirtualBox as follows:

• On a Windows host, in the standard “Programs” menu, click on the item in the
“VirtualBox” group. On Vista or Windows 7, you can also type “VirtualBox” in
the search box of the “Start” menu.

• On a Mac OS X host, in the Finder, double-click on the “VirtualBox” item in the

“Applications” folder. (You may want to drag this item onto your Dock.)
• On a Linux or Solaris host, depending on your desktop environment, a
“VirtualBox” item may have been placed in either the “System” or “System Tools”
group of your “Applications” menu. Alternatively, you can type VirtualBox in a
terminal.

When you start VirtualBox for the first time, a window like the following should
come up:

On the left, you can see a pane that will later list all your virtual machines. Since
you have not created any, the list is empty. A row of buttons above it allows you to
create new VMs and work on existing VMs, once you have some. The pane on the
right displays the properties of the virtual machine currently selected, if any. Again,
since you don’t have any machines yet, the pane displays a welcome message.
To give you an idea what VirtualBox might look like later, after you have created
many machines, here’s another example:

17
 1 First steps

1.6 Creating your first virtual machine

Click on the “New” button at the top of the VirtualBox window. A wizard will pop up
to guide you through setting up a new virtual machine (VM):

On the following pages, the wizard will ask you for the bare minimum of information
that is needed to create a VM, in particular:

18
 1 First steps

1. A name for your VM, and the type of operating system (OS) you want to install.
The name is what you will later see in the VirtualBox main window, and what
your settings will be stored under. It is purely informational, but once you have
created a few VMs, you will appreciate if you have given your VMs informative
names. “My VM” probably is therefore not as useful as “Windows XP SP2”.
For “Operating System Type”, select the operating system that you want to install
later. Depending on your selection, VirtualBox will enable or disable certain
VM settings that your guest operating system may require. This is particularly
important for 64-bit guests (see chapter 3.1.2, 64-bit guests, page 49). It is
therefore recommended to always set it to the correct value.
2. The amount of memory (RAM) that the virtual machine should have for itself.
Every time a virtual machine is started, VirtualBox will allocate this much mem-
ory from your host machine and present it to the guest operating system, which
will report this size as the (virtual) computer’s installed RAM.

Note: Choose this setting carefully! The memory you give to the VM will
not be available to your host OS while the VM is running, so do not specify
more than you can spare. For example, if your host machine has 1 GB of
RAM and you enter 512 MB as the amount of RAM for a particular virtual
machine, while that VM is running, you will only have 512 MB left for all the
other software on your host. If you run two VMs at the same time, even more
memory will be allocated for the second VM (which may not even be able to
start if that memory is not available). On the other hand, you should specify
as much as your guest OS (and your applications) will require to run properly.

A Windows XP guest will require at least a few hundred MB RAM to run properly,
and Windows Vista will even refuse to install with less than 512 MB. Of course,
if you want to run graphics-intensive applications in your VM, you may require
even more RAM.
So, as a rule of thumb, if you have 1 GB of RAM or more in your host computer,
it is usually safe to allocate 512 MB to each VM. But, in any case, make sure you
always have at least 256 to 512 MB of RAM left on your host operating system.
Otherwise you may cause your host OS to excessively swap out memory to your
hard disk, effectively bringing your host system to a standstill.

Note: VirtualBox restricts the amount of guest RAM to 1500 MB on 32-bit

Windows hosts and to 2560 MB on 32-bit Linux and Solaris hosts due to
address-space limitations. These restrictions do not apply to 64-bit hosts.

As with the other settings, you can change this setting later, after you have cre-
ated the VM.

19
 1 First steps

3. Next, you must specify a virtual hard disk for your VM.
There are many and potentially complicated ways in which VirtualBox can pro-
vide hard disk space to a VM (see chapter 5, Virtual storage, page 87 for details),
but the most common way is to use a large image file on your “real” hard disk,
whose contents VirtualBox presents to your VM as if it were a complete hard
disk.
The wizard shows you the following window:

The wizard allows you to create an image file or use an existing one. Note also
that the disk images can be separated from a particular VM, so even if you delete
a VM, you can keep the image, or copy it to another host and create a new VM
for it there.
In the wizard, you have the following options:
• If you have previously created any virtual hard disks which have not been
attached to other virtual machines, you can select those from the drop-
down list in the wizard window.
• Otherwise, to create a new virtual hard disk, press the “New” button.
• Finally, for more complicated operations with virtual disks, the “Existing...“
button will bring up the Virtual Media Manager, which is described in more
detail in chapter 5.3, The Virtual Media Manager, page 91.
Most probably, if you are using VirtualBox for the first time, you will want to
create a new disk image. Hence, press the “New” button.
This brings up another window, the “Create New Virtual Disk Wizard”.
VirtualBox supports two types of image files:

20
 1 First steps

• A dynamically expanding file will only grow in size when the guest actu-
ally stores data on its virtual hard disk. It will therefore initially be small
on the host hard drive and only later grow to the size specified as it is filled
with data.
• A fixed-size file will immediately occupy the file specified, even if only a
fraction of the virtual hard disk space is actually in use. While occupying
much more space, a fixed-size file incurs less overhead and is therefore
slightly faster than a dynamically expanding file.
For details about the differences, please refer to chapter 5.2, Disk image files
(VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD), page 90.
To prevent your physical hard disk from running full, VirtualBox limits the size
of the image file. Still, it needs to be large enough to hold the contents of
your operating system and the applications you want to install – for a modern
Windows or Linux guest, you will probably need several gigabytes for any serious
use:

After having selected or created your image file, again press “Next” to go to the
next page.
4. After clicking on “Finish”, your new virtual machine will be created. You will
then see it in the list on the left side of the main window, with the name you
have entered.

21
 1 First steps

1.7 Running your virtual machine

You will now see your new virtual machine in the list of virtual machines, at the left of
the VirtualBox main window. To start the virtual machine, simply double-click on it,
or select it and press the “Start” button at the top.
This opens up a new window, and the virtual machine which you selected will boot
up. Everything which would normally be seen on the virtual system’s monitor is shown
in the window, as can be seen with the image in chapter 1.2, Some terminology, page
12.
Since this is the first time you are running this VM, another wizard will show up
to help you select an installation medium. Since the VM is created empty, it would
otherwise behave just like a real computer with no operating system installed: it will
do nothing and display an error message that it cannot boot an operating system.
For this reason, the “First Start Wizard” helps you select an operating system
medium to install an operating system from. In most cases, this will either be a real CD
or DVD (VirtualBox can then configure the virtual machine to use your host’s drive),
or you might have an ISO image of a CD or DVD handy, which VirtualBox can then
present to the virtual machine.
In both cases, after making the choices in the wizard, you will be able to install your
operating system.
In general, you can use the virtual machine much like you would use a real com-
puter. There are couple of points worth mentioning however.

1.7.1 Keyboard and mouse support in virtual machines

1.7.1.1 Capturing and releasing keyboard and mouse
As of version 3.2, VirtualBox provides a virtual USB tablet device to new virtual ma-
chines through which mouse events are communicated to the guest operating system.
As a result, if you are running a fairly recent guest operating system that can handle
such devices, mouse support may work out of the box without the mouse being “cap-
tured” as described below; see chapter 3.4.1, “Motherboard” tab, page 52 for more
information.
Otherwise, if the virtual machine only sees standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard
devices, since the operating system in the virtual machine does not “know” that it is
not running on a real computer, it expects to have exclusive control over your keyboard
and mouse. This is, however, not the case since, unless you are running the VM in full-
screen mode, your VM needs to share keyboard and mouse with other applications
and possibly other VMs on your host.
As a result, initially after installing a guest operating system and before you install
the Guest Additions (we will explain this in a minute), only one of the two – your VM
or the rest of your computer – can “own” the keyboard and the mouse. You will see a
second mouse pointer which will always be confined to the limits of the VM window.
Basically, you activate the VM by clicking inside it.

22
 1 First steps

To return ownership of keyboard and mouse to your host operating system,

VirtualBox reserves a special key on your keyboard for itself: the “host key”. By
default, this is the right Control key on your keyboard; on a Mac host, the default host
key is the left Command key. You can change this default in the VirtualBox Global
Settings. In any case, the current setting for the host key is always displayed at the
bottom right of your VM window, should you have forgotten about it:

In detail, all this translates into the following:

• Your keyboard is owned by the VM if the VM window on your host desktop

has the keyboard focus (and then, if you have many windows open in your guest
operating system as well, the window that has the focus in your VM). This means
that if you want to type within your VM, click on the title bar of your VM window
first.
To release keyboard ownership, press the Host key (as explained above, typically
the right Control key).
Note that while the VM owns the keyboard, some key sequences (like Alt-Tab for
example) will no longer be seen by the host, but will go to the guest instead.
After you press the host key to re-enable the host keyboard, all key presses will
go through the host again, so that sequences like Alt-Tab will no longer reach the
guest.
• Your mouse is owned by the VM only after you have clicked in the VM window.
The host mouse pointer will disappear, and your mouse will drive the guest’s
pointer instead of your normal mouse pointer.
Note that mouse ownership is independent of that of the keyboard: even after
you have clicked on a titlebar to be able to type into the VM window, your mouse
is not necessarily owned by the VM yet.
To release ownership of your mouse by the VM, also press the Host key.

As this behavior can be inconvenient, VirtualBox provides a set of tools and device
drivers for guest systems called the “VirtualBox Guest Additions” which make VM key-
board and mouse operation a lot more seamless. Most importantly, the Additions will

23
 1 First steps

get rid of the second “guest” mouse pointer and make your host mouse pointer work
directly in the guest.
This will be described later in chapter 4, Guest Additions, page 64.

1.7.1.2 Typing special characters

Operating systems expect certain key combinations to initiate certain procedures.
Some of these key combinations may be difficult to enter into a virtual machine, as
there are three candidates as to who receives keyboard input: the host operating sys-
tem, VirtualBox, or the guest operating system. Who of these three receives keypresses
depends on a number of factors, including the key itself.

• Host operating systems reserve certain key combinations for themselves. For
example, it is impossible to enter the Ctrl+Alt+Delete combination if you want
to reboot the guest operating system in your virtual machine, because this key
combination is usually hard-wired into the host OS (both Windows and Linux
intercept this), and pressing this key combination will therefore reboot your host.
Also, on Linux and Solairs hosts, which use the X Window System, the key com-
bination Ctrl+Alt+Backspace normally resets the X server (to restart the entire
graphical user interface in case it got stuck). As the X server intercepts this com-
bination, pressing it will usually restart your host graphical user interface (and
kill all running programs, including VirtualBox, in the process).
Third, on Linux hosts supporting virtual terminals, the key combination
Ctrl+Alt+Fx (where Fx is one of the function keys from F1 to F12) normally
allows to switch between virtual terminals. As with Ctrl+Alt+Delete, these
combinations are intercepted by the host operating system and therefore always
switch terminals on the host.
If, instead, you want to send these key combinations to the guest operating sys-
tem in the virtual machine, you will need to use one of the following methods:
– Use the items in the “Machine” menu of the virtual machine window. There
you will find “Insert Ctrl+Alt+Delete” and “Ctrl+Alt+Backspace”; the lat-
ter will only have an effect with Linux or Solaris guests, however.
– Press special key combinations with the Host key (normally the right Con-
trol key), which VirtualBox will then translate for the virtual machine:
∗ Host key + Del to send Ctrl+Alt+Del (to reboot the guest);
∗ Host key + Backspace to send Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (to restart the
graphical user interface of a Linux or Solaris guest);
∗ Host key + F1 (or other function keys) to simulate Ctrl+Alt+F1 (or
other function keys, i.e. to switch between virtual terminals in a Linux
guest).
• For some other keyboard combinations such as Alt-Tab (to switch between open
windows), VirtualBox allows you to configure whether these combinations will
affect the host or the guest, if a virtual machine currently has the focus. This

24
 1 First steps

is a global setting for all virtual machines and can be found under “File” ->
“Preferences” -> “Input” -> “Auto-capture keyboard”.

1.7.2 Changing removable media

While a virtual machine is running, you can change removable media in the “Devices”
menu of the VM’s window. Here you can select in detail what VirtualBox presents to
your VM as a CD, DVD, or floppy.
The settings are the same as would be available for the VM in the “Settings” dialog
of the VirtualBox main window, but since that dialog is disabled while the VM is in the
“running” or “saved” state, this extra menu saves you from having to shut down and
restart the VM every time you want to change media.
Hence, in the “Devices” menu, VirtualBox allows you to attach the host drive to the
guest or select a floppy or DVD image using the Disk Image Manager, all as described
in chapter 1.9, Virtual machine configuration, page 29.

1.7.3 Saving the state of the machine

When you click on the “Close” button of your virtual machine window (at the top right
of the window, just like you would close any other window on your system) (or press
the Host key together with “Q”), VirtualBox asks you whether you want to “save” or
“power off” the VM.

The difference between these three options is crucial. They mean:

• Save the machine state: With this option, VirtualBox “freezes” the virtual ma-
chine by completely saving its state to your local disk. When you later resume the
VM (by again clicking the “Start” button in the VirtualBox main window), you
will find that the VM continues exactly where it was left off. All your programs
will still be open, and your computer resumes operation.
Saving the state of a virtual machine is thus in some ways similar to suspending
a laptop computer (e.g. by closing its lid).

25
 1 First steps

• Send the shutdown signal. This will send an ACPI shutdown signal to the vir-
tual machine, which has the same effect as if you had pressed the power button
on a real computer. So long as a fairly modern operating system is installed and
running in the VM, this should trigger a proper shutdown mechanism in the VM.
• Power off the machine: With this option, VirtualBox also stops running the
virtual machine, but without saving its state.
This is equivalent to pulling the power plug on a real computer without shutting
it down properly. If you start the machine again after powering it off, your
operating system will have to reboot completely and may begin a lengthy check
of its (virtual) system disks.
As a result, this should not normally be done, since it can potentially cause data
loss or an inconsistent state of the guest system on disk.
As an exception, if your virtual machine has any snapshots (see the next chapter),
you can use this option to quickly restore the current snapshot of the virtual
machine. Only in that case, powering off the machine is not harmful.

The “Discard” button in the main VirtualBox window discards a virtual machine’s
saved state. This has the same effect as powering it off, and the same warnings apply.

1.8 Snapshots
With snapshots, you can save a particular state of a virtual machine for later use. At
any later time, you can revert to that state, even though you may have changed the
VM considerably since then.
You can see the snapshots of a virtual machine by first selecting a machine from
the list on the left of the VirtualBox main window and then selecting the “Snapshots”
tab on the right. Initially, until you take a snapshot of the machine, that list is empty
except for the “Current state” item, which represents the “Now” point in the lifetime
of the virtual machine.
There are three operations related to snapshots:

1. You can take a snapshot.

• If your VM is currently running, select “Take snapshot” from the “Machine”
pull-down menu of the VM window.
• If your VM is currently in either the “saved” or the “powered off” state (as
displayed next to the VM in the VirtualBox main window), click on the
“Snapshots” tab on the top right of the main window, and then
– either on the small camera icon (for “Take snapshot”) or
– right-click on the “Current State” item in the list and select “Take snap-
shot” from the menu.

26
 1 First steps

In any case, a window will pop up and ask you for a snapshot name. This
name is purely for reference purposes to help you remember the state of the
snapshot. For example, a useful name would be “Fresh installation from scratch,
no external drivers”. You can also add a longer text in the “Description” field if
you want.
Your new snapshot will then appear in the list of snapshots under the “Snapshots”
tab. Underneath, you will see an item called “Current state”, signifying that the
current state of your VM is a variation based on the snapshot you took earlier.
If you later take another snapshot, you will see that they will be displayed in
sequence, and each subsequent snapshot is a derivation of the earlier one:

VirtualBox allows you to take an unlimited number of snapshots – the only limi-
tation is the size of your disks. Keep in mind that each snapshot stores the state
of the virtual machine and thus takes some disk space.
2. You can restore a snapshot by right-clicking on any snapshot you have taken in
the list of snapshots. By restoring a snapshot, you go back (or forward) in time:
the current state of the machine is lost, and the machine is restored to exactly
the same state as it was when then snapshot was taken.5

5 Both the terminology and the functionality of restoring snapshots has changed with VirtualBox 3.1. Before
that version, it was only possible to go back to the very last snapshot taken – not earlier ones, and the
operation was called “Discard current state” instead of “Restore last snapshot”. The limitation has been
lifted with version 3.1. It is now possible to restore any snapshot, going backward and forward in time.

27
 1 First steps

Note: Restoring a snapshot will affect the virtual hard drives that are con-
nected to your VM, as the entire state of the virtual hard drive will be reverted
as well. This means also that all files that have been created since the snap-
shot and all other file changes will be lost. In order to prevent such data loss
while still making use of the snapshot feature, it is possible to add a second
hard drive in “write-through” mode using the VBoxManage interface and use
it to store your data. As write-through hard drives are not included in snap-
shots, they remain unaltered when a machine is reverted. See chapter 5.4,
Special image write modes, page 93 for details.

By restoring an earlier snapshot and taking more snapshots from there, it is even
possible to create a kind of alternate reality and to switch between these different
histories of the virtual machine. This can result in a whole tree of virtual machine
snapshots, as shown in the screenshot above.
3. You can also delete a snapshot, which will not affect the state of the virtual
machine, but only release the files on disk that VirtualBox used to store the
snapshot data, thus freeing disk space. To delete a snapshot, right-click on it in
the snapshots tree and select “Delete”. As of VirtualBox 3.2, snapshots can be
deleted even while a machine is running.

Note: Whereas taking and restoring snapshots are fairly quick operations,
deleting a snapshot can take a considerable amount of time since large
amounts of data may need to be copied between several disk image files.
Temporary disk files may also need large amounts of disk space while the
operation is in progress.

There are some situations which cannot be handled while a VM is running, and
you will get an appropriate message that you need to perform this snapshot
deletion when the VM is shut down.

Think of a snapshot as a point in time that you have preserved. More formally, a
snapshot consists of three things:

• It contains a complete copy of the VM settings, so that when you restore a snap-
shot, the VM settings are restored as well. (For example, if you changed the hard
disk configuration, that change is undone when you restore the snapshot.)
• The state of all the virtual disks attached to the machine is preserved. Going
back to a snapshot means that all changes, bit by bit, that had been made to the
machine’s disks will be undone as well.
(Strictly speaking, this is only true for virtual hard disks in “normal” mode. As
mentioned above, you can configure disks to behave differently with snapshots;

28
 1 First steps

see chapter 5.4, Special image write modes, page 93. Even more formally and
technically correct, it is not the virtual disk itself that is restored when a snapshot
is restored. Instead, when a snapshot is taken, VirtualBox creates differencing
images which contain only the changes since the snapshot were taken, and when
the snapshot is restored, VirtualBox throws away that differencing image, thus
going back to the previous state. This is both faster and uses less disk space. For
the details, which can be complex, please see chapter 5.5, Differencing images,
page 95.)
• Finally, if you took a snapshot while the machine was running, the memory state
of the machine is also saved in the snapshot (the same way the memory can be
saved when you close the VM window) so that when you restore the snapshot,
execution resumes at exactly the point when the snapshot was taken.

1.9 Virtual machine configuration

When you select a virtual machine from the list in the main VirtualBox window, you
will see a summary of that machine’s settings on the right of the window, under the
“Details” tab.
Clicking on the “Settings” button in the toolbar at the top of VirtualBox main window
brings up a detailed window where you can configure many of the properties of the
VM that is currently selected. But be careful: even though it is possible to change all
VM settings after installing a guest operating system, certain changes might prevent a
guest operating system from functioning correctly if done after installation.

Note: The “Settings” button is disabled while a VM is either in the “running”

or “saved” state. This is simply because the settings dialog allows you to
change fundamental characteristics of the virtual computer that is created for
your guest operating system, and this operating system may not take it well
when, for example, half of its memory is taken away from under its feet. As a
result, if the “Settings” button is disabled, shut down the current VM first.

VirtualBox provides a plethora of parameters that can be changed for a virtual ma-
chine. The various settings that can be changed in the “Settings” window are described
in detail in chapter 3, Configuring virtual machines, page 47. Even more parameters
are available with the command line interface; see chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 121.
For now, if you have just created an empty VM, you will probably be most interested
in the settings presented by the “CD/DVD-ROM” section if you want to make a CD
or a DVD available the first time you start it, in order to install your guest operating
system.
For this, you have two options:
• If you have actual CD or DVD media from which you want to install your guest
operating system (e.g. in the case of a Windows installation CD or DVD), put the
media into your host’s CD or DVD drive.

29
 1 First steps

Then, in the settings dialog, go to the “CD/DVD-ROM” section and select “Host
drive” with the correct drive letter (or, in the case of a Linux host, device file).
This will allow your VM to access the media in your host drive, and you can
proceed to install from there.
• If you have downloaded installation media from the Internet in the form of an
ISO image file (most probably in the case of a Linux distribution), you would
normally burn this file to an empty CD or DVD and proceed as just described.
With VirtualBox however, you can skip this step and mount the ISO file directly.
VirtualBox will then present this file as a CD or DVD-ROM drive to the virtual
machine, much like it does with virtual hard disk images.
In this case, in the settings dialog, go to the “CD/DVD-ROM” section and select
“ISO image file”. This brings up the Virtual Media Manager, where you perform
the following steps:
1. Press the “Add” button to add your ISO file to the list of registered images.
This will present an ordinary file dialog that allows you to find your ISO file
on your host machine.
2. Back to the manager window, select the ISO file that you just added and
press the “Select” button. This selects the ISO file for your VM.
The Virtual Media Manager is described in detail in chapter 5.3, The Virtual
Media Manager, page 91.

1.10 Deleting virtual machines

To remove a virtual machine which you no longer need, right-click on it in the list of
virtual machines in the main window and select “Delete” from the context menu that
comes up. All settings for that machine will be lost.
The “Delete” menu item is disabled while a machine is in “Saved” state. To delete
such a machine, discard the saved state first by pressing on the “Discard” button.
However, any hard disk images attached to the machine will be kept; you can delete
those separately using the Virtual Media Manager; see chapter 5.3, The Virtual Media
Manager, page 91.
You cannot delete a machine which has snapshots or is in a saved state, so you must
discard these first.

1.11 Importing and exporting virtual machines

Starting with version 2.2, VirtualBox can import and export virtual machines in the
industry-standard Open Virtualization Format (OVF).
OVF is a cross-platform standard supported by many virtualization products which
allows for creating ready-made virtual machines that can then be imported into a
virtualizer such as VirtualBox. As opposed to other virtualization products, VirtualBox

30
 1 First steps

now supports OVF with an easy-to-use graphical user interface as well as using the
command line. This allows for packaging so-called virtual appliances: disk images
together with configuration settings that can be distributed easily. This way one can
offer complete ready-to-use software packages (operating systems with applications)
that need no configuration or installation except for importing into VirtualBox.

Note: The OVF standard is complex, and support in VirtualBox is an ongoing

process. In particular, no guarantee is made that VirtualBox supports all appli-
ances created by other virtualization software. For a list of know limitations,
please see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210.

An appliance in OVF format will typically consist of several files:

1. one or several disk images, typically in the widely-used VMDK format (see chap-
ter 5.2, Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD), page 90) and
2. a textual description file in an XML dialect with an .ovf extension.

These files must reside in the same directory for VirtualBox to be able to import
them.
A future version of VirtualBox will also support packages that include the OVF XML
file and the disk images packed together in a single archive.
To import an appliance in OVF format, select “File” -> “Import appliance” from the
main window of the VirtualBox graphical user interface. Then open the file dialog and
navigate to the OVF text file with the .ovf file extension.
If VirtualBox can handle the file, a dialog similar to the following will appear:

31
 1 First steps

This presents the virtual machines described in the OVF file and allows you to change
the virtual machine settings by double-clicking on the description items. Once you
click on “Import”, VirtualBox will copy the disk images and create local virtual ma-
chines with the settings described in the dialog. These will then show up in the list of
virtual machines.
Note that since disk images tend to be big, and VMDK images that come with virtual
appliances are typically shipped in a special compressed format that is unsuitable for
being used by virtual machines directly, the images will need to be unpacked and
copied first, which can take a few minutes.
For how to import an image at the command line, please see chapter 8.8, VBoxMan-
age import, page 139.
Conversely, to export virtual machines that you already have in VirtualBox, select
the machines and “File” -> “Export appliance”. A different dialog window shows up
that allows you to combine several virtual machines into an OVF appliance. Then, you
select the target location where the OVF and VMDK files should be stored, and the
conversion process begins. This can again take a while.
For how to export an image at the command line, please see chapter 8.9, VBoxMan-
age export, page 140.

32
 1 First steps

Note: OVF cannot describe snapshots that were taken for a virtual machine.
As a result, when you export a virtual machine that has snapshots, only the
current state of the machine will be exported, and the disk images in the
export will have a “flattened” state identical to the current state of the virtual
machine.

1.12 Alternative front-ends

As briefly mentioned in chapter 1.3, Features overview, page 13, VirtualBox has a very
flexible internal design that allows you to use different front-ends to control the same
virtual machines. To illustrate, you can, for example, start a virtual machine with
VirtualBox’s easy-to-use graphical user interface and then stop it from the command
line. With VirtualBox’s support for the Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP), you can even
run virtual machines remotely on a headless server and have all the graphical output
redirected over the network.
In detail, the following front-ends are shipped in the standard VirtualBox package:
1. VirtualBox is our graphical user interface (GUI), which most of this User Man-
ual is dedicated to describing, especially in chapter 3, Configuring virtual ma-
chines, page 47. While this is the easiest-to-use of our interfaces, it does not
(yet) cover all the features that VirtualBox provides. Still, this is the best way to
get to know VirtualBox initially.
2. VBoxManage is our command-line interface for automated and very detailed con-
trol of every aspect of VirtualBox. It is described in chapter 8, VBoxManage, page
121.
3. VBoxSDL is an alternative, simple graphical front-end with an intentionally lim-
ited feature set, designed to only display virtual machines that are controlled
in detail with VBoxManage. This is interesting for business environments where
displaying all the bells and whistles of the full GUI is not feasible. VBoxSDL is
described in chapter 9.2, VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer, page 161.
4. Finally, VBoxHeadless is yet another front-end that produces no visible output
on the host at all, but merely acts as a VRDP server. Now, even though the other
graphical front-ends (VirtualBox and VBoxSDL) also have VRDP support built-
in and can act as a VRDP server, this particular front-end requires no graphics
support. This is useful, for example, if you want to host your virtual machines
on a headless Linux server that has no X Window system installed. For details,
see chapter 7.1.2, VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-only server, page 113.
If the above front-ends still do not satisfy your particular needs, it is relatively painless
to create yet another front-end to the complex virtualization engine that is the core
of VirtualBox, as the VirtualBox core neatly exposes all of its features in a clean API;
please refer to chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces, page 192.

33
2 Installation details
As installation of VirtualBox varies depending on your host operating system, we pro-
vide installation instructions in four separate chapters for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
and Solaris, respectively.

2.1 Installing on Windows hosts

2.1.1 Prerequisites
For the various versions of Windows that we support as host operating systems, please
refer to chapter 1.4, Supported host operating systems, page 15.
In addition, Windows Installer 1.1 or higher must be present on your system. This
should be the case if you have all recent Windows updates installed.

2.1.2 Performing the installation

The VirtualBox installation can be started

• either by double-clicking on its executable file (contains both 32- and 64-bit
architectures)
• or by entering
VirtualBox.exe -extract

on the command line. This will extract both installers into a temporary directory
in which you’ll then find the usual .MSI files. Then you can do a
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi

to perform the installation.

In either case, this will display the installation welcome dialog and allow you to
choose where to install VirtualBox to and which components to install. In addition to
the VirtualBox application, the following components are available:

USB support This package contains special drivers for your Windows host that
VirtualBox requires to fully support USB devices inside your virtual machines.
Networking This package contains extra networking drivers for your Windows host
that VirtualBox needs to support Host Interface Networking (to make your VM’s
virtual network cards accessible from other machines on your physical network).

34
 2 Installation details

Python Support This package contains Python scripting support for the VirtualBox
API (see chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces, page 192). To get this
feature installed an already working Python installation on the system is re-
quired.
Depending on your Windows configuration, you may see warnings about “unsigned
drivers” or similar. Please select “Continue” on these warnings as otherwise VirtualBox
might not function correctly after installation.
The installer will create a “VirtualBox” group in the programs startup folder which
allows you to launch the application and access its documentation.
With standard settings, VirtualBox will be installed for all users on the local system.
In case this is not wanted, you have to invoke the installer by first extracting it by using
VirtualBox.exe -extract

and then do as follows:

VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ALLUSERS=2

or
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi ALLUSERS=2

on the extracted .MSI files. This will install VirtualBox only for the current user.
To not install certain features of VirtualBox there is an ADDLOCAL parameter that can
be specified additionally to explicitly name the features to be installed. The following
features are available:
VBoxApplication Main binaries of VirtualBox.

Note: This feature never can be absent, since it contains the minimum set of
files to have working VirtualBox installation!

VBoxUSB USB support.

VBoxNetwork All networking support; includes the VBoxNetworkFlt and VBoxNet-
workAdp features (see below).
VBoxNetworkFlt Bridged networking support.
VBoxNetworkAdp Host-only networking support.
VBoxPython Python support.
To only install USB support along with the main binaries, do a:
VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB

or
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB

35
 2 Installation details

2.1.3 Uninstallation
As we use the Microsoft Installer, VirtualBox can be safely uninstalled at any time by
choosing the program entry in the “Add/Remove Programs” applet in the Windows
Control Panel.

2.1.4 Unattended installation

Unattended installations can be performed using the standard MSI support.

2.2 Installing on Mac OS X hosts

2.2.1 Performing the installation
For Mac OS X hosts, VirtualBox ships in a disk image (dmg) file. Perform the following
steps:

1. Double-click on that file to have its contents mounted.

2. A window will open telling you to double click on the VirtualBox.mpkg installer
file displayed in that window.

3. This will start the installer, which will allow you to select where to install
VirtualBox to.

After installation, you can find a VirtualBox icon in the “Applications” folder in the
Finder.

2.2.2 Uninstallation
To uninstall VirtualBox, open the disk image (dmg) file again and double-click on the
uninstall icon contained therein.

2.2.3 Unattended installation

To perform a non-interactive installation of VirtualBox you can use the command line
version of the installer application.
Mount the disk image (dmg) file as described in the normal installation. Then open
a terminal session and execute:
sudo installer -pkg /Volumes/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.mpkg \
-target /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD

36
 2 Installation details

2.3 Installing on Linux hosts

2.3.1 Prerequisites
For the various versions of Linux that we support as host operating systems, please
refer to chapter 1.4, Supported host operating systems, page 15.
You will need to install the following packages on your Linux system before starting
the installation (some systems will do this for you automatically when you install
VirtualBox):

• Qt 4.4.0 or higher;
• SDL 1.2.7 or higher (this graphics library is typically called libsdl or similar).

Note: To be precise, these packages are only required if you want to run
the VirtualBox graphical user interfaces. In particular, VirtualBox, our main
graphical user interface, requires both Qt and SDL; VBoxSDL, our simplified
GUI, requires only SDL. By contrast, if you only want to run the headless
VRDP server that comes with VirtualBox, neither Qt nor SDL are required.

2.3.2 The VirtualBox kernel module

VirtualBox uses a special kernel module to perform physical memory allocation and to
gain control of the processor for guest system execution. Without this kernel module,
you will still be able to work with virtual machines in the configuration interface, but
you will not be able to start any virtual machines.
The VirtualBox kernel module is automatically installed on your system when you
install VirtualBox. To maintain it with future kernel updates, for recent Linux distribu-
tions – for example Fedora Core 5 and later, Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) and later and Man-
driva 2007.1 and later –, generally we recommend installing Dynamic Kernel Module
Support (DKMS)1 . This framework helps to build kernel modules and to deal with
kernel upgrades.
If DKMS is not already installed, execute one of the following:

• On an Ubuntu system:
sudo apt-get install dkms

• On a Fedora system:
yum install dkms

• On a Mandriva system:

1 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support for an introduction.

37
 2 Installation details

urpmi dkms

If DKMS is available and installed, the VirtualBox kernel module should always work
automatically, and it will be automatically rebuilt if your host kernel is updated.
Otherwise, there are only two situations in which you will need to worry about the
kernel module:
1. The original installation fails. This probably means that your Linux system is not
prepared for building external kernel modules.
Most Linux distributions can be set up simply by installing the right packages -
normally, these will be the GNU compiler (GCC), GNU Make (make) and pack-
ages containing header files for your kernel - and making sure that all system
updates are installed and that the system is running the most up-to-date kernel
included in the distribution. The version numbers of the header file packages must
be the same as that of the kernel you are using.
• With Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must install the right version of
the linux-headers and if it exists the linux-kbuild package. Current
Ubuntu releases should have the right packages installed by default.
• In even older Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must install the right version
of the kernel-headers package.
• On Fedora and Redhat systems, the package is kernel-devel.
• On SUSE and openSUSE Linux, you must install the right versions of the
kernel-source and kernel-syms packages.
• Alternatively, if you have built your own kernel, /usr/src/linux should
point to your kernel sources. If you have not removed the files created
during the build process, then your system will already be set up correctly.
2. The kernel of your Linux host got updated. In that case, the kernel module will
need to be reinstalled by executing (as root):
/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

2.3.3 USB and advanced networking support

In order to use VirtualBox’s USB support, the user account under which you intend to
run VirtualBox must have read and write access to the USB filesystem (usbfs).
In addition, access to /dev/net/tun will be required if you want to use Host Inter-
face Networking, which is described in detail in chapter 6.4, Bridged networking, page
108.

2.3.4 Performing the installation

VirtualBox is available in a number of package formats native to various common Linux
distributions (see chapter 1.4, Supported host operating systems, page 15 for details).
In addition, there is an alternative generic installer (.run) which should work on most
Linux distributions.

38
 2 Installation details

2.3.4.1 Installing VirtualBox from a Debian/Ubuntu package

First, download the appropriate package for your distribution. The following examples
assume that you are installing to a 32-bit Ubuntu Karmic system. Use dpkg to install
the Debian package:
sudo dpkg -i VirtualBox-3.2_3.2.8_Ubuntu_karmic_i386.deb

You will be asked to accept the VirtualBox Personal Use and Evaluation License.
Unless you answer “yes” here, the installation will be aborted.
The group vboxusers will be created during installation. Note that a user who is
going to run VirtualBox must be member of that group. A user can be made member
of the group vboxusers through the GUI user/group management or at the command
line with
sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username

Also note that adding an active user to that group will require that user to log out
and back in again. This should be done manually after successful installation of the
package.
The installer will also search for a VirtualBox kernel module suitable for your
kernel. The package includes pre-compiled modules for the most common ker-
nel configurations. If no suitable kernel module is found, the installation script
tries to build a module itself. If the build process is not successful you will be
shown a warning and the package will be left unconfigured. Please have a look at
/var/log/vbox-install.log to find out why the compilation failed. You may have
to install the appropriate Linux kernel headers (see chapter 2.3.2, The VirtualBox ker-
nel module, page 37). After correcting any problems, do
sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

This will start a second attempt to build the module.

If a suitable kernel module was found in the package or the module was successfully
built, the installation script will attempt to load that module. If this fails, please see
chapter 12.6.1, Linux kernel module refuses to load, page 205 for further information.
Once VirtualBox has been successfully installed and configured, you can start it by
selecting “VirtualBox” in your start menu or from the command line (see chapter 2.3.5,
Starting VirtualBox on Linux, page 44).

2.3.4.2 Using the alternative installer (VirtualBox.run)

The alternative installer performs the following steps:

• It unpacks the application files to a target directory of choice. By default,

/opt/VirtualBox/

will be used.

39
 2 Installation details

• It builds the VirtualBox kernel module (vboxdrv) and installs it.

• It creates /etc/init.d/vboxdrv, an init script to start the VirtualBox kernel
module.

• It creates a new system group called vboxusers.

• It creates symbolic links to VirtualBox, VBoxSDL, VBoxVRDP, VBoxHeadless
and VBoxManage in /usr/bin.
• It creates /etc/udev/60-vboxdrv.rules, a description file for udev, if that is
present, which makes the module accessible to anyone in the group vboxusers.
• It writes the installation directory to /etc/vbox/vbox.cfg.

The installer must be executed as root with either install or uninstall as the
first parameter. If you do not want the installer to ask you whether you wish to accept
the license agreement (for example, for performing unattended installations), you can
add the parameter license_accepted_unconditionally. Finally, if you want to use
a directory other than the default installation directory, add the desired path as an
extra parameter.
sudo ./VirtualBox.run install /opt/VirtualBox

Or if you do not have the “sudo” command available, run the following as root
instead:
./VirtualBox.run install /opt/VirtualBox

After that you need to put every user which should be able to use VirtualBox in the
group vboxusers, either through the GUI user management tools or by running the
following command as root:
sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username

Note: The usermod command of some older Linux distributions does not sup-
port the -a option (which adds the user to the given group without affecting
membership of other groups). In this case, find out the current group mem-
berships with the groups command and add all these groups in a comma-
separated list to the command line after the -G option, e.g. like this: usermod
-G group1,group2,vboxusers username.

If any users on your system should be able to access host USB devices from within
VirtualBox guests, you should also add them to the appropriate user group that your
distribution uses for USB access, e.g. usb or usbusers.

40
 2 Installation details

2.3.4.3 Performing a manual installation

If, for any reason, you cannot use the shell script installer described previously, you
can also perform a manual installation. Invoke the installer like this:
./VirtualBox.run --keep --noexec

This will unpack all the files needed for installation in the directory install
under the current directory. The VirtualBox application files are contained in
VirtualBox.tar.bz2 which you can unpack to any directory on your system. For
example:
sudo mkdir /opt/VirtualBox
sudo tar jxf ./install/VirtualBox.tar.bz2 -C /opt/VirtualBox

or as root:
mkdir /opt/VirtualBox
tar jxf ./install/VirtualBox.tar.bz2 -C /opt/VirtualBox

The sources for VirtualBox’s kernel module are provided in the src directory. To
build the module, change to the directory and issue
make

If everything builds correctly, issue the following command to install the module to
the appropriate module directory:
sudo make install

In case you do not have sudo, switch the user account to root and perform
make install

The VirtualBox kernel module needs a device node to operate. The above make
command will tell you how to create the device node, depending on your Linux system.
The procedure is slightly different for a classical Linux setup with a /dev directory, a
system with the now deprecated devfs and a modern Linux system with udev.
On certain Linux distributions, you might experience difficulties building the mod-
ule. You will have to analyze the error messages from the build system to diagnose the
cause of the problems. In general, make sure that the correct Linux kernel sources are
used for the build process.
Note that the user who is going to run VirtualBox needs read and write permission
on the VirtualBox kernel module device node /dev/vboxdrv. You can either define a
vboxusers group by entering

groupadd vboxusers
chgrp vboxusers /dev/vboxdrv
chmod 660 /dev/vboxdrv

or, alternatively, simply give all users access (insecure, not recommended!)

41
 2 Installation details

chmod 666 /dev/vboxdrv

You should also add any users who will be allowed to use host USB devices in
VirtualBox guests to the appropriate USB users group for your distribution. This group
is often called usb or usbusers.
Next, you will have to install the system initialization script for the kernel module:
cp /opt/VirtualBox/vboxdrv.sh /etc/init.d/vboxdrv

(assuming you installed VirtualBox to the /opt/VirtualBox directory) and activate

the initialization script using the right method for your distribution. You should create
VirtualBox’s configuration file:
mkdir /etc/vbox
echo INSTALL_DIR=/opt/VirtualBox > /etc/vbox/vbox.cfg

and, for convenience, create the following symbolic links:

ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VirtualBox
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxSVC
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxManage
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxHeadless
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxSDL

2.3.4.4 Updating and uninstalling VirtualBox

Before updating or uninstalling VirtualBox, you must terminate any virtual machines
which are currently running and exit the VirtualBox or VBoxSVC applications. To
update VirtualBox, simply run the installer of the updated version. To uninstall
VirtualBox, invoke the installer like this:
sudo ./VirtualBox.run uninstall

or as root
./VirtualBox.run uninstall

. Starting with version 2.2.2, you can uninstall the .run package by invoking
/opt/VirtualBox/uninstall.sh

To manually uninstall VirtualBox, simply undo the steps in the manual installation in
reverse order.

42
 2 Installation details

2.3.4.5 Automatic installation of Debian packages

The Debian packages will request some user feedback when installed for the first time.
The debconf system is used to perform this task. To prevent any user interaction during
installation, default values can be defined. A file vboxconf can contain the following
debconf settings:
virtualbox virtualbox/module-compilation-allowed boolean true
virtualbox virtualbox/delete-old-modules boolean true

The first line allows compilation of the vboxdrv kernel module if no module was found
for the current kernel. The second line allows the package to delete any old vboxdrv
kernel modules compiled by previous installations.
These default settings can be applied with
debconf-set-selections vboxconf

prior to the installation of the VirtualBox Debian package.

In addition there are some common configuration options that can be set prior to
the installation, described in chapter 2.3.4.7, Automatic installation options, page 43.

2.3.4.6 Automatic installation of .rpm packages

The .rpm format does not provide a configuration system comparable to the debconf
system. See chapter 2.3.4.7, Automatic installation options, page 43 for how to set
some common installation options provided by VirtualBox.

2.3.4.7 Automatic installation options

To configure the installation process of our .deb and .rpm packages, a file
/etc/default/virtualbox is interpreted. The automatic generation of the udev
rule can be prevented by the following setting:
INSTALL_NO_UDEV=1

The creation of the group vboxusers can be prevented by

INSTALL_NO_GROUP=1

If the line
INSTALL_NO_VBOXDRV=1

is specified, the package installer will not try to build the vboxdrv kernel module if
no module according to the current kernel was found.

43
 2 Installation details

2.3.5 Starting VirtualBox on Linux

The easiest way to start a VirtualBox program is by running the program of your choice
(VirtualBox, VBoxManage, VBoxSDL or VBoxHeadless) from a terminal. These are
symbolic links to VBox.sh that start the required program for you.
The following detailed instructions should only be of interest if you wish to execute
VirtualBox without installing it first. You should start by compiling the vboxdrv ker-
nel module (see above) and inserting it into the Linux kernel. VirtualBox consists of
a service daemon (VBoxSVC) and several application programs. The daemon is au-
tomatically started if necessary. All VirtualBox applications will communicate with
the daemon through Unix local domain sockets. There can be multiple daemon in-
stances under different user accounts and applications can only communicate with
the daemon running under the user account as the application. The local domain
socket resides in a subdirectory of your system’s directory for temporary files called
.vbox-<username>-ipc. In case of communication problems or server startup prob-
lems, you may try to remove this directory.
All VirtualBox applications (VirtualBox, VBoxSDL, VBoxManage and VBoxHeadless)
require the VirtualBox directory to be in the library path:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP"

2.4 Installing on Solaris hosts

For the various versions of Solaris that we support as host operating systems, please
refer to chapter 1.4, Supported host operating systems, page 15.
If you have a previously installed instance of VirtualBox on your Solaris host, please
uninstall it first before installing a new instance. Refer to chapter 2.4.3, Uninstallation,
page 45 for uninstall instructions.

2.4.1 Performing the installation

VirtualBox is available as a standard Solaris package. Download the VirtualBox SunOS
package which includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of VirtualBox. The installa-
tion must be performed as root and from the global zone as the VirtualBox installer loads
kernel drivers which cannot be done from non-global zones. To verify which zone you
are currently in, execute the zonename command. Execute the following commands:
gunzip -cd VirtualBox-3.2.8-SunOS.tar.gz | tar xvf -

Starting with VirtualBox 3.1 the VirtualBox kernel package is no longer a separate
package and has been integrated into the main package. Install the VirtualBox package
using:
pkgadd -d VirtualBox-3.2.8-SunOS.pkg

44
 2 Installation details

Note: If you are using Solaris Zones, to install VirtualBox only into the current
zone and not into any other zone, use pkgadd -G. For more information refer
to the pkgadd manual; see also chapter 2.4.5, Configuring a zone for running
VirtualBox, page 46.

The installer will then prompt you to enter the package you wish to install. Choose
“1” or “all” and proceed. Next the installer will ask you if you want to allow the
postinstall script to be executed. Choose “y” and proceed as it is essential to execute
this script which installs the VirtualBox kernel module. Following this confirmation
the installer will install VirtualBox and execute the postinstall setup script.
Once the postinstall script has been executed your installation is now complete. You
may now safely delete the uncompressed package and autoresponse files from your
system. VirtualBox would be installed in /opt/VirtualBox.

2.4.2 Starting VirtualBox on Solaris

The easiest way to start a VirtualBox program is by running the program of your choice
(VirtualBox, VBoxManage, VBoxSDL or VBoxHeadless) from a terminal. These are
symbolic links to VBox.sh that start the required program for you.
Alternatively, you can directly invoke the required programs from /opt/VirtualBox.
Using the links provided is easier as you do not have to type the full path.
You can configure some elements of the VirtualBox Qt GUI such as fonts and
colours by executing VBoxQtconfig from the terminal.

2.4.3 Uninstallation
Uninstallation of VirtualBox on Solaris requires root permissions. To perform the unin-
stallation, start a root terminal session and execute:
pkgrm SUNWvbox

After confirmation, this will remove VirtualBox from your system.

If you are uninstalling VirtualBox version 3.0 or lower, you need to remove the
VirtualBox kernel interface package, execute:
pkgrm SUNWvboxkern

2.4.4 Unattended installation

To perform a non-interactive installation of VirtualBox we have provided a response
file named autoresponse that the installer will use for responses to inputs rather than
ask them from you.
Extract the tar.gz package as described in the normal installation. Then open a root
terminal session and execute:
pkgadd -d VirtualBox-3.2.8-SunOS-x86 -n -a autoresponse SUNWvbox

45
 2 Installation details

To perform a non-interactive uninstallation, open a root terminal session and exe-

cute:
pkgrm -n -a /opt/VirtualBox/autoresponse SUNWvbox

2.4.5 Configuring a zone for running VirtualBox

Starting with VirtualBox 1.6 it is possible to run VirtualBox from within Solaris zones.
For an introduction of Solaris zones, please refer to http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/
features/articles/solaris_zones.jsp.
Assuming that VirtualBox has already been installed into your zone, you need to give
the zone access to VirtualBox’s device node. This is done by performing the following
steps. Start a root terminal and execute:
zonecfg -z vboxzone

Inside the zonecfg prompt add the device resource and match properties to the
zone. Here’s how it can be done:
zonecfg:vboxzone>add device
zonecfg:vboxzone:device>set match=/dev/vboxdrv
zonecfg:vboxzone:device>end
zonecfg:vboxzone>verify
zonecfg:vboxzone>exit

If you are running VirtualBox 2.2.0 or above on OpenSolaris or Nevada hosts, you
should add a device for /dev/vboxusbmon too, similar to what was shown above. This
does not apply to Solaris 10 hosts due to lack of USB support.
Replace “vboxzone” with the name of the zone in which you intend to run
VirtualBox. Next reboot the zone using zoneadm and you should be able to run
VirtualBox from within the configured zone.

46
3 Configuring virtual machines
Whereas chapter 1, First steps, page 10 gave you a quick introduction to VirtualBox
and how to get your first virtual machine running, the following chapter describe in
detail how to configure virtual machines.
You have considerable latitude in deciding what virtual hardware will be provided to
the guest. The virtual hardware can be used for communicating with the host system
or with other guests. For instance, if you provide VirtualBox with the image of a CD-
ROM in an ISO file, VirtualBox can present this image to a guest system as if it were
a physical CD-ROM. Similarly, you can give a guest system access to the real network
via its virtual network card, and, if you choose, give the host system, other guests, or
computers on the Internet access to the guest system.

3.1 Supported guest operating systems

Since VirtualBox is designed to provide a generic virtualization environment for x86
systems, it may run operating systems of any kind, even those that are not officially
supported by Oracle Corporation. However, our focus is to optimize the product’s
performance for a select list of guest systems:
Windows NT 4.0 All versions/editions and service packs are fully supported; how-
ever, there are some issues with older service packs. We recommend to install
service pack 6a. Guest Additions are available with a limited feature set.
Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008 / Windows 7 All ver-
sions/editions and service packs are fully supported (including 64-bit versions,
under the preconditions listed below). Guest Additions are available.
DOS / Windows 3.x / 95 / 98 / ME Limited testing has been performed. Use beyond
legacy installation mechanisms not recommended. No Guest Additions available.
Linux 2.4 Limited support.
Linux 2.6 All versions/editions are fully supported (32 bits and 64 bits). Guest Addi-
tions are available.
We strongly recommend using a Linux kernel version 2.6.13 or higher for better
performance.

Note: Certain Linux kernel releases have bugs that prevent them from exe-
cuting in a virtual environment; please see chapter 12.4.3, Buggy Linux 2.6
kernel versions, page 202 for details.

47
 3 Configuring virtual machines

Solaris 10, OpenSolaris Fully supported (32 bits and 64 bits). Guest Additions are
available.
FreeBSD Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. Limited support. Guest
Additions are not available yet.
OpenBSD Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. Versions 3.7 and later are
supported. Guest Additions are not available yet.
OS/2 Warp 4.5 Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. We officially support
MCP2 only; other OS/2 versions may or may not work. Guest Additions are
available with a limited feature set.1
Mac OS X Server VirtualBox 3.2 added experimental support for Mac OS X Server
guests, but this comes with restrictions. Please see the following section as well
as chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210.

3.1.1 Mac OS X Server guests

Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X Server
guests. This allows you to install and execute unmodified versions of Mac OS X Server
on supported host hardware.
Whereas competing solutions perform modifications to the Mac OS X Server install
DVDs (e.g. different boot loader and replaced files), VirtualBox is the first product to
provide the modern PC architecture expected by OS X without requiring any “hacks”.
You should be aware of a number of important issues before attempting to install
a Mac OS X Server guest:

1. Mac OS X is commercial, licensed software and contains both license and tech-
nical restrictions that limit its use to certain hardware and usage scenarios. It is
important that you understand and obey these restrictions. Only the Mac OS X
Server is designed to be used in a virtual environment and therefore, VirtualBox
does not support Mac OS X client as a guest.
As a result, before attempting to install Mac OS X Server in a virtual machine,
make sure you understand the license restrictions of the Mac OS X version you
want to use. For most versions of Mac OS X Server, Apple prohibits installing
them on non-Apple hardware.
These license restrictions are also enforced on a technical level: Mac OS X Server
verifies whether it is running on Apple hardware, and most DVDs that that come
with Apple hardware even check for an exact model. These restrictions are not
circumvented by VirtualBox and continue to apply.
2. Only CPUs known and tested by Apple are supported. As a result, if the Intel
CPU is newer than the build of Mac OS X Server, it will most likely panic during

1 See chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210.

48
 3 Configuring virtual machines

bootup with an “Unsupported CPU” exception. It is generally best to use the Mac
OS X Server DVD that came with your Apple hardware.
3. The Mac OS X Server installer expects the harddisk to be partitioned so when
it does not offer a selection, you have to launch the Disk Utility from the “Tools”
menu and partition the hard disk. Then close the Disk Utility and proceed with
the installation.
4. In addition, as Mac OS X Server support in VirtualBox is currently still experi-
mental, please refer also to chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210.

3.1.2 64-bit guests

Starting with version 2.0, VirtualBox supports 64-bit guest operating systems. Starting
with version 2.1, you can even run 64-bit guests on a 32-bit host operating system.
The hardware prerequisites are identical for both cases.
In particular, 64-bit guests are supported under the following conditions:

1. You need a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization support (see chapter
10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page 185).

2. You must enable hardware virtualization for the particular VM for which you
want 64-bit support; software virtualization is not supported for 64-bit VMs.
3. If you want to use 64-bit guest support on a 32-bit host operating system, you
must also select a 64-bit operating system for the particular VM. Since supporting
64 bits on 32-bit hosts incurs additional overhead, VirtualBox only enables this
support upon explicit request.
On 64-bit hosts, 64-bit guest support is always enabled, so you can simply install
a 64-bit operating system in the guest.

Warning: On any host, you should enable the I/O APIC for virtual machines
that you intend to use in 64-bit mode. This is especially true for 64-bit Win-
dows VMs. See chapter 3.3.2, “Advanced” tab, page 51. In addition, for 64-bit
Windows guests, you should make sure that the VM uses the Intel network-
ing device, since there is no 64-bit driver support for the AMD PCNet card;
see chapter 6.1, Virtual networking hardware, page 103.

If you use the “Create VM” wizard of the VirtualBox graphical user interface (see
chapter 1.6, Creating your first virtual machine, page 18), VirtualBox will automatically
use the correct settings for each selected 64-bit operating system type.

49
 3 Configuring virtual machines

3.2 Emulated hardware

VirtualBox virtualizes nearly all hardware of the host. Depending on a VM’s configu-
ration, the guest will see the following virtual hardware:

• Input devices. By default, VirtualBox emulates a standard PS/2 keyboard and

mouse. These devices are supported by almost all past and present operating
systems. In addition, VirtualBox can provide virtual USB input devices.

• Graphics. the VirtualBox graphics device (sometimes referred to as VGA device)

is, unlike nearly all other emulated devices, not based on any physical counter-
part. It is a simple, synthetic device which provides compatibility with standard
VGA and several extended registers used by VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE).

• Storage. VirtualBox currently emulates the standard ATA interface found on In-
tel PIIX3/PIIX4 chips, SATA (AHCI) interface, and two SCSI adapters (LSI Logic
and BusLogic); see chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI,
SAS, page 87 for details. Whereas providing one of these would be enough for
VirtualBox by itself, this multitude of storage adapters is required for compatibil-
ity with other hypervisors. Windows is particularly picky about its boot devices,
and migrating VMs between hypervisors is very difficult or impossible if the stor-
age controllers are different.
• Networking. See chapter 6.1, Virtual networking hardware, page 103.
• USB. VirtualBox emulates two USB host controllers, EHCI and OHCI. There is a
need for two host controllers because OHCI only handles USB low- and full-speed
devices (both USB 1.x and 2.0), while EHCI only handles high-speed devices
(USB 2.0 only). The emulated USB controllers do not communicate directly with
devices on the host but rather with the VUSB layer (see below), which abstracts
the USB protocol and allows the use of remote USB devices (with VRDP).
• Audio. Two audio devices are emulated, an AC97 controller plus codec, and a
classic SoundBlaster 16 (digital audio only).

3.3 General settings

In the Settings window, under “General”, you can configure the most fundamental
aspects of the virtual machine such as memory and essential hardware. There are
three tabs, “Basic”, “Advanced” and “Description”.

3.3.1 “Basic” tab

Under the “Basic” tab of the “General” settings category, you can find these settings:

50
 3 Configuring virtual machines

Name The name under which the VM is shown in the list of VMs in the main window.
Under this name, VirtualBox also saves the VM’s configuration files. By changing
the name, VirtualBox renames these files as well. As a result, you can only use
characters which are allowed in your host operating system’s file names.
Note that internally, VirtualBox uses unique identifiers (UUIDs) to identify virtual
machines. You can display these with VBoxManage.
Operating System / Version The type of the guest operating system that is (or will
be) installed in the VM. This is the same setting that was specified in the “New
Virtual Machine” wizard, as described with chapter 1.6, Creating your first virtual
machine, page 18 above.

3.3.2 “Advanced” tab

Snapshot folder By default, VirtualBox saves snapshot data together with your other
VirtualBox configuration data; see chapter 9.1, VirtualBox configuration data,
page 159. With this setting, you can specify any other folder for each VM.

Shared Clipboard If the virtual machine has Guest Additions installed, you can select
here whether the clipboard of the guest operating system should be shared with
that of your host. If you select “Bidirectional”, then VirtualBox will always make
sure that both clipboards contain the same data. If you select “Host to guest”
or “Guest to host”, then VirtualBox will only ever copy clipboard data in one
direction.
Removable Media: Remember Runtime Changes If this is checked, VirtualBox
will save the state of what media has been mounted between several runs of
a virtual machine.
Mini Toolbar In full screen or seamless mode, VirtualBox can display a small toolbar
that contains some of the items that are normally available from the virtual ma-
chine’s menu bar. This toolbar reduces itself to a small gray line unless you move
the mouse over it. With the toolbar, you can return from full screen or seamless
mode, control machine execution or enable certain devices. If you don’t want to
see the toolbar, disable this setting.

3.3.3 “Description” tab

Here you can enter any description for your virtual machine, if you want. This has no
effect of the functionality of the machine, but you may find this space useful to note
down things like the configuration of a virtual machine and the software that has been
installed into it.

51
 3 Configuring virtual machines

3.4 System settings

The “System” category groups various settings that are related to the basic hardware
that is presented to the virtual machine.

Note: As the activation mechanism of Microsoft Windows is sensitive to hard-

ware changes, if you are changing hardware settings for a Windows guest,
some of these changes may trigger a request for another activation with Mi-
crosoft.

3.4.1 “Motherboard” tab

On the “Motherboard” tab, you can influence virtual hardware that would normally be
on the motherboard of a real computer.
Base memory This sets the amount of RAM that is allocated and given to the VM
when it is running. The specified amount of memory will be requested from the
host operating system, so it must be available or made available as free memory
on the host when attempting to start the VM and will not be available to the
host while the VM is running. This is the same setting that was specified in the
“New Virtual Machine” wizard, as described with guidelines under chapter 1.6,
Creating your first virtual machine, page 18 above.
Generally, it is possible to change the memory size after installing the guest
operating system (provided you do not reduce the memory to an amount where
the operating system would no longer boot).
Boot order This setting determines the order in which the guest operating system
will attempt to boot from the various virtual boot devices. Analogous to a real
PC’s BIOS setting, VirtualBox can tell a guest OS to start from the virtual floppy,
the virtual CD/DVD drive, the virtual hard drive (each of these as defined by the
other VM settings), the network, or none of these.
If you select “Network”, the VM will attempt to boot from a network via the PXE
mechanism. This needs to be configured in detail on the command line; please
see chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131.
Enable I/O APIC Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers (APICs) are a newer
x86 hardware feature that have replaced old-style Programmable Interrupt Con-
trollers (PICs) in recent years. With an I/O APIC, operating systems can use more
than 16 interrupt requests (IRQs) and therefore avoid IRQ sharing for improved
reliability.

Note: Enabling the I/O APIC is required for 64-bit guest operating systems,
especially Windows Vista; it is also required if you want to use more than one
virtual CPU in a virtual machine.

52
 3 Configuring virtual machines

However, software support for I/O APICs has been unreliable with some operat-
ing systems other than Windows. Also, the use of an I/O APIC slightly increases
the overhead of virtualization and therefore slows down the guest OS a little.

Warning: All Windows operating systems starting with Windows 2000 install
different kernels depending on whether an I/O APIC is available. As with
ACPI, the I/O APIC therefore must not be turned off after installation of a
Windows guest OS. Turning it on after installation will have no effect however.

Enable EFI This enables Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which replaces the
legacy BIOS, which may be useful for certain advanced use cases. Please refer to
chapter 3.12, Alternative firmware (EFI), page 62 for details.
Hardware clock in UTC time If checked, VirtualBox will report the system time in
UTC format to the guest instead of local (host) time. This affects how the virtual
real-time clock (RTC) operates and may be useful for Unix-like guest operating
systems, which typically expect the hardware clock to be set to UTC.
Enable absolute pointing device If enabled, VirtualBox reports to the virtual ma-
chine that a USB tablet device is present and communicates mouse events to the
virtual machine through this device. If disabled, mouse events are communi-
cated through a traditional PS/2 virtual mouse device.
Using the virtual USB tablet has the advantage that movements are reported
in absolute coordinates (instead of as relative position changes), which allows
VirtualBox to translate mouse events over the VM window into tablet events
without having to “capture” the mouse in the guest as described in chapter
1.7.1.1, Capturing and releasing keyboard and mouse, page 22. This makes using
the VM less tedious even if Guest Additions are not installed.2
In addition, you can turn off the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
(ACPI) which VirtualBox presents to the guest operating system by default. ACPI is the
current industry standard to allow operating systems to recognize hardware, configure
motherboards and other devices and manage power. As all modern PCs contain this
feature and Windows and Linux have been supporting it for years, it is also enabled
by default in VirtualBox. It can only be turned off on the command line; see chapter
8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131.

Warning: All Windows operating systems starting with Windows 2000 install
different kernels depending on whether ACPI is available, so ACPI must not
be turned off after installation of a Windows guest OS. Turning it on after
installation will have no effect however.

2 The virtual USB tablet was added with VirtualBox 3.2. Depending on the guest operating system selected,
this is now enabled by default for new virtual machines.

53
 3 Configuring virtual machines

3.4.2 “Processor” tab

On the “Processor” tab, you can set how many virtual CPU cores the guest operating
systems should see. Starting with version 3.0, VirtualBox supports symmetrical multi-
processing (SMP) and can present up to 32 virtual CPU cores to each virtual machine.
You should not, however, configure virtual machines to use more CPU cores than
you have available physically.
In addition, the “Enable PAE/NX” setting determines whether the PAE and NX capa-
bilities of the host CPU will be exposed to the virtual machine. PAE stands for “Physical
Address Extension”. Normally, if enabled and supported by the operating system, then
even a 32-bit x86 CPU can access more than 4 GB of RAM. This is made possible by
adding another 4 bits to memory addresses, so that with 36 bits, up to 64 GB can be
addressed. Some operating systems (such as Ubuntu Server) require PAE support from
the CPU and cannot be run in a virtual machine without it.
With virtual machines running modern server operating systems, VirtualBox also
supports CPU hot-plugging. For details about this, please refer to chapter 9.5, CPU
hot-plugging, page 167.

3.4.3 “Acceleration” tab

On this page, you can determine whether and how VirtualBox should use hardware
virtualization extensions that your host CPU may support. This is the case with most
CPUs built after 2006.
You can select for each virtual machine individually whether VirtualBox should use
software or hardware virtualization.3
In most cases, the default settings will be fine; VirtualBox will have picked sensi-
ble defaults depending on the operating system that you selected when you created
the virtual machine. In certain situations, however, you may want to change these
preconfigured defaults.
Advanced users may be interested in technical details about software vs. hardware
virtualization; please see chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page 185.
If your host’s CPU supports the nested paging (AMD-V) or EPT (Intel VT-x) features,
then you can expect a significant performance increase by enabling nested paging in
addition to hardware virtualization. Nested paging is still disabled by default even
for new machines, but it can be enabled for each virtual machine individually. For
technical details, see chapter 10.5, Nested paging and VPIDs, page 190.

3 Priorto VirtualBox version 2.2, software virtualization was the default; starting with version 2.2,
VirtualBox will enable hardware virtualization by default for new virtual machines that you create.
(Existing virtual machines are not automatically changed for compatibility reasons, and the default can
of course be changed for each virtual machine.)

54
 3 Configuring virtual machines

3.5 Display settings

Video memory size This sets the size of the memory provided by the virtual graph-
ics card available to the guest, in MB. As with the main memory, the specified
amount will be allocated from the host’s resident memory. Based on the amount
of video memory, higher resolutions and color depths may be available.
Monitor count With this setting VirtualBox can provide more than one virtual moni-
tor to a virtual machine. If a guest operating system (such as Windows) supports
multiple attached monitors, VirtualBox can pretend that multiple virtual moni-
tors are present.4 Up to 8 such virtual monitors are supported.
The output of the multiple monitors will be displayed on the host in multiple VM
windows which are running side by side.
However, in fullscreen and seamless mode, they will use the available physical
monitors attached to the host. As a result, for fullscreen and seamless modes to
work with multiple monitors, you will need at least as many physical monitors as
you have virtual monitors configured, or VirtualBox will report an error. You can
configure the relationship between guest and host monitors using the view menu
by pressing Host key + Home when you are in fullscreen or seamless mode.
Please see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210 also.
Enable 3D acceleration If a virtual machine has Guest Additions installed, you can
select here whether the guest should support accelerated 3D graphics. Please
refer to chapter 4.5.1, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9),
page 79 for details.

Enable 2D video acceleration If a virtual machine with Microsoft Windows has

Guest Additions installed, you can select here whether the guest should sup-
port accelerated 2D video graphics. Please refer to chapter 4.5.2, Hardware 2D
video acceleration for Windows guests, page 81 for details.

Remote display Under the “Remote display” tab, you can enable the VRDP server
that is built into VirtualBox to allow you to connect to the virtual machine re-
motely. For this, you can use any standard RDP viewer, such as mstsc.exe that
comes with Microsoft Windows or, on Linux systems, the standard open-source
rdesktop program. These features are described in detail in chapter 7.1, Remote
display (VRDP support), page 112.

3.6 Storage settings

In the VM Settings window, the “Storage” section allows you to connect virtual hard
disk, CD/DVD and floppy images and drives to your virtual machine:

4 Multiple monitor support was added with VirtualBox 3.2.

55
 3 Configuring virtual machines

In a real PC, so-called “storage controllers” connect physical disk drives to the rest
of the computer. Similarly, VirtualBox presents virtual storage controllers to a virtual
machine. Under each controller, the virtual devices (hard disks, CD/DVD or floppy
drives) are shown that are attached to the controller.
If you have used the “Create VM” wizard to create a machine, you will normally see
the following devices:

• You will see an IDE controller, under which there are two devices:
– one virtual hard disk connected to the IDE slot called “primary master”; this
is represented by the disk images that you created with the machine;
– one virtual CD/DVD drive connected to the “secondary master”.
• In addition, there is a floppy controller to which a virtual floppy drive is attached.

You can modify these media attachments freely. For example, if you wish to copy
some files from another virtual disk that you created, you can connect that disk as a
second hard disk. You could also add a second virtual CD/DVD drive, or change where
these items are attached.
In addition to the IDE controller, VirtualBox can also present an SATA controller and
a SCSI controller to the guest, which gives you 30 or 16 additional slots to attach
devices to, respectively. This, however, may require that you run a modern guest
operating system. See chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS,
page 87 for details.
To add another virtual hard disk or CD/DVD drive, select the storage controller to
which it should be added (IDE, SATA or SCSI) and then click on the “add disk” button

56
 3 Configuring virtual machines

below the tree. You can then either select “Add CD/DVD device” or “Add Hard Disk”.
Alternatively, right-click on the storage controller and select a menu item there.
On the right part of the window, you can then select where the virtual disk should
be connected to on the controller and which image file to use.

• For virtual hard disks, a drop-down list appears on the right, listing all the hard
disk images that VirtualBox currently knows about. If you click on the “Open
Virtual Media Manager” icon to the right, this will bring up a window in which
you can select or create a different hard disk image (see chapter 5.3, The Virtual
Media Manager, page 91 for details).
• For virtual CD/DVD drives, there are two kinds of options in the drop-down list.
– If you select “Empty”, then VirtualBox will present a virtual CD/DVD drive
to the guest which has no media inserted.
– If you select “Host drive” from the list, then the physical device of the host
computer is connected to the VM, so that the guest operating system can
read from and write to your physical device. This is, for instance, useful if
you want to install Windows from a real installation CD. In this case, select
your host drive from the drop-down list presented.

Note: If you want to write CDs or DVDs using the host drive, you need to
enable a special setting first; see chapter 5.9, Writing CDs and DVDs using the
host drive, page 100.

– The other items in the list, like virtual hard disk images, will be image files
on your host. The file format here is the ISO format. Most commonly,
you will select this option when installing an operating system from an ISO
file that you have obtained from the Internet. For example, most Linux
distributions are available in this way.

Note: The identification string of the drive provided to the guest (which, in
the guest, would be displayed by configuration tools such as the Windows
Device Manager) is always “VBOX CD-ROM”, irrespective of the current con-
figuration of the virtual drive. This is to prevent hardware detection from
being triggered in the guest operating system every time the configuration is
changed.

Note that the floppy controller is special: you cannot add devices other than floppy
drives to it. Virtual floppy drives, like virtual CD/DVD drives, can be connected to
either a host floppy drive (if you have one) or a disk image, which in this case must be
in RAW format.

57
 3 Configuring virtual machines

To remove a virtual disk or drive, select it and click on the “remove” icon at the
bottom (or right-click on it and select the menu item).
Removable media (CD/DVDs and floppies) can be changed while the guest is run-
ning. Since the “Settings” dialog is not available at that time, you can also access these
settings from the “Devices” menu of your virtual machine window.
We have dedicated an entire chapter of this User Manual to virtual storage: please
see chapter 5, Virtual storage, page 87 for every single detail about storage configura-
tion.

3.7 Audio settings

The “Audio” section in a virtual machine’s Settings window determines whether the
VM will see a sound card connected, and whether the audio output should be heard
on the host system.
If audio is enabled for a guest, you can choose between the emulation of an Intel
AC’97 controller or a SoundBlaster 16 card. In any case, you can select what audio
driver VirtualBox will use on the host.
On a Linux host, depending on your host configuration, you can also select between
the OSS, ALSA or the PulseAudio subsystem. On newer Linux distributions (Fedora 8
and above, Ubuntu 8.04 and above) the PulseAudio subsystem should be preferred.

Note: Newer Windows versions do not ship with drivers for the virtual audio
hardware emulated by VirtualBox. This applies to Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-
bit versions) as well as 64-bit Windows Vista. See chapter 12.3.7, No audio in
Windows Vista (64-bit) and Windows 7 guests, page 201 for instructions how
to solve this problem.

3.8 Network settings

The “Network” section in a virtual machine’s Settings window allows you to configure
how VirtualBox presents virtual network cards to your VM, and how they operate.
When you first create a virtual machine, VirtualBox by default enables one virtual
network card and selects the “Network Address Translation” (NAT) mode for it. This
way the guest can connect to the outside world using the host’s networking and the
outside world can connect to services on the guest which you choose to make visible
outside of the virtual machine. In most cases, this default setup will work fine for you.
However, VirtualBox is extremely flexible in how it can virtualize networking. It
supports up to eight virtual network cards per virtual machine, the first four of which
can be configured in detail in the graphical user interface. All eight network cards
can be configured on the command line with VBoxManage. Because of this, we have
dedicated an entire chapter of this manual to discussing networking configuration;
please see chapter 6, Virtual networking, page 103.

58
 3 Configuring virtual machines

3.9 Serial ports

VirtualBox fully supports virtual serial ports in a virtual machine in an easy-to-use
manner.5
Ever since the original IBM PC, personal computers have been equipped with one
or two serial ports (also called COM ports by DOS and Windows). While these are no
longer as important as they were until a few years ago (especially since mice are no
longer connected to serial ports these days), there are still some important uses left for
them. For example, serial ports can be used to set up a primitive network over a null-
modem cable, in case Ethernet is not available. Also, serial ports are indispensable for
system programmers needing to do kernel debugging, since kernel debugging software
usually interacts with developers over a serial port. In other words, with virtual serial
ports, system programmers can do kernel debugging on a virtual machine instead of
needing a real computer to connect to.
If a virtual serial port is enabled, the guest operating system sees it a standard
16450-type serial port. Both receiving and transmitting data is supported. How this
virtual serial port is then connected to the host is configurable, and details depend on
your host operating system.
You can use either the graphical user interface or the command-line VBoxManage
tool to set up virtual serial ports. For the latter, please refer to chapter 8.7, VBoxManage
modifyvm, page 131; in that section, look for the --uart and --uartmode options.
In either case, you can configure up to two virtual serial ports simultaneously. For
each such device, you will need to determine

1. what kind of serial port the virtual machine should see by selecting an I/O base
address and interrupt (IRQ). For these, we recommend to use the traditional
values6 , which are:
a) COM1: I/O base 0x3F8, IRQ 4
b) COM2: I/O base 0x2F8, IRQ 3
c) COM3: I/O base 0x3E8, IRQ 4
d) COM4: I/O base 0x2E8, IRQ 3
2. Then, you will need to determine what this virtual port should be connected to.
For each virtual serial port, you have the following options:
• You can elect to have the virtual serial port “disconnected”, which means
that the guest will see it as hardware, but it will behave as if no cable had
been connected to it.
• You can connect the virtual serial port to a physical serial port on your
host. (On a Windows host, this will be a name like COM1; on Linux or
OpenSolaris hosts, it will be a device node like /dev/ttyS0). VirtualBox
will then simply redirect all data received from and sent to the virtual serial
port to the physical device.
5 Serial port support was added with VirtualBox 1.5.
6 See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_(hardware_interface).

59
 3 Configuring virtual machines

• You can tell VirtualBox to connect the virtual serial port to a software pipe
on the host. This depends on your host operating system:
– On a Windows host, data will be sent and received through a named
pipe. You can use a helper program called VMware Serial Line
Gateway, available for download at http://www.l4ka.org/tools/
vmwaregateway.php. This tool provides a fixed server mode named
pipe at \\.\pipe\vmwaredebug and connects incoming TCP connec-
tions on port 567 with the named pipe.
– On a Mac, Linux or OpenSolaris host, a local domain socket is used
instead. On Linux there are various tools which can connect to a local
domain socket or create one in server mode. The most flexible tool is
socat and is available as part of many distributions.
In this case, you can configure whether VirtualBox should create the named
pipe (or, on non-Windows hosts, the local domain socket) itself or whether
VirtualBox should assume that the pipe (or socket) exists already. With the
VBoxManage command-line options, this is referred to as “server” or “client”
mode, respectively.

Up to two serial ports can be configured simultaneously per virtual machine, but you
can pick any port numbers out of the above. For example, you can configure two serial
ports to be able to work with COM2 and COM4 in the guest.

3.10 USB support

3.10.1 USB settings
The “USB” section in a virtual machine’s Settings window allows you to configure
VirtualBox’s sophisticated USB support.
VirtualBox can allow virtual machines to access the USB devices on your host di-
rectly. To achieve this, VirtualBox presents the guest operating system with a virtual
USB controller. As soon as the guest system starts using a USB device, it will appear as
unavailable on the host.

Note:

1. Be careful with USB devices that are currently in use on the host! For
example, if you allow your guest to connect to your USB hard disk that
is currently mounted on the host, when the guest is activated, it will be
disconnected from the host without a proper shutdown. This may cause
data loss.
2. Solaris hosts have a few known limitations regarding USB support;
please see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210.

60
 3 Configuring virtual machines

In addition to allowing a guest access to your local USB devices, VirtualBox even
allows your guests to connect to remote USB devices by use of the VRDP protocol. For
details about this, see chapter 7.1.4, Remote USB, page 116.
In the Settings dialog, you can first configure whether USB is available in the guest
at all, and in addition also optionally enable the USB 2.0 (EHCI) controller for the
guest. If so, you can determine in detail which devices are available. For this, you
must create so-called “filters” by specifying certain properties of the USB device.
Clicking on the “+“ button to the right of the “USB Device Filters” window creates a
new filter. You can give the filter a name (for referencing it later) and specify the filter
criteria. The more criteria you specify, the more precisely devices will be selected. For
instance, if you specify only a vendor ID of 046d, all devices produced by Logitech
will be available to the guest. If you fill in all fields, on the other hand, the filter will
only apply to a particular device model from a particular vendor, and not even to other
devices of the same type with a different revision and serial number.
In detail, the following criteria are available:

1. Vendor and product ID. With USB, each vendor of USB products carries an
identification number that is unique world-wide, the “vendor ID”. Similarly, each
line of products is assigned a “product ID” number. Both numbers are commonly
written in hexadecimal (that is, they are composed of the numbers 0-9 and the
letters A-F), and a colon separates the vendor from the product ID. For example,
046d:c016 stands for Logitech as a vendor, and the “M-UV69a Optical Wheel
Mouse” product.
Alternatively, you can also specify “Manufacturer” and “Product” by name.
To list all the USB devices that are connected to your host machine with their
respective vendor and product IDs, you can use the following command (see
chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 121):
VBoxManage list usbhost

On Windows, you can also see all USB devices that are attached to your system
in the Device Manager. On Linux, you can use the lsusb command.
2. Serial number. While vendor and product ID are already quite specific to iden-
tify USB devices, if you have two identical devices of the same brand and product
line, you will also need their serial numbers to filter them out correctly.
3. Remote. This setting specifies whether the device will be local only, or remote
only (over VRDP), or either.

On a Windows host, you will need to unplug and reconnect a USB device to use it
after creating a filter for it.
As an example, you could create a new USB filter and specify a vendor ID of 046d
(Logitech, Inc), a manufacturer index of 1, and “not remote”. Then any USB devices
on the host system produced by Logitech, Inc with a manufacturer index of 1 will be
visible to the guest system.

61
 3 Configuring virtual machines

Several filters can select a single device – for example, a filter which selects all
Logitech devices, and one which selects a particular webcam.
You can deactivate filters without deleting them by clicking in the checkbox next to
the filter name.

3.10.2 Implementation notes for Windows and Linux hosts

On Windows hosts, a kernel mode device driver provides USB proxy support. It imple-
ments both a USB monitor, which allows VirtualBox to capture devices when they are
plugged in, and a USB device driver to claim USB devices for a particular virtual ma-
chine. As opposed to VirtualBox versions before 1.4.0, system reboots are no longer
necessary after installing the driver. Also, you no longer need to replug devices for
VirtualBox to claim them.
On newer Linux hosts, VirtualBox accesses USB devices through special files in the
file system. When VirtualBox is installed, these are made available to all users in the
vboxusers system group. In order to be able to access USB from guest systems, make
sure that you are a member of this group.
On older Linux hosts, USB devices are accessed using the usbfs file system. There-
fore, the user executing VirtualBox needs read and write permission to the USB file
system. Most distributions provide a group (e.g. usbusers) which the VirtualBox
user needs to be added to. Also, VirtualBox can only proxy to virtual machines USB
devices which are not claimed by a Linux host USB driver. The Driver= entry in
/proc/bus/usb/devices will show you which devices are currently claimed. Please
refer to chapter 12.6.7, USB not working, page 207 also for details about usbfs.

3.11 Shared folders

Shared folders allow you to easily exchange data between a virtual machine and your
host. This feature requires that the VirtualBox Guest Additions be installed in a virtual
machine and is described in detail in chapter 4.3, Shared folders, page 76.

3.12 Alternative firmware (EFI)

Starting with release 3.1, VirtualBox includes experimental support for the Extensible
Firmware Interface (EFI), which is a new industry standard intended to eventually
replace the legacy BIOS as the primary interface for bootstrapping computers and
certain system services later.
By default, VirtualBox uses the BIOS firmware for virtual machines. To use EFI
for a given virtual machine, you can enable EFI in the machine’s “Settings” dialog
(see chapter 3.4.1, “Motherboard” tab, page 52). Alternatively, use the VBoxManage
command line interface like this:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --firmware efi

62
 3 Configuring virtual machines

To switch back to using the BIOS, use:

VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --firmware bios

One notable user of EFI is Apple’s Mac OS X, but recent Linuxes (such as Fedora 11)
and Windows (starting with Vista) can be booted using EFI as well.
Another possible use of EFI in VirtualBox is development and testing of EFI applica-
tions, without booting any OS.
Note that the VirtualBox EFI support is experimental and will be enhanced as EFI
matures and becomes more widespread. While Mac OS X and Linux guests are known
to work fine, Windows guests are currently unable to boot using EFI.

3.12.1 Video modes in EFI

EFI provides two distinct video interfaces: GOP (Graphics Output Protocol) and UGA
(Universal Graphics Adapter). Mac OS X uses GOP, while Linux tends to use UGA.
VirtualBox provides a configuration option to control the framebuffer size for both
interfaces.
To control GOP, use the following VBoxManage command:

VBoxManage setextradata vmname VBoxInternal2/EfiGopMode N

Where N can be one of 0,1,2,3,4 referring to the 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768,

1280x1024, 1440x900 screen resolution respectively.
To change the UGA resolution:

VBoxManage setextradata vmname VBoxInternal2/UgaHorizontalResolution 1440

VBoxManage setextradata vmname VBoxInternal2/UgaVerticalResolution 900

The video mode for both GOP and UGA can only be changed when the VM is pow-
ered off and remains persistent until changed.

63
4 Guest Additions
The previous chapter covered getting started with VirtualBox and installing operating
systems in a virtual machine. For any serious and interactive use, the VirtualBox Guest
Additions will make your life much easier by providing closer integration between host
and guest and improving the interactive performance of guest systems. This chapter
describes the Guest Additions in detail.

4.1 Introduction
As said in chapter 1.2, Some terminology, page 12, the Guest Additions are designed
to be installed inside a virtual machine after the guest operating system has been
installed. They consist of device drivers and system applications that optimize the
guest operating system for better performance and usability. Please see chapter 3.1,
Supported guest operating systems, page 47 for details on what guest operating systems
are fully supported with Guest Additions by VirtualBox.
The VirtualBox Guest Additions for all supported guest operating systems are pro-
vided as a single CD-ROM image file which is called VBoxGuestAdditions.iso. This
image file is located in the installation directory of VirtualBox. To install the Guest
Additions for a particular VM, you mount this ISO file in your VM as a virtual CD-ROM
and install from there.
The Guest Additions offer the following features:

Mouse pointer integration To overcome the limitations for mouse support that were
described in chapter 1.7.1.1, Capturing and releasing keyboard and mouse, page
22, this provides you with seamless mouse support. You will only have one
mouse pointer and pressing the Host key is no longer required to “free” the
mouse from being captured by the guest OS. To make this work, a special mouse
driver is installed in the guest that communicates with the “real” mouse driver
on your host and moves the guest mouse pointer accordingly.

Better video support While the virtual graphics card which VirtualBox emulates for
any guest operating system provides all the basic features, the custom video
drivers that are installed with the Guest Additions provide you with extra high
and non-standard video modes as well as accelerated video performance.
In addition, with Windows and recent Linux, Solaris and OpenSolaris guests, if
the Guest Additions are installed, you can resize the virtual machine’s window,
and the video resolution in the guest will be automatically adjusted (as if you
had manually entered an arbitrary resolution in the guest’s display settings).

64
 4 Guest Additions

Finally, if the Guest Additions are installed, 3D graphics for guest applications
can be accelerated; see chapter 4.5.1, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and
Direct3D 8/9), page 79.

Time synchronization With the Guest Additions installed, VirtualBox can ensure that
the guest’s system time is better synchronized with that of the host.
For various reasons, the time in the guest might run at a slightly different rate
than the time on the host. The host could be receiving updates via NTP and its
own time might not run linearly. A VM could also be paused, which stops the
flow of time in the guest for a shorter or longer period of time. When the wall
clock time between the guest and host only differs slightly, the time synchroniza-
tion service attempts to gradually and smoothly adjust the guest time in small
increments to either “catch up” or “lose” time. When the difference is too great
(e.g., a VM paused for hours or restored from saved state), the guest time is
changed immediately, without a gradual adjustment.
The Guest Additions will re-synchronize the time regularly. See chapter 9.12.3,
Tuning the Guest Additions time synchronization parameters, page 180 for how to
configure the parameters of the time synchronization mechanism.
Shared folders These provide an easy way to exchange files between the host and
the guest. Much like ordinary Windows network shares, you can tell VirtualBox
to treat a certain host directory as a shared folder, and VirtualBox will make it
available to the guest operating system as a network share. For details, please
refer to chapter 4.3, Shared folders, page 76.
Seamless windows With this feature, the individual windows that are displayed on
the desktop of the virtual machine can be mapped on the host’s desktop, as if
the underlying application was actually running on the host. See chapter 4.4,
Seamless windows, page 78 for details.
Shared clipboard With the Guest Additions installed, the clipboard of the guest op-
erating system can optionally be shared with your host operating system; see
chapter 3.3, General settings, page 50.

Automated logons (credentials passing) For details, please see chapter 9.3, Auto-
mated guest logons, page 163.

Each version of VirtualBox, even minor releases, ship with their own version of the
Guest Additions. While the interfaces through which the VirtualBox core communi-
cates with the Guest Additions are kept stable so that Guest Additions already installed
in a VM should continue to work when VirtualBox is upgraded on the host, for best
results, it is recommended to keep the Guest Additions at the same version.
Starting with VirtualBox 3.1, the Windows and Linux Guest Additions therefore
check automatically whether they have to be updated. If the host is running a newer
VirtualBox version than the Guest Additions, a notification with further instructions is
displayed in the guest.

65
 4 Guest Additions

To disable this update check for the Guest Additions of a given virtual machine, set
the value of its /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/CheckHostVersion guest property to 0; see
chapter 4.6, Guest properties, page 81 for details.

4.2 Installing and Maintaining Guest Additions

Guest Additions are available for virtual machines running Windows, Linux, Solaris or
OS/2. The following sections describe the specifics of each variant in detail.

4.2.1 Guest Additions for Windows

The VirtualBox Windows Guest Additions are designed to be installed in a virtual
machine running a Windows operating system. The following versions of Windows
guests are supported:

• Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 (any service pack)

• Microsoft Windows 2000 (any service pack)
• Microsoft Windows XP (any service pack)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (any service pack)
• Microsoft Windows Server 2008
• Microsoft Windows Vista (all editions)
• Microsoft Windows 7 (all editions)

4.2.1.1 Installation
In the “Devices” menu in the virtual machine’s menu bar, VirtualBox has a handy
menu item named “Install guest additions”, which mounts the Guest Additions ISO
file inside your virtual machine. A Windows guest should then automatically start the
Guest Additions installer, which installs the Guest Additions into your Windows guest.

Note: For Direct 3D acceleration to work in a Windows Guest, you must install
the Guest Additions in “Safe Mode”; see chapter 13, Known limitations, page
210 for details.

If you prefer to mount the additions manually, you can perform the following steps:

1. Start the virtual machine in which you have installed Windows.

2. Select “Mount CD/DVD-ROM” from the “Devices” menu in the virtual machine’s
menu bar and then “CD/DVD-ROM image”. This brings up the Virtual Media
Manager described in chapter 5.3, The Virtual Media Manager, page 91.

66
 4 Guest Additions

3. In the Virtual Media Manager, press the “Add” button and browse your host file
system for the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file:
• On a Windows host, you can find this file in the VirtualBox installation
directory (usually under C:\Program files\Oracle\VirtualBox ).
• On Mac OS X hosts, you can find this file in the application bundle of
VirtualBox. (Right click on the VirtualBox icon in Finder and choose Show
Package Contents. There it is located in the Contents/MacOS folder.)
• On a Linux host, you can find this file in the additions folder under where
you installed VirtualBox (normally /opt/VirtualBox/).
• On Solaris hosts, you can find this file in the additions folder under where
you installed VirtualBox (normally /opt/VirtualBox).
4. Back in the Virtual Media Manager, select that ISO file and press the “Select”
button. This will mount the ISO file and present it to your Windows guest as a
CD-ROM.

Unless you have the Autostart feature disabled in your Windows guest, Windows will
now autostart the VirtualBox Guest Additions installation program from the Additions
ISO. If the Autostart feature has been turned off, choose VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe
from the CD/DVD drive inside the guest to start the installer.
The installer will add several device drivers to the Windows driver database and
then invoke the hardware detection wizard.
Depending on your configuration, it might display warnings that the drivers are
not digitally signed. You must confirm these in order to continue the installation and
properly install the Additions.
After installation, reboot your guest operating system to activate the Additions.

4.2.1.2 Updating the Windows Guest Additions

Windows Guest Additions can be updated by running the installation program again,
as previously described. This will then replace the previous Additions drivers with
updated versions.
Alternatively, you may also open the Windows Device Manager and select “Update
driver...“ for two devices:

1. the VirtualBox Graphics Adapter and

2. the VirtualBox System Device.

For each, choose to provide your own driver and use “Have Disk” to point the wizard
to the CD-ROM drive with the Guest Additions.

67
 4 Guest Additions

4.2.1.3 Unattended Installation

In order to allow for completely unattended guest installations, you can specify a
command line parameter to the install launcher:

VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe /S

This automatically installs the right files and drivers for the corresponding platform
(32- or 64-bit).

Note: Because of the drivers are not yet WHQL certified, you still might get
some driver installation popups, depending on the Windows guest version.

For more options regarding unattended guest installations, consult the command
line help by using the command:

VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe /?

4.2.1.4 Manual file extraction

If you would like to install the files and drivers manually, you can extract the files from
the Windows Guest Additions setup by typing:
VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe /extract

To explicitly extract the Windows Guest Additions for another platform than
the current running one (e.g. 64-bit files on a 32-bit system), you have to
execute the appropriate platform installer (VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86.exe or
VBoxWindowsAdditions-amd64.exe) with the /extract parameter.

4.2.1.5 Windows Vista networking

Earlier versions of VirtualBox provided a virtual AMD PCNet Ethernet card to guests by
default. Since Microsoft no longer ships a driver for that card with Windows (starting
with Windows Vista), if you select Windows Vista or newer as the guest operating
system for a virtual machine, VirtualBox will instead present a virtual Intel network
controller to the guest (see chapter 6.1, Virtual networking hardware, page 103).
However, if for any reason you have a 32-bit Windows Vista VM that is configured
to use an AMD PCNet card, you will have no networking in the guest initially.
As a convenience, VirtualBox ships with a 32-bit driver for the AMD PCNet card,
which comes with the Windows Guest Additions. If you install these in a 32-bit Vista
guest, the driver will automatically be installed as well. If, for some reason, you
would like to install the driver manually, you can extract the required files from the

68
 4 Guest Additions

Windows Guest Additions setup. Please consult chapter 4.2.1.4, Manual file extraction,
page 68 on how to achieve this. You will then find the AMD PCNet driver files in the
x86\Network\AMD\netamd.inf subdirectory of the default install directory.
Alternatively, change the Vista guest’s VM settings to use an Intel networking card
instead of the default AMD PCNet card; see chapter 3.8, Network settings, page 58 for
details.
Unfortunately, there is no 64-bit driver available for the AMD PCNet card. So for
64-bit Windows VMs, you should always use the Intel networking devices.

4.2.2 Guest Additions for Linux

Like the Windows Guest Additions, the VirtualBox Guest Additions for Linux take the
form of a set of device drivers and system applications which may be installed in the
guest operating system.
The following Linux distributions are officially supported:

• Fedora as of Fedora Core 4;

• Redhat Enterprise Linux as of version 3;
• SUSE and openSUSE Linux as of version 9;

• Ubuntu as of version 5.10.

Many other distributions are known to work with the Guest Additions.
The version of the Linux kernel supplied by default in SUSE and openSUSE 10.2,
Ubuntu 6.10 (all versions) and Ubuntu 6.06 (server edition) contains a bug which
can cause it to crash during startup when it is run in a virtual machine. The Guest
Additions work in those distributions.
Note that some Linux distributions already come with VirtualBox Guest Additions or
a part thereof. You may keep the distribution’s version of the Guest Additions but of-
ten, these are not up to date and limited in functionality. Therefore, you can choose the
install the Guest Additions that come with VirtualBox, overriding the already installed
version. The VirtualBox Linux Guest Additions installer tries to detect existing instal-
lation and replace them but depending on how the distribution integrates the Guest
Additions, they may require some manual interaction. It is highly recommended to
take a snapshot of the virtual machine before overriding the installation.

4.2.2.1 Installing the Linux Guest Additions

The VirtualBox Guest Additions for Linux are provided on the same ISO CD-ROM
as the Additions for Windows described above. They also come with an installation
program guiding you through the setup process, although, due to the significant dif-
ferences between Linux distributions, installation may be slightly more complex.
Installation generally involves the following steps:

69
 4 Guest Additions

1. Before installing the Guest Additions, you will have to prepare your guest system
for building external kernel modules. This works similarly as described in chap-
ter 2.3.2, The VirtualBox kernel module, page 37, except that this step must now
be performed in your Linux guest instead of on a Linux host system, as described
there.
Again, as with Linux hosts, we recommend using DKMS for Linux guests as well.
If it is not installed, use this command for Ubuntu/Debian systems:
sudo apt-get install dkms

or for Fedora systems:

yum install dkms

Make sure to nstall DKMS before installing the Linux Guest Additions.
2. Mount the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file as your Linux guest’s virtual CD-ROM
drive, exactly the same way as described for a Windows guest in chapter 4.2.1.1,
Installation, page 66.

3. Change to the directory where your CD-ROM drive is mounted and execute as
root:
sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

In a 64-bit Linux guest, use VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run instead.

For your convenience, the following step-by-step instructions have been verified to
work for freshly installed copies of the most popular Linux distributions. After these
preparational steps, you can execute the VirtualBox Guest Additions installer as de-
scribed above.

Ubuntu 10.04 (“Lucid Lynx”)

1. In order to update your system to the latest version of the packets, open a termi-
nal and as root, execute
apt-get update

followed by
apt-get upgrade

2. Install DKMS using

apt-get install dkms

3. Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates and then proceed as
described above.

70
 4 Guest Additions

Fedora 13 (“Goddard”)
1. In order to update your system to the latest version of the packets, open a termi-
nal and as root, execute
yum update

2. Install DKMS and the GNU C compiler using

yum install dkms

followed by
yum install gcc

3. Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates and then proceed as
described above.

openSUSE 11.2
1. In order to update your system to the latest version of the packets, open a termi-
nal and as root, execute
zypper update

2. Install the make tool and the GNU C compiler using

zypper install make gcc

3. Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates.

4. Find out which kernel you are running using
uname -a

An example would be 2.6.31.12-0.2-default which refers to the “default”

kernel. Then install the correct kernel development package. In the above ex-
ample this would be
zypper install kernel-default-devel

5. Make sure that your running kernel (uname -a) and the kernel packages you
have installed (rpm -qa kernel\*) have the exact same version number. Pro-
ceed with the installation as described above.

SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 11

1. In order to update your system to the latest version of the packets, open a termi-
nal and as root, execute
zypper update

2. Install the GNU C compiler using

zypper install gcc

71
 4 Guest Additions

3. Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates.

4. Find out which kernel you are running using
uname -a

An example would be 2.6.27.19-5.1-default which refers to the “default”

kernel. Then install the correct kernel development package. In the above ex-
ample this would be
zypper install kernel-syms kernel-source

5. Make sure that your running kernel (uname -a) and the kernel packages you
have installed (rpm -qa kernel\*) have the exact same version number. Pro-
ceed with the installation as described above.

Mandrake 2010
1. Mandrake ships with the VirtualBox Guest Additions which will be replaced if
you follow these steps.
2. In order to update your system to the latest version of the packets, open a termi-
nal and as root and execute
urpmi --auto-update

3. Reboot your system in order to activate the updates.

4. Install DKMS using
urpmi dkms

and make sure the choose the correct kernel-devel package when asked by the
installer (use uname -a to compare).

CentOS 5.5, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5 and Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5
1. Add divider=10 to the kernel boot options in /etc/grub.conf to reduce the
idle CPU load.
2. To update your system to the latest version of the packets, open a terminal and
as root, execute
yum update

3. Install the GNU C compiler and the kernel development packages using
yum install gcc

followed by
yum install kernel-devel

4. Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates and then proceed as
described above.
5. Note that OpenGL support is not available unless you update to a later Linux
kernel.

72
 4 Guest Additions

Debian 5 (“Lenny”)
1. In order to update your system to the latest version of the packets, open a termi-
nal and as root, execute
apt-get update

followed by
apt-get upgrade

2. Install the make tool and the GNU C compiler using

apt-get install make gcc

3. Reboot your guest system in order to activate the updates.

4. Determine the exact version of your kernel using uname -a and install the cor-
rect version of the linux-headers package, e.g. using
apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.26-2-686

5. Note that OpenGL support is not available unless you update to a later Linux
kernel.

4.2.2.2 Manual setup of selected guest services

The VirtualBox Guest Additions contain several different drivers. If for any reason you
do not wish to set them all up, you can install the Guest Additions using the following
command:
sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run no_setup

(substituting VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64 on a 64-bit guest).

After this, you will need to at least compile the kernel modules by running the
command
/usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/vboxadd setup

as root (you will need to replace lib by lib64 on some 64bit guests), and on older
guests without the udev service you will need to add the vboxadd service to the default
runlevel to ensure that the modules get loaded.
To setup the time synchronization service, run the command
/usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/vboxadd-service setup

and add the service vboxadd-service to the default runlevel. To set up the X11 and
OpenGL part of the Guest Additions, run the command
/usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/vboxadd-x11 setup

(you do not need to enable any services for this).

To recompile the guest kernel modules, use this command:
/usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/vboxadd setup

After compilation you should reboot your guest to ensure that the new modules are
actually used.

73
 4 Guest Additions

4.2.2.3 Video acceleration and high resolution graphics modes

In Linux guests, VirtualBox video acceleration is available through the X Window Sys-
tem. Typically, in today’s Linux distributions, this will be the X.Org server. During the
installation process, X will be set up to use the VirtualBox video driver shipped with
the Guest Additions.
For Linux and Solaris guests, the X.org server version 1.3 or later is required for
automatic resizing (the feature has been disabled on Fedora 9 guests due to a bug in
the X server they supply). The server version can be checked with Xorg -version.
You can also send video mode hints using the VBoxManage tool.
If you are only using recent Linux guests systems, you can skip the rest of this
section. On older guest systems, whatever graphics modes were set up before the
installation will be used. If these modes do not suit your requirements, you can
change your setup by editing the configuration file of the X server, usually found in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.
VirtualBox can use any default X graphics mode which fits into the virtual video
memory allocated to the virtual machine, as described in chapter 3.3, General settings,
page 50. You can also add your own modes to the X server configuration file. You
simply need to add them to the “Modes” list in the “Display” subsection of the “Screen”
section. For example, the section shown here has a custom 2048x800 resolution mode
added:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "VirtualBox graphics card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "2048x800" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

4.2.2.4 Updating the Linux Guest Additions

The Guest Additions can simply be updated by going through the installation proce-
dure again with an updated CD-ROM image. This will replace the drivers with updated
versions. You should reboot after updating the Guest Additions.

4.2.2.5 Uninstalling the Linux Guest Additions

If you have a version of the Guest Additions installed on your virtual machine and
wish to remove it without installing new ones, you can do so by inserting the Guest
Additions CD image into the virtual CD-ROM drive as described above and running
the installer for the current Guest Additions with the “uninstall” parameter from the
path that the CD image is mounted on in the guest:

74
 4 Guest Additions

sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run uninstall

(substituting VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64 on a 64-bit guest). While this will nor-

mally work without issues, you may need to do some manual clean up of the guest
(particularly of the XFree86Config or xorg.conf file) in some cases, particularly if the
Additions version installed or the guest operating system were very old, or if you made
your own changes to the Guest Additions setup after you installed them.
Starting with version 3.1.0, you can uninstall the Additions by invoking
/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.2.8/uninstall.sh

substituting /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.2.8 with the Guest Additions installa-

tion directory.

4.2.3 Guest Additions for Solaris

Like the Windows Guest Additions, the VirtualBox Guest Additions for Solaris take the
form of a set of device drivers and system applications which may be installed in the
guest operating system.
The following Solaris distributions are officially supported:

• OpenSolaris Nevada (Build 82 and higher; this includes OpenSolaris 2008.05,

2008.11 and 2009.06);
• OpenSolaris Indiana (Developer Preview 2 and higher);
• Solaris 10 (u5 and higher).

Other distributions may work if they are based on comparable software releases.

4.2.3.1 Installing the Solaris Guest Additions

The VirtualBox Guest Additions for Solaris are provided on the same ISO CD-ROM
as the Additions for Windows and Linux described above. They also come with an
installation program guiding you through the setup process.
Installation involves the following steps:

1. Mount the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file as your Solaris guest’s virtual CD-

ROM drive, exactly the same way as described for a Windows guest in chapter
4.2.1.1, Installation, page 66.
If in case the CD-ROM drive on the guest doesn’t get mounted (observed on
some versions of Solaris 10), execute as root:
svcadm restart volfs

2. Change to the directory where your CD-ROM drive is mounted and execute as
root:

75
 4 Guest Additions

pkgadd -G -d ./VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg

3. Choose “1” and confirm installation of the Guest Additions package. After the
installation is complete, re-login to X server on your guest to activate the X11
Guest Additions.

4.2.3.2 Uninstalling the Solaris Guest Additions

The Solaris Guest Additions can be safely removed by removing the package from the
guest. Open a root terminal session and execute:
pkgrm SUNWvboxguest

4.2.3.3 Updating the Solaris Guest Additions

The Guest Additions should be updated by first uninstalling the existing Guest Ad-
ditions and then installing the new ones. Attempting to install new Guest Additions
without removing the existing ones is not possible.

4.2.4 Guest Additions for OS/2

VirtualBox also ships with a set of drivers that improve running OS/2 in a virtual
machine. Due to restrictions of OS/2 itself, this variant of the Guest Additions has a
limited feature set; see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210 for details.
The OS/2 Guest Additions are provided on the same ISO CD-ROM as those for the
other platforms. As a result, mount the ISO in OS/2 as described previously. The OS/2
Guest Additions are located in the directory \32bit\OS2.
As we do not provide an automatic installer at this time, please refer to the
readme.txt file in that directory, which describes how to install the OS/2 Guest Ad-
ditions manually.

4.3 Shared folders

With the “shared folders” feature of VirtualBox, you can access files of your host system
from within the guest system. This is similar how you would use network shares in
Windows networks – except that shared folders do not need require networking, so
long as the Guest Additions are installed. Shared Folders are supported with Windows
(2000 or newer), Linux and Solaris guests.
Shared folders must physically reside on the host and are then shared with the guest;
sharing is accomplished using a special service on the host and a file system driver for
the guest, both of which are provided by VirtualBox. For Windows guests, shared
folders are implemented as a pseudo-network redirector; for Linux and Solaris guests,
the Guest Additions provide a virtual filesystem driver which handles communication
with the host.

76
 4 Guest Additions

To share a host folder with a virtual machine in VirtualBox, you must specify the
path of that folder and choose for it a “share name” that the guest can use to access it.
Hence, first create the shared folder on the host; then, within the guest, connect to it.
There are several ways in which shared folders can be set up for a particular virtual
machine:

• In the graphical user interface of a running virtual machine, you can select
“Shared folders” from the “Devices” menu, or click on the folder icon on the
status bar in the bottom right corner of the virtual machine window.
• If a virtual machine is not currently running, you can configure shared folders in
each virtual machine’s “Settings” dialog.
• From the command line, you can create shared folders using the VBoxManage
command line interface; see chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 121. The command
is as follows:
VBoxManage sharedfolder add "VM name" --name "sharename" --hostpath "C:\test"

There are two types of shares:

1. VM shares which are only available to the VM for which they have been defined;
2. transient VM shares, which can be added and removed at runtime and do not
persist after a VM has stopped; for these, add the --transient option to the
above command line.

Shared folders have read/write access to the files at the host path by default. To
restrict the guest to have read-only access, create a read-only shared folder. This can
either be achieved using the GUI or by appending the parameter --readonly when
creating the shared folder with VBoxManage.
Then, you can mount the shared folder from inside a VM the same way as you would
mount an ordinary network share:

• In a Windows guest, starting with VirtualBox 1.5.0, shared folders are

browseable and are therefore visible in Windows Explorer. So, to attach the
host’s shared folder to your Windows guest, open Windows Explorer and look
for it under “My Networking Places” -> “Entire Network” -> “VirtualBox Shared
Folders”. By right-clicking on a shared folder and selecting “Map network drive”
from the menu that pops up, you can assign a drive letter to that shared folder.
Alternatively, on the Windows command line, use the following:
net use x: \\vboxsvr\sharename

While vboxsvr is a fixed name (note that vboxsrv would also work), replace
“x:“ with the drive letter that you want to use for the share, and sharename with
the share name specified with VBoxManage.
• In a Linux guest, use the following command:

77
 4 Guest Additions

mount -t vboxsf [-o OPTIONS] sharename mountpoint

To mount a shared folder during boot, add the following entry to /etc/fstab:
sharename mountpoint vboxsf defaults 0 0

• In a Solaris guest, use the following command:

mount -F vboxfs [-o OPTIONS] sharename mountpoint

Replace sharename (use lowercase) with the share name specified with
VBoxManage or the GUI, and mountpoint with the path where you want the
share to be mounted on the guest (e.g. /mnt/share). The usual mount rules
apply, that is, create this directory first if it does not exist yet.
Here is an example of mounting the shared folder for the user “jack” on Open-
Solaris:
$ id
uid=5000(jack) gid=1(other)
$ mkdir /export/home/jack/mount
$ pfexec mount -F vboxfs -o uid=5000,gid=1 jackshare /export/home/jack/mount
$ cd ~/mount
$ ls
sharedfile1.mp3 sharedfile2.txt
$

Beyond the standard options supplied by the mount command, the following are
available:
iocharset CHARSET

to set the character set used for I/O operations (utf8 by default) and
convertcp CHARSET

to specify the character set used for the shared folder name (utf8 by default).
The generic mount options (documented in the mount manual page) apply also.
Especially useful are the options uid, gid and mode, as they allow access by
normal users (in read/write mode, depending on the settings) even if root has
mounted the filesystem.

4.4 Seamless windows

With the “seamless windows” feature of VirtualBox, you can have the windows that are
displayed within a virtual machine appear side by side next to the windows of your
host. This feature is supported for the following guest operating systems (provided
that the Guest Additions are installed):

• Windows guests (support added with VirtualBox 1.5);

78
 4 Guest Additions

• Linux or Solaris/OpenSolaris guests with an X.org server version 1.3 or higher1

(support added with VirtualBox 1.6). The exception is Fedora 9, due to a bug in
its X server.

After seamless windows are enabled (see below), VirtualBox suppresses the display
of the Desktop background of your guest, allowing you to run the windows of your
guest operating system seamlessly next to the windows of your host:

To enable seamless mode, after starting the virtual machine, press the Host key (nor-
mally the right control key) together with “L”. This will enlarge the size of the VM’s
display to the size of your host screen and mask out the guest operating system’s back-
ground. To go back to the “normal” VM display (i.e. to disable seamless windows),
press the Host key and “L” again.

4.5 Hardware-accelerated graphics

4.5.1 Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)
The VirtualBox Guest Additions contain experimental hardware 3D support for Win-
dows, Linux and Solaris guests.2

1 The X server version is not the same as the version of the entire X.org suite. You can type X -version in
a terminal to find out about the X.org server version level that is currently installed.
2 OpenGL support for Windows guests was added with VirtualBox 2.1; support for Linux and Solaris fol-

lowed with VirtualBox 2.2. With VirtualBox 3.0, Direct3D 8/9 support was added for Windows guests.
OpenGL 2.0 is now supported as well.

79
 4 Guest Additions

With this feature, if an application inside your virtual machine uses 3D features
through the OpenGL or Direct3D 8/9 programming interfaces, instead of emulating
them in software (which would be slow), VirtualBox will attempt to use your host’s
3D hardware. This works for all supported host platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux,
Solaris), provided that your host operating system can make use of your accelerated
3D hardware in the first place.
The 3D acceleration currently has the following preconditions:

1. It is only available for certain Windows, Linux and Solaris guests. In particular:
• For Windows guests, support is restricted to 32-bit versions of XP and Vista.
Both OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9 are supported (experimental).
• OpenGL on Linux requires kernel 2.6.27 and higher as well as X.org server
version 1.5 and higher. Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10 have been tested and
confirmed as working.
• OpenGL on Solaris guests requires X.org server version 1.5 and higher.
2. The Guest Additions must be installed.

Note: For Direct 3D acceleration to work in a Windows Guest, VirtualBox

needs to replace Windows system files in the virtual machine. As a result, the
Guest Additions installation program offers Direct 3D acceleration as an op-
tion that must be explicitly enabled.Also, you must install the Guest Additions
in “Safe Mode”; see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210 for details.

3. Because 3D support is still experimental at this time, it is disabled by default and

must be manually enabled in the VM settings (see chapter 3.3, General settings,
page 50).

Note: Enabling 3D acceleration may expose security holes to malicious soft-

ware running the guest. The third-party code that VirtualBox uses for this
purpose (Chromium) is not hardened enough to prevent every risky 3D oper-
ation on the host.

Technically, VirtualBox implements this by installing an additional hardware 3D

driver inside your guest when the Guest Additions are installed. This driver acts as
a hardware 3D driver and reports to the guest operating system that the (virtual)
hardware is capable of 3D hardware acceleration. When an application in the guest
then requests hardware acceleration through the OpenGL or Direct3D programming
interfaces, these are sent to the host through a special communication tunnel imple-
mented by VirtualBox, and then the host performs the requested 3D operation via the
host’s programming interfaces.

80
 4 Guest Additions

4.5.2 Hardware 2D video acceleration for Windows guests

Starting with version 3.1, the VirtualBox Guest Additions contain experimental hard-
ware 2D video acceleration support for Windows guests.
With this feature, if an application (e.g. a video player) inside your Windows VM
uses 2D video overlays to play a movie clip, then VirtualBox will attempt to use your
host’s video acceleration hardware instead of performing overlay stretching and color
conversion in software (which would be slow). This currently works for Windows,
Linux and Mac host platforms, provided that your host operating system can make use
of 2D video acceleration in the first place.
The 2D video acceleration currently has the following preconditions:

1. It is only available for Windows guests (XP or later).

2. The Guest Additions must be installed.
3. Because 2D support is still experimental at this time, it is disabled by default and
must be manually enabled in the VM settings (see chapter 3.3, General settings,
page 50).

Technically, VirtualBox implements this by exposing video overlay DirectDraw capa-

bilities in the Guest Additions video driver. The driver sends all overlay commands to
the host through a special communication tunnel implemented by VirtualBox. On the
host side, OpenGL is then used to implement color space transformation and scaling

4.6 Guest properties

Starting with version 2.1, VirtualBox allows for requesting certain properties from a
running guest, provided that the VirtualBox Guest Additions are installed and the VM
is running. This is good for two things:

1. A number of predefined VM characteristics are automatically maintained by

VirtualBox and can be retrieved on the host, e.g. to monitor VM performance
and statistics.
2. In addition, arbitrary string data can be exchanged between guest and host. This
works in both directions.

To accomplish this, VirtualBox establishes a private communication channel be-

tween the VirtualBox Guest Additions and the host, and software on both sides can
use this channel to exchange string data for arbitrary purposes. Guest properties are
simply string keys to which a value is attached. They can be set (written to) by either
the host and the guest, and they can also be read from both sides.
In addition to establishing the general mechanism of reading and writing values, a
set of predefined guest properties is automatically maintained by the VirtualBox Guest
Additions to allow for retrieving interesting guest data such as the guest’s exact oper-
ating system and service pack level, the installed version of the Guest Additions, users

81
 4 Guest Additions

that are currently logged into the guest OS, network statistics and more. These prede-
fined properties are all prefixed with /VirtualBox/ and organized into a hierarchical
tree of keys.
Some of this runtime information is shown when you select “Session Information
Dialog” from a virtual machine’s “Machine” menu.
A more flexible way to use this channel is via the VBoxManage guestproperty
command set; see chapter 8.27, VBoxManage guestproperty, page 154 for details. For
example, to have all the available guest properties for a given running VM listed with
their respective values, use this:
$ VBoxManage guestproperty enumerate "Windows Vista III"
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.8
(C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Product, value: Windows Vista Business Edition,

timestamp: 1229098278843087000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Release, value: 6.0.6001,
timestamp: 1229098278950553000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/ServicePack, value: 1,
timestamp: 1229098279122627000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/InstallDir,
value: C:/Program Files/Sun/xVM VirtualBox
Guest Additions, timestamp: 1229098279269739000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Revision, value: 40720,
timestamp: 1229098279345664000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Version, value: 3.2.8,
timestamp: 1229098279479515000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxControl.exe, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279651731000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxHook.dll, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279804835000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxDisp.dll, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279880611000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxMRXNP.dll, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279882618000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxService.exe, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279883195000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxTray.exe, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279885027000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxGuest.sys, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279886838000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxMouse.sys, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279890600000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxSF.sys, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279893056000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/Components/VBoxVideo.sys, value: 3.2.8r40720,
timestamp: 1229098279895767000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsers, value: 1,
timestamp: 1229099826317660000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/NoLoggedInUsers, value: false,
timestamp: 1229098455580553000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/Count, value: 1,
timestamp: 1229099826299785000, flags:

82
 4 Guest Additions

Name: /VirtualBox/HostInfo/GUI/LanguageID, value: C,

timestamp: 1229098151272771000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP, value: 192.168.2.102,
timestamp: 1229099826300088000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/Broadcast, value: 255.255.255.255,
timestamp: 1229099826300220000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/Netmask, value: 255.255.255.0,
timestamp: 1229099826300350000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/Status, value: Up,
timestamp: 1229099826300524000, flags:
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/LoggedInUsersList, value: username,
timestamp: 1229099826317386000, flags:

To query the value of a single property, use the “get” subcommand like this:
$ VBoxManage guestproperty get "Windows Vista III"
"/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Product"
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.8
(C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

Value: Windows Vista Business Edition

To add or change guest properties from the guest, use the tool VBoxControl. This
tool is included in the Guest Additions of VirtualBox 2.2 or later. When started from a
Linux guest, this tool requires root privileges for security reasons:
$ sudo VBoxControl guestproperty enumerate
VirtualBox Guest Additions Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.8
(C) 2009-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Release, value: 2.6.28-18-generic,

timestamp: 1265813265835667000, flags: <NULL>
Name: /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/OS/Version, value: #59-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 28 01:23:03 UTC 2010,
timestamp: 1265813265836305000, flags: <NULL>
...

For more complex needs, you can use the VirtualBox programming interfaces; see
chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces, page 192.

4.7 Guest control

Starting with version 3.2, the Guest Additions of VirtualBox allow starting applications
inside a VM from the host system.
For this to work, the application needs to be installed inside the guest; no additional
software needs to be installed on the host. Additionally, text mode output (to stdout
and stderr) can be shown on the host for further processing along with options to spec-
ify user credentials and a timeout value (in milliseconds) to limit time the application
is able to run.

83
 4 Guest Additions

This feature can be used to automate deployment of software within the guest.

Note: On Windows guests, a process lauched via the guest control execute
support is only able to display a graphical user interface if the user account it is
started under, is currently logged in and has a desktop session. Otherwise, the
process will not be able to display its user interface. Also, for using accounts
without or with an empty password specified, the group policy needs to be
changed on the guest. To do so, open the group policy editor on the command
line by typing gpedit.msc, open the key Computer Configuration\Windows
Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options and change the value
of Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only to
Disabled.

To use this feature, use the VirtualBox command line. See chapter 8.28, VBoxManage
guestcontrol, page 155 for details.

4.8 Memory ballooning

Starting with version 3.2, the Guest Additions of VirtualBox can change the amount
of memory of a virtual machine while the machine is running. Because of how this is
implemented, this feature is called “memory ballooning”.
Normally, to change the amount of memory allocated to a virtual machine, one has
to shut down the virtual machine entirely and change the virtual machine’s settings.
With memory ballooning, memory that was allocated for a virtual machine can be
given to another virtual machine without having to shut the machine down. This
can be useful to temporarily start another virtual machine, or in more complicated
environments for sophisticated memory management of many virtual machines that
may be running in parallel depending on how memory is used by the guests.
When memory ballooning is requested, the VirtualBox Guest Additions (which run
inside the guest) allocate physical memory from the guest operating system on the
kernel level and lock this memory down in the guest. This ensures that the guest will
not use that memory any longer: no guest applications can allocate it, and the guest
operating system will not use it either. VirtualBox can then re-use this memory and
give it to a second virtual machine.
The memory made available through the ballooning mechanism is only available
for re-use by VirtualBox. It is not returned as free memory to the host. Requesting
balloon memory from a running guest will therefore not increase the amount of free,
unallocated memory on the host.
Effectively, memory ballooning is therefore a memory overcommitment mechanism
for multiple virtual machines while they are running.
At this time, memory ballooning is only supported in VBoxManage, the VirtualBox
command-line utility. Use the following command to increase or decrease the size
of the memory balloon within a running virtual machine that has Guest Additions
installed:

84
 4 Guest Additions

VBoxManage controlvm "VM name" guestmemoryballoon <n>

where "VM name" is the name or UUID of the virtual machine in question and <n>
is the amount of memory to allocate from the guest in megabytes; see chapter 8.11,
VBoxManage controlvm, page 141 for more information.
You can also set a default balloon that will automatically be requested from the VM
every time after it has started up with the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --guestmemoryballoon <n>

By default, no balloon memory is allocated. This is a VM setting, like other modifyvm

settings, and therefore can only be set while the machine is shut down; see chapter
8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131.

Note: VirtualBox supports memory ballooning only on 64-bit hosts, memory

ballooning is not supported on Mac OS X hosts.

4.9 Page Fusion

Page Fusion is a novel technique to further improve VM density on the host, i.e. a way
of overcommitting resources. It was first introduced with VirtualBox 3.2 and is cur-
rently limited to VMs running Windows 2000 and later. In a typical scenario, dozens,
up to hundreds of very similar VMs are consolidated on a powerful host computer and
the level of consolidation is most often limited by the amount of RAM that can be in-
stalled in a system at reasonable cost. Often, due to RAM exhaustion, additional VMs
cannot be started even though the host’s CPUs still provide capacity. To circumvent
this restriction, hypervisors can benefit from the fact that often, VMs are very similar
(e.g. multiple VMs running Windows XP Service Pack 2) and therefore contain a num-
ber of identical RAM cells. The hypervisor can look for such duplicate data in memory,
eliminate the redundancy (deduplication) and thereby free additional memory.
Traditional hypervisors use a technique often called “page sharing” or “same page
merging” where they go through all memory and compute checksums (hashes) for
each memory page. Then, they look for pages with identical hashes and compare the
content of the pages (if two pages produce the same hash, it is very likely that the
pages are identical in content). Identical pages get eliminated so that all VMs point
to the same page as long as none of the VMs tries to modify the page. If such a page
gets modified, the previously eliminated duplicates get allocated again. All this is
fully transparent to the virtual machine. However, the classical algorithm has several
drawbacks. First of all, it takes rather long to scan the complete memory (esp. when
the system is not idling) so the additional memory only becomes available after some
time (this can be hours or even days!). Also, the whole page sharing algorithm gener-
ally consumes significant CPU resources and increases the virtualization overhead by
10-20%.

85
 4 Guest Additions

Page Fusion in VirtualBox uses the VirtualBox Guest Additions to identify memory
cells that are most likely identical across VMs and therefore achieves most of the pos-
sible savings of page sharing almost immediately and with almost no overhead. Page
Fusion is also much less likely to be tricked by identical memory that it will eliminate
just to learn seconds later that the memory will now change and having to perform a
highly expensive and often service disrupting reallocation.
Page Fusion can be enabled for a VM using:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --pagefusion on

You can observe Page Fusion operation using some metrics. RAM/VMM/Shared shows
the total amount of fused pages whereas the per VM metric Guest/RAM/Usage/Shared
will return the amount of fused memory for a given VM. Please refer to chapter 8.26,
VBoxManage metrics, page 152 for information on how to query metrics.

Note: VirtualBox supports Page Fusion only on 64-bit host operating systems.
Mac OS X hosts are currently not supported. Page Fusion is only available for
Windows 2000 and later guests with current Guest Additions.

86
5 Virtual storage
As the virtual machine will most probably expect to see a hard disk built into its virtual
computer, VirtualBox must be able to present “real” storage to the guest as a virtual
hard disk. There are presently three methods in which to achieve this:

1. Most commonly, VirtualBox will use large image files on a real hard disk and
present them to a guest as a virtual hard disk. This is described in chapter 5.2,
Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD), page 90.
2. Alternatively, if you have iSCSI storage servers, you can attach such a server to
VirtualBox as well; this is described in chapter 5.10, iSCSI servers, page 101.
3. Finally, as an experimental feature, you can allow a virtual machine to access one
of your host disks directly; this advanced feature is described in chapter 9.7.1,
Using a raw host hard disk from a guest, page 171.

Each such virtual storage device (image file, iSCSI target or physical hard disk) will
need to be connected to the virtual hard disk controller that VirtualBox presents to a
virtual machine. This is explained in the next section.

5.1 Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI,

SAS
In a real PC, hard disks and CD/DVD drives are connected to a device called hard disk
controller which drives hard disk operation and data transfers. VirtualBox can emulate
the three most common types of hard disk controllers typically found in today’s PCs:
IDE, SATA (AHCI) and SCSI.1

• IDE (ATA) controllers have been in use since the 1980s. Initially, this type of
interface worked only with hard disks, but was later extended to also support
CD-ROM drives and other types of removable media. In physical PCs, this stan-
dard uses flat ribbon parallel cables with 40 or 80 wires. Each such cable can
connect two devices to a controller, which have traditionally been called “master”
and “slave”. Typical hard disk controllers have two connectors for such cables;
as a result, most PCs support up to four devices.

1 SATA support was added with VirtualBox 1.6; experimental SCSI support was added with 2.1 and fully
implemented with 2.2. Generally, storage attachments were made much more flexible with VirtualBox
3.1; see below.

87
 5 Virtual storage

In VirtualBox, each virtual machine has one IDE controller enabled by default,
which gives you up to four virtual storage devices that you can attach to the
machine. (By default, one of these four – the secondary master – is preconfigured
to be the machine’s virtual CD/DVD drive, but this can be changed.2 )
So even if your guest operating system has no support for SCSI or SATA devices,
it should always be able to see the default IDE controller that is enabled by
default.
You can also select which exact type of IDE controller hardware VirtualBox
should present to the virtual machine (PIIX3, PIIX4 or ICH6). This makes no
difference in terms of performance, but if you import a virtual machine from
another virtualization product, the operating system in that machine may expect
a particular controller and crash if it isn’t found.
After you have created a new virtual machine with the “New Virtual Machine”
wizard of the graphical user interface, you will typically see one IDE controller in
the machine’s “Storage” settings where the virtual CD/DVD drive will be attached
to one of the four ports of this controller.
• Serial ATA (SATA) is a newer standard introduced in 2003. Compared to IDE,
it supports both much higher speeds and more devices per hard disk controller.
Also, with physical hardware, devices can be added and removed while the sys-
tem is running. The standard interface for SATA controllers is called Advanced
Host Controller Interface (AHCI).
For compatibility reasons, AHCI controllers by default operate the disks attached
to it in a so-called “IDE compatibility mode”, unless SATA support is explicitly
requested. “IDE compatibility mode” only means that the drives can be seen and
operated by the computer’s BIOS. Still, disks assigned to those slots will operate
in full-speed AHCI mode once the guest operating system has loaded its AHCI
device driver.
Like a real SATA controller, VirtualBox’s virtual SATA controller operates faster
and also consumes less CPU resources than the virtual IDE controller. Also, this
allows you to connect up to 30 virtual hard disks to one machine instead of
just three, as with the VirtualBox IDE controller (with the DVD drive already
attached). Of these, the first four (numbered 0-3 in the graphical user interface)
are operated in IDE compatibility mode by default.
For this reason, starting with version 3.2 and depending on the selected guest
operating system, VirtualBox uses SATA as the default for newly created virtual
machines. One virtual SATA controller is created by default, and the default disk
that is created with a new VM is attached to this controller.

2 The assignment of the machine’s CD/DVD drive to the secondary master was fixed before VirtualBox 3.1;
it is now changeable, and the drive can be at other slots of the IDE controller, and there can be more
than one such drive.

88
 5 Virtual storage

Warning: The entire SATA controller and the virtual disks attached to it (in-
cluding those in IDE compatibility mode) will not be seen by operating sys-
tems that do not have device support for AHCI. In particular, there is no
support for AHCI in Windows before Windows Vista, so Windows XP (even
SP2) will not see such disks unless you install additional drivers. It is possible
to switch from IDE to SATA after installation by installing the SATA drivers
and changing the controller type in the VM settings dialog. a
a VirtualBoxrecommends the Intel Matrix Storage drivers which can be downloaded from
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101

To add a SATA controller to a machine for which it has not been enabled by
default (either because it was created by an earlier version of VirtualBox, or be-
cause SATA is not supported by default by the selected guest operating system),
go to the “Storage” page of of the machine’s settings dialog, click on the “Add
Controller” button under the “Storage Tree” box and then select “Add SATA Con-
troller”. After this, the additional controller will appear as a separate PCI device
in the virtual machine, and you can add virtual disks to it.
To change the IDE compatibility mode settings for the SATA controller, please see
chapter 8.15, VBoxManage storagectl / storageattach, page 144.
• SCSI is another established industry standard, standing for “Small Computer
System Interface”. This was established as early as 1986 as a generic interface for
data transfer between all kinds of devices, including storage devices. Today SCSI
is still used for connecting hard disks and tape devices, but it has mostly been
displaced in commodity hardware. It is still in common use in high-performance
workstations and servers.
Primarily for compatibility with other virtualization software, VirtualBox option-
ally supports LsiLogic and BusLogic SCSI controllers, to each of which up to 16
virtual hard disks can be attached.
To enable a SCSI controller, on the “Storage” page of a virtual machine’s set-
tings dialog, click on the “Add Controller” button under the “Storage Tree” box
and then select “Add SCSI Controller”. After this, the additional controller will
appear as a separate PCI device in the virtual machine.

Warning: There are limitations with the default SCSI drivers shipped with
some operating systems. Notably the BusLogic controller does not work with
Windows NT4 guests.

• Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is another bus standard which uses the SCSI com-
mand set. As opposed to SCSI, however, with physical devices, serial cables are
used instead of parallel ones, which simplifies physical device connections. In

89
 5 Virtual storage

some ways, therefore, SAS is to SCSI what SATA is to IDE: it allows for more
reliable and faster connections.
To support high-end guests which require SAS controllers, VirtualBox emulates
a LsiLogic SAS controller, which can be enabled much the same way as a SCSI
controller. At this time, up to eight devices can be connected to the SAS con-
troller.3

Warning: As with SATA, the SAS controller will only be seen by operating
systems with device support for it. In particular, there is no support for SAS
in Windows before Windows Vista, so Windows XP (even SP2) will not see
such disks unless you install additional drivers.

In summary, VirtualBox gives you the following categories of virtual storage slots:

1. four slots attached to the traditional IDE controller, which are always present
(one of which typically is a virtual CD/DVD drive);
2. 30 slots attached to the SATA controller, if enabled and provided that your guest
operating system can see it; these slots can either be
a) in IDE compatibility mode (by default, slots 0-3) or
b) in SATA mode;
3. 16 slots attached to the SCSI controller, if enabled and supported by the guest
operating system;

4. eight slots attached to the SAS controller, if enabled and supported by the guest
operating system.

Given this large choice of storage controllers, you may ask yourself which one to
choose. In general, you should avoid IDE unless it is the only controller supported by
your guest. Whether you use SATA, SCSI or SAS does not make any real difference.

5.2 Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD)

Disk image files reside on the host system and are seen by the guest systems as hard
disks of a certain geometry. When a guest operating system reads from or writes to a
hard disk, VirtualBox redirects the request to the image file.
Note that when you create an image file, its size needs to be specified, which rep-
resents a fixed geometry of the virtual disk. It is therefore not possible to change the
size of the virtual hard disk later.
VirtualBox supports four variants of disk image files:
3 Support for the LsiLogic SAS controller was added with VirtualBox 3.2.

90
 5 Virtual storage

• Normally, VirtualBox uses its own container format for guest hard disks – Virtual
Disk Image (VDI) files. In particular, this format will be used when you create a
new virtual machine with a new disk.

• VirtualBox also fully supports the popular and open VMDK container format that
is used by many other virtualization products, in particular, by VMware.4
• VirtualBox also fully supports the VHD format used by Microsoft.
• Image files of Parallels version 2 (HDD format) are also supported.5 For lack of
documentation of the format, newer formats (3 and 4) are not supported. You
can however convert such image files to version 2 format using tools provided
by Parallels.

Irrespective of the disk format, as briefly mentioned in chapter 1.6, Creating your
first virtual machine, page 18, there are two options of how to create a disk image:
fixed-size or dynamically expanding.

• If you create a fixed-size image of e.g. 10 GB, an image file of roughly the same
size will be created on your host system. Note that the creation of a fixed-size
image can take a long time depending on the size of the image and the write
performance of your hard disk.

• For more flexible storage management, use a dynamically expanding image.

This will initially be very small and not occupy any space for unused virtual disk
sectors, but the image file will grow every time a disk sector is written to for the
first time. While this format takes less space initially, the fact that VirtualBox
needs to constantly expand the image file consumes additional computing re-
sources, so until the disk has fully expanded, write operations are slower than
with fixed size disks. However, after a dynamic disk has fully expanded, the
performance penalty for read and write operations is negligible.

5.3 The Virtual Media Manager

VirtualBox keeps an internal registry of all available hard disk, CD/DVD-ROM and
floppy disk images. This registry can be viewed and changed in the Virtual Media
Manager, which you can access from the “File” menu in the VirtualBox main window:

4 Initial support for VMDK was added with VirtualBox 1.4; since version 2.1, VirtualBox supports VMDK
fully, meaning that you can create snapshots and use all the other advanced features described above for
VDI images with VMDK also.
5 Support was added with VirtualBox 3.1.

91
 5 Virtual storage

The window shows you all images that are currently registered with VirtualBox, con-
veniently grouped in three tabs for the three possible formats. These formats are:

• Hard disk images, either in VirtualBox’s own Virtual Disk Image (VDI) format or
in the third-party formats listed above;

• CD/DVD images in standard ISO format;

• floppy images in standard RAW format.

As you can see in the screenshot above, for each image, the Virtual Media Manager
shows you the full path of the image file and other information, such as the virtual
machine the image is currently attached to, if any.
The Virtual Media Manager allows you to

• create new hard disk images using the “New” button; this will bring up the
“Create Disk Image” wizard already described in chapter 1.6, Creating your first
virtual machine, page 18;

• import existing image files from your hard drive into VirtualBox using the “Add”
button;
• remove an image from the registry (and optionally delete the image file when
doing so);

• “release” an image, that is, detach it from a virtual machine if it is currently

attached to one as a virtual hard disk.

92
 5 Virtual storage

We recommend that you maintain two special folders on your system for keeping
images: one for hard disk image files (which can, in the case of dynamically expand-
ing images, grow to considerable sizes), and one for ISO files (which were probably
downloaded from the Internet).
Hard disk image files can be copied onto other host systems and imported into
virtual machines there, although certain guest systems (notably Windows 2000 and
XP) will require that the new virtual machine be set up in a similar way to the old one.

Note: Do not simply make copies of virtual disk images. If you import such
a second copy into a virtual machine, VirtualBox will complain with an er-
ror, since VirtualBox assigns a unique identifier (UUID) to each disk image to
make sure it is only used once. See chapter 5.6, Cloning disk images, page 98
for instructions on this matter. Also, if you want to copy a virtual machine to
another system, VirtualBox has an import/export facility that might be bet-
ter suited for your needs; see chapter 1.11, Importing and exporting virtual
machines, page 30.

5.4 Special image write modes

For each virtual disk image supported by VirtualBox, you can use special commands
how write operations from the virtual machine should affect the image and how snap-
shots should affect it. This applies to all of the aforementioned image formats (VDI,
VMDK, VHD or HDD) and irrespective of whether an image is fixed-size or dynamically
expanding.
1. With normal images (the default setting), there are no restrictions on how
guests can read from and write to the disk.
When you take a snapshot of your virtual machine as described in chapter 1.8,
Snapshots, page 26, the state of such a “normal hard disk” will be recorded
together with the snapshot, and when reverting to the snapshot, its state will be
fully reset.
(Technically, strictly speaking, the image file itself is not “reset”. Instead, when
a snapshot is taken, VirtualBox “freezes” the image file and no longer writes to
it. For the write operations from the VM, a second, “differencing” image file
is created which receives only the changes to the original image; see the next
section for details.)
While you can attach the same “normal” image to more than one virtual ma-
chine, only one of these virtual machines attached to the same image file can
be executed simultaneously, as otherwise there would be conflicts if several ma-
chines write to the same image file.6
6 Thisrestriction is more lenient now than it was before VirtualBox 2.2. Previously, each “normal” disk
image could only be attached to one single machine. Now it can be attached to more than one machine
so long as only one of these machines is running.

93
 5 Virtual storage

2. By contrast, write-through hard disks are completely unaffected by snapshots:

their state is not saved when a snapshot is taken, and not restored when a snap-
shot is restored.
To create a disk image in VDI format as “write-through”, use the VBoxManage
createhd command; see chapter 8.17, VBoxManage createhd, page 147. To
mark an existing image as write-through, use VBoxManage modifyhd; see chap-
ter 8.18, VBoxManage modifyhd, page 148.
3. Shareable hard disks are a variant of write-through hard disks. In principle they
behave exactly the same, i.e. their state is not saved when a snapshot is taken,
and not restored when a snapshot is restored. The difference only shows if you
attach such disks to several VMs. Shareable VMs may be attached to several
VMs which may run concurrently. This makes them suitable for use by cluster
filesystems between VMs and similar applications which are explicitly prepared
to access a disk concurrently. Only fixed size images can be used in this way, and
dynamically growing images are rejected.
This is an expert feature, and misuse can lead to data loss – regular filesystems
are not prepared to handle simultaneous changes by several parties.
To create a disk image in VDI format as “shareable”, use the VBoxManage
createhd command; see chapter 8.17, VBoxManage createhd, page 147. To
mark an existing image as shareable, use VBoxManage modifyhd; see chapter
8.18, VBoxManage modifyhd, page 148.
4. Finally, immutable images only remember write accesses temporarily while the
virtual machine is running; all changes are lost when the virtual machine is
powered on the next time. As a result, as opposed to “normal” images, the same
immutable image can be used with several virtual machines without restrictions.
Creating an immutable image makes little sense since it would be initially empty
and lose its contents with every machine restart (unless you really want to have
a disk that is always unformatted when the machine starts up). As a result,
normally, you would first create a “normal” image and then, when you deem its
contents useful, later mark it immutable using VBoxManage modifyhd; again,
please see chapter 8.18, VBoxManage modifyhd, page 148. Alternatively, open
an existing image in “immutable” mode using VBoxManage openmedium; see
chapter 8.14, VBoxManage openmedium / closemedium, page 144.
If you take a snapshot of a machine with immutable images, then on every ma-
chine power-up, those images are reset to the state of the last (current) snapshot
(instead of the state of the original immutable image).

94
 5 Virtual storage

Note: As a special exception, immutable images are not reset if they are at-
tached to a machine whose last snapshot was taken while the machine was
running (a so-called “online” snapshot). As a result, if the machine’s current
snapshot is such an “online” snapshot, its immutable images behave exactly
like the “normal” images described previously. To re-enable the automatic
resetting of such images, delete the current snapshot of the machine.

Again, technically, VirtualBox never writes to an immutable image directly at

all. All write operations from the machine will be directed to a differencing
image; the next time the VM is powered on, the differencing image is reset
so that every time the VM starts, its immutable images have exactly the same
content.7 The differencing image is only reset when the machine is powered on
from within VirtualBox, not when you reboot by requesting a reboot from within
the machine. This is also why immutable images behave as described above
when snapshots are also present, which use differencing images as well.
If the automatic discarding of the differencing image on VM startup does not fit
your needs, you can turn it off using the autoreset parameter of VBoxManage
modifyhd; see chapter 8.18, VBoxManage modifyhd, page 148 for details.

To illustrate the differences between the various types with respect to snapshots:
Assume you have installed your guest operating system in your VM, and you have
taken a snapshot. Imagine you have accidentally infected your VM with a virus and
would like to go back to the snapshot. With a normal hard disk image, you simply
restore the snapshot, and the earlier state of your hard disk image will be restored
as well (and your virus infection will be undone). With an immutable hard disk,
all it takes is to shut down and power on your VM, and the virus infection will be
discarded. With a write-through image however, you cannot easily undo the virus
infection by means of virtualization, but will have to disinfect your virtual machine
like a real computer.
Still, you might find write-through images useful if you want to preserve critical
data irrespective of snapshots, and since you can attach more than one image to a VM,
you may want to have one immutable for the operating system and one write-through
for your data files.

5.5 Differencing images

The previous section hinted at differencing images and how they are used with snap-
shots, immutable images and multiple disk attachments. For the inquisitive VirtualBox
user, this section describes in more detail how they work.
A differencing image is a special disk image that only holds the differences to an-
other image. A differencing image by itself is useless, it must always refer to another
7 Thisbehavior also changed with VirtualBox 2.2. Previously, the differencing images were discarded when
the machine session ended; now they are discarded every time the machine is powered on.

95
 5 Virtual storage

image. The differencing image is then typically referred to as a “child”, which holds
the differences to its “parent”.
When a differencing image is active, it receives all write operations from the virtual
machine instead of its parent. The differencing image only contains the sectors of the
virtual hard disk that have changed since the differencing image was created. When
the machine reads a sector from such a virtual hard disk, it looks into the differencing
image first. If the sector is present, it is returned from there; if not, VirtualBox looks
into the parent. In other words, the parent becomes “read-only”; it is never written to
again, but it is read from if a sector has not changed.
Differencing images can be chained. If another differencing image is created for a
virtual disk that already has a differencing image, then it becomes a “grandchild” of
the original parent. The first differencing image then becomes read-only as well, and
write operations only go to the second-level differencing image. When reading from
the virtual disk, VirtualBox needs to look into the second differencing image first, then
into the first if the sector was not found, and then into the original image.
There can be an unlimited number of differencing images, and each image can
have more than one child. As a result, the differencing images can form a complex
tree with parents, “siblings” and children, depending on how complex your machine
configuration is. Write operations always go to the one “active” differencing image
that is attached to the machine, and for read operations, VirtualBox may need to look
up all the parents in the chain until the sector in question is found. You can look at
such a tree in the Virtual Media Manager:

In all of these situations, from the point of view of the virtual machine, the virtual
hard disk behaves like any other disk. While the virtual machine is running, there
is a slight run-time I/O overhead because VirtualBox might need to look up sectors

96
 5 Virtual storage

several times. This is not noticeable however since the tables with sector information
are always kept in memory and can be looked up quickly.
Differencing images are used in the following situations:

1. Snapshots. When you create a snapshot, as explained in the previous section,

VirtualBox “freezes” the images attached to the virtual machine and creates dif-
ferencing images for each of them (to be precise: one for each image that is
not in “write-through” mode). From the point of view of the virtual machine,
the virtual disks continue to operate before, but all write operations go into the
differencing images. Each time you create another snapshot, for each hard disk
attachment, another differencing image is created and attached, forming a chain
or tree.
In the above screenshot, you see that the original disk image is now attached to
a snapshot, representing the state of the disk when the snapshot was taken.
If you now restore a snapshot – that is, if you want to go back to the exact
machine state that was stored in the snapshot –, the following happens:
a) VirtualBox copies the virtual machine settings that were copied into the
snapshot back to the virtual machine. As a result, if you have made changes
to the machine configuration since taking the snapshot, they are undone.
b) If the snapshot was taken while the machine was running, it contains a
saved machine state, and that state is restored as well; after restoring the
snapshot, the machine will then be in “Saved” state and resume execution
from there when it is next started. Otherwise the machine will be in “Pow-
ered Off” state and do a full boot.
c) For each disk image attached to the machine, the differencing image hold-
ing all the write operations since the current snapshot was taken is thrown
away, and the original parent image is made active again. (If you restored
the “root” snapshot, then this will be the root disk image for each attach-
ment; otherwise, some other differencing image descended from it.) This
effectively restores the old machine state.
If you later delete a snapshot in order to free disk space, for each disk at-
tachment, one of the differencing images becomes obsolete. In this case, the
differencing image of the disk attachment cannot simply be deleted. Instead,
VirtualBox needs to look at each sector of the differencing image and needs to
copy it back into its parent; this is called “merging” images and can be a po-
tentially lengthy process, depending on how large the differencing image is. It
can also temporarily need a considerable amount of extra disk space, before the
differencing image obsoleted by the merge operation is deleted.
2. Immutable images. When an image is switched to “immutable” mode, a dif-
ferencing image is created as well. As with snapshots, the parent image then
becomes read-only, and the differencing image receives all the write operations.
Every time the virtual machine is started, all the immutable images which are

97
 5 Virtual storage

attached to it have their respective differencing image thrown away, effectively

resetting the virtual machine’s virtual disk with every restart.

5.6 Cloning disk images

You can duplicate hard disk image files on the same host to quickly produce a second
virtual machine with the same operating system setup. However, you should only make
copies of virtual disk images using the utility supplied with VirtualBox; see chapter
8.19, VBoxManage clonehd, page 148. This is because VirtualBox assigns a unique
identity number (UUID) to each disk image, which is also stored inside the image, and
VirtualBox will refuse to work with two images that use the same number. If you do
accidentally try to reimport a disk image which you copied normally, you can make a
second copy using VirtualBox’s utility and import that instead.
Note that newer Linux distributions identify the boot hard disk from the ID of the
drive. The ID VirtualBox reports for a drive is determined from the UUID of the
virtual disk image. So if you clone a disk image and try to boot the copied image
the guest might not be able to determine its own boot disk as the UUID changed.
In this case you have to adapt the disk ID in your boot loader script (for example
/boot/grub/menu.lst). The disk ID looks like this:

scsi-SATA_VBOX_HARDDISK_VB5cfdb1e2-c251e503

The ID for the copied image can be determined with

hdparm -i /dev/sda

5.7 Disk images and I/O caching

VirtualBox can optionally disable the I/O caching that the host operating system would
otherwise perform on disk image files.
Traditionally, VirtualBox has opened disk image files as normal files, which results
in them being cached by the host operating system like any other file. The main
advantage of this is speed: when the guest OS writes to disk and the host OS cache
uses delayed writing, the write operation can be reported as completed to the guest
OS quickly while the host OS can perform the operation asynchronously. Also, when
you start a VM a second time and have enough memory available for the OS to use
for caching, large parts of the virtual disk may be in system memory, and the VM can
access the data much faster.
Note that this applies only to image files; buffering never occured virtual disks resid-
ing on remote iSCSI storage, which is the more common scenario in enterprise-class
setups (see chapter 5.10, iSCSI servers, page 101).
While buffering is a useful default setting for virtualizating a few machines on a
desktop computer, there are some disadvantages to this approach:

98
 5 Virtual storage

1. Delayed writing through the host OS cache is less secure. When the guest OS
writes data, it considers the data written even though it has not yet arrived on a
physical disk. If for some reason the write does not happen (power failure, host
crash), the likelihood of data loss increases.
2. Disk image files tend to be very large. Caching them can therefore quickly use
up the entire host OS cache. Depending on the efficiency of the host OS caching,
this may slow down the host immensely, especially if several VMs run at the same
time. For example, on Linux hosts, host caching may result in Linux delaying all
writes until the host cache is nearly full and then writing out all these changes
at once, possibly stalling VM execution for minutes. This can result in I/O errors
in the guest as I/O requests time out there.
3. Physical memory is often wasted as guest operating systems typically have their
own I/O caches, which may result in the data being cached twice (in both the
guest and the host caches) for little effect.

As a result, starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox allows you to optionally disable
host I/O caching of disk image files. In that case, VirtualBox uses its own small cache
to buffer writes, but there is no read caching since this is already performed by the
guest OS. In addition, VirtualBox fully supports asynchronous I/O for its virtual SATA,
SCSI and SAS controllers through multiple I/O threads.
Since asynchronous I/O is not supported by IDE controllers, for performance rea-
sons, you may want to leave host caching enabled for your VM’s virtual IDE controllers.
For this reason, VirtualBox allows you to configure whether the host I/O cache is
used for each I/O controller separately. Either uncheck the “Use host I/O cache” box
in the “Storage” settings for a given virtual storage controller, or use the following
VBoxManage command to disable the host I/O cache for a virtual storage controller:
VBoxManage storagectl <vm> --name <controllername> --hostiocache off

See chapter 8.15.1, VBoxManage storagectl, page 145 for details.

For the above reasons also, VirtualBox now uses SATA controllers by default for new
virtual machines.

Note: Disabling the host I/O caches will currently yield poor performance
with VHD and sparse VMDK files. See chapter 13, Known limitations, page
210 for details.

5.8 CD/DVD drive operation

The virtual CD/DVD drive(s) by default support only reading. The medium configu-
ration is changeable at runtime. You can select between three options to provide the
medium data:

99
 5 Virtual storage

• Host Drive defines that the guest can read from the medium in the host drive.
Medium changes of the host drives are signalled to the guest.
• Image file gives the guest read-only access to the image data (often referred
to as ISO image). A medium change is signalled when switching to a different
image or selecting another option.
• Empty stands for a drive without an inserted medium. The drive responds as
usual to this situation, however no data can be read.

As mentioned, the medium change signalling depends on the selected option for
the medium. Medium changes can be prevented by the guest, and VirtualBox reflects
that by locking the host drive if appropriate. You can force a medium removal in such
situation via the VirtualBox GUI or the VBoxManage command line tool. Effectively
this is the equivalent of the emergency eject which many CD/DVD drives provide, with
all associated side effects. The guest OS can issue error messages in this case, just like
on real hardware. Use with caution.
In any case, only data media is supported for CD/DVD drives. This means that
all data CD formats and all DVD formats can be used in principle. Since host DVD
drives refuse to read encrypted DVD video media, you cannot play such videos with
the regular CD/DVD drive emulation. You may be able to get it working with the
experimental passthrough support described in chapter 5.9, Writing CDs and DVDs
using the host drive, page 100.
Audio CD and video CD formats are not supported, which means you cannot play
such media from a virtual machine.

5.9 Writing CDs and DVDs using the host drive

When you attach your host’s CD/DVD drive to a virtual machine (see chapter 3.6,
Storage settings, page 55), this normally gives the machine read-only access to the
host drive. This prevents the guest from writing to the host drive. In particular, you
cannot burn CDs and DVDs from the guest this way.
As an experimental feature (which currently works for data media only, audio and
video CD formats are not supported), it is possible to give the guest access to the
CD/DVD writing features of the host drive (if available). There is a “Passthrough”
checkbox in the GUI dialog for configuring the media attached to a storage controller,
or you can use the command line:
VBoxManage storageattach <uuid|vmname>
--storagectl <name>
--port <number>
--device <number>
[--type <dvddrive|hdd|fdd>
--medium <none|emptydrive|uuid|filename|host:<drive>>]
[--passthrough <on|off>]
[--forceunmount]

100
 5 Virtual storage

See also chapter 8.15, VBoxManage storagectl / storageattach, page 144.

Even if pass-through is enabled, unsafe commands, such as updating the drive
firmware, will be blocked. On some host drives the pass-through feature allows play-
ing encrypted DVD video media.
On Solaris hosts, pass-through requires running VirtualBox with real root permis-
sions due to security measures enforced by the host.

5.10 iSCSI servers

iSCSI stands for “Internet SCSI” and is a standard that allows for using the SCSI proto-
col over Internet (TCP/IP) connections. Especially with the advent of Gigabit Ethernet,
it has become affordable to attach iSCSI storage servers simply as remote hard disks
to a computer network. In iSCSI terminology, the server providing storage resources
is called an “iSCSI target”, while the client connecting to the server and accessing its
resources is called “iSCSI initiator”.
VirtualBox can transparently present iSCSI remote storage to a virtual machine as
a virtual hard disk. The guest operating system will not see any difference between a
virtual disk image (VDI file) and an iSCSI target. To achieve this, VirtualBox has an
integrated iSCSI initiator.
VirtualBox’s iSCSI support has been developed according to the iSCSI standard and
should work with all standard-conforming iSCSI targets. To use an iSCSI target with
VirtualBox, you must first register it as a virtual hard disk with VBoxManage; see chap-
ter 8.21, VBoxManage addiscsidisk, page 149. The target will show up in the list of disk
images, as described in chapter 5.3, The Virtual Media Manager, page 91, and can thus
be attached to one of the VM’s three hard disk slots the usual way.

5.10.1 Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking

As an experimental feature, VirtualBox allows for accessing an iSCSI target running
in a virtual machine which is configured for using Internal Networking mode (as de-
scribed in chapter 6.5, Internal networking, page 109). The setup of the virtual ma-
chine which uses such an iSCSI target is done as described above. The only difference
is that the IP address of the target must be specified as a numeric IP address.
The IP stack accessing Internal Networking must be configured in the virtual ma-
chine which accesses the iSCSI target. A free static IP and a MAC address not used by
other virtual machines must be chosen. In the example below, adapt the name of the
virtual machine, the MAC address, the IP configuration and the Internal Networking
name (“MyIntNet”) according to your needs. The following seven commands must be
issued:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Trusted 1
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Config/MAC 08:00:27:01:02:0f
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"

101
 5 Virtual storage

VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Config/IP 10.0.9.1
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/Config/Netmask 255.255.255.0
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/LUN#0/Driver IntNet
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/LUN#0/Config/Network MyIntNet
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
VBoxInternal/Devices/IntNetIP/0/LUN#0/Config/IsService 1

Finally the iSCSI disk must be registered with the -intnet option to tell the iSCSI
initiator to use internal networking:
VBoxManage addiscsidisk --server 10.0.9.30
--target iqn.2008-12.com.sun:sampletarget --intnet

The target address must be specified as a numeric IP address, as there is no DNS

resolver for internal networking.
The virtual machine with the iSCSI target should be started before the VM using it
is powered on. If a virtual machine using an iSCSI disk is started without having the
iSCSI target powered up, it can take up to 200 seconds to detect this situation. The
VM will fail to power up.

102
6 Virtual networking
As briefly mentioned in chapter 3.8, Network settings, page 58, VirtualBox provides up
to eight virtual PCI Ethernet cards for each virtual machine. For each such card, you
can individually select
1. the hardware that will be virtualized as well as
2. the virtualization mode that the virtual card will be operating in with respect to
your physical networking hardware on the host.
Four of the network cards can be configured in the “Network” section of the settings
dialog in the graphical user interface of VirtualBox. You can configure all eight network
cards on the command line via VBoxManage modifyvm; see chapter 8.7, VBoxManage
modifyvm, page 131.
This chapter explains the various networking settings in more detail.

6.1 Virtual networking hardware

For each card, you can individually select what kind of hardware will be presented to
the virtual machine. VirtualBox can virtualize the following six types of networking
hardware:
• AMD PCNet PCI II (Am79C970A);
• AMD PCNet FAST III (Am79C973, the default);
• Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (82540OEM);
• Intel PRO/1000 T Server (82543GC);
• Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (82545EM);
• Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net).
The PCNet FAST III is the default because it is supported by nearly all operating
systems out of the box, as well as the GNU GRUB boot manager. As an exception,
the Intel PRO/1000 family adapters are chosen for some guest operating system types
that no longer ship with drivers for the PCNet card, such as Windows Vista; see chapter
4.2.1.5, Windows Vista networking, page 68 for details.1
1 Support for the Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop type was added with VirtualBox 1.6. The T Server variant
of the Intel PRO/1000 card was added with VirtualBox 1.6.2 because this one is recognized by Windows
XP guests without additional driver installation. The MT Server variant was added with VirtualBox 2.2
to facilitate OVF imports from other platforms.

103
 6 Virtual networking

The “Paravirtualized network adapter (virtio-net)“ is special. If you select this,

then VirtualBox does not virtualize common networking hardware (that is supported
by common guest operating systems out of the box). Instead, VirtualBox then ex-
pects a special software interface for virtualized environments to be provided by the
guest, thus avoiding the complexity of emulating networking hardware and improving
network performance. Starting with version 3.1, VirtualBox provides support for the
industry-standard “virtio” networking drivers, which are part of the open-source KVM
project.
The “virtio” networking drivers are available for the following guest operating sys-
tems:

• Linux kernels version 2.6.25 or later can be configured to provide virtio support;
some distributions also back-ported virtio to older kernels.
• For Windows 2000, XP and Vista, virtio drivers can be downloaded and installed
from the KVM project web page.2

VirtualBox also has limited support for so-called jumbo frames, i.e. networking
packets with more than 1500 bytes of data, provided that you use the Intel card virtual-
ization and bridged networking. In other words, jumbo frames are not supported with
the AMD networking devices; in those cases, jumbo packets will silently be dropped
for both the transmit and the receive direction. Guest operating systems trying to use
this feature will observe this as a packet loss, which may lead to unexpected applica-
tion behavior in the guest. This does not cause problems with guest operating systems
in their default configuration, as jumbo frames need to be explicitly enabled.

6.2 Introduction to networking modes

Each of the eight networking adapters can be separately configured to operate in one
of the following five modes:

Not attached In this mode, VirtualBox reports to the guest that a network card is
present, but that there is no connection – as if no Ethernet cable was plugged
into the card. This way it is possible to “pull” the virtual Ethernet cable and
disrupt the connection, which can be useful to inform a guest operating system
that no network connection is available and enforce a reconfiguration.
Network Address Translation (NAT) If all you want is to browse the Web, download
files and view e-mail inside the guest, then this default mode should be sufficient
for you, and you can safely skip the rest of this section. Please note that there
are certain limitations when using Windows file sharing (see chapter 6.3.3, NAT
limitations, page 107 for details).

2 http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/WindowsGuestDrivers.

104
 6 Virtual networking

Bridged networking This is for more advanced networking needs such as network
simulations and running servers in a guest. When enabled, VirtualBox connects
to one of your installed network cards and exchanges network packets directly,
circumventing your host operating system’s network stack.
Internal networking This can be used to create a different kind of software-based
network which is visible to selected virtual machines, but not to applications
running on the host or to the outside world.
Host-only networking This can be used to create a network containing the host and
a set of virtual machines, without the need for the host’s physical network in-
terface. Instead, a virtual network interface (similar to a loopback interface) is
created on the host, providing connectivity among virtual machines and the host.
VDE (Virtual Distributed Ethernet) networking This option can be used to connect
to a Virtual Distributed Ethernet switch on a Linux or a FreeBSD host. It is only
available if the VDE software and the VDE plugin library from the VirtualSquare
project are installed on the host system. For more information on setting up VDE
networks, please see the documentation accompanying the software.

The following sections describe the available network modes in more detail.

6.3 Network Address Translation (NAT)

Network Address Translation (NAT) is the simplest way of accessing an external net-
work from a virtual machine. Usually, it does not require any configuration on the
host network and guest system. For this reason, it is the default networking mode in
VirtualBox.
A virtual machine with NAT enabled acts much like a real computer that connects
to the Internet through a router. The “router”, in this case, is the VirtualBox network-
ing engine, which maps traffic from and to the virtual machine transparently. The
disadvantage of NAT mode is that, much like a private network behind a router, the
virtual machine is invisible and unreachable from the outside internet; you cannot run
a server this way unless you set up port forwarding (described below).
The network frames sent out by the guest operating system are received by
VirtualBox’s NAT engine, which extracts the TCP/IP data and resends it using the host
operating system. To an application on the host, or to another computer on the same
network as the host, it looks like the data was sent by the VirtualBox application on
the host, using an IP address belonging to the host. VirtualBox listens for replies to
the packages sent, and repacks and resends them to the guest machine on its private
network.
The virtual machine receives its network address and configuration on the private
network from a DHCP server integrated into VirtualBox. The IP address thus assigned
to the virtual machine is usually on a completely different network than the host. As
more than one card of a virtual machine can be set up to use NAT, the first card is

105
 6 Virtual networking

connected to the private network 10.0.2.0, the second card to the network 10.0.3.0
and so on. If you need to change the guest-assigned IP range for some reason, please
refer to chapter 9.10, Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine, page 175.

6.3.1 Configuring port forwarding with NAT

As the virtual machine is connected to a private network internal to VirtualBox and
invisible to the host, network services on the guest are not accessible to the host ma-
chine or to other computers on the same network. However, like a physical router,
VirtualBox can make selected services available to the world outside the guest through
port forwarding. This means that VirtualBox listens to certain ports on the host and
resends all packets which arrive there to the guest, on the same or a different port.
To an application on the host or other physical (or virtual) machines on the network,
it looks as though the service being proxied is actually running on the host. This also
means that you cannot run the same service on the same ports on the host. However,
you still gain the advantages of running the service in a virtual machine – for example,
services on the host machine or on other virtual machines cannot be compromised or
crashed by a vulnerability or a bug in the service, and the service can run in a different
operating system than the host system.
You can set up a guest service which you wish to proxy using the command line tool
VBoxManage; for details, please refer to chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131.
You will need to know which ports on the guest the service uses and to decide which
ports to use on the host (often but not always you will want to use the same ports on
the guest and on the host). You can use any ports on the host which are not already in
use by a service. For example, to set up incoming NAT connections to an ssh server in
the guest, use the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --natpf1 "guestssh,tcp,,2222,,22"

With the above example, all TCP traffic arriving on port 2222 on any host interface will
be forwarded to port 22 in the guest. The protocol name tcp is a mandatory attribute
defining which protocol should be used for forwarding (udp could also be used). The
name guestssh is purely descriptive and will be auto-generated if omitted. The num-
ber after --natpf denotes the network card, like in other parts of VBoxManage.
To remove this forwarding rule again, use the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --natpf1 delete "guestssh"

If for some reason the guest uses a static assigned IP address not leased from the
built-in DHCP server, it is required to specify the guest IP when registering the for-
warding rule:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --natpf1 "guestssh,tcp,,2222,10.0.2.19,22"

This example is identical to the previous one, except that the NAT engine is being told
that the guest can be found at the 10.0.2.19 address.
To forward all incoming traffic from a specific host interface to the guest, specify the
IP of that host interface like this:

106
 6 Virtual networking

VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --natpf1 "guestssh,tcp,127.0.0.1,2222,,22"

This forwards all TCP traffic arriving on the localhost interface (127.0.0.1) via port
2222 to port 22 in the guest.
It is not possible to configure incoming NAT connections while the VM is running.
However, you can change the settings for a VM which is currently saved (or powered
off at a snapshot).

6.3.2 PXE booting with NAT

PXE booting is now supported in NAT mode. The NAT DHCP server provides a boot
file name of the form vmname.pxe if the directory TFTP exists in the directory where
the user’s VirtualBox.xml file is kept. It is the responsibility of the user to provide
vmname.pxe.

6.3.3 NAT limitations

There are four limitations of NAT mode which users should be aware of:

ICMP protocol limitations: Some frequently used network debugging tools (e.g.
ping or tracerouting) rely on the ICMP protocol for sending/receiving messages.
While ICMP support has been improved with VirtualBox 2.1 (ping should now
work), some other tools may not work reliably.
Receiving of UDP broadcasts is not reliable: The guest does not reliably receive
broadcasts, since, in order to save resources, it only listens for a certain amount
of time after the guest has sent UDP data on a particular port. As a consequence,
NetBios name resolution based on broadcasts does not always work (but WINS
always works). As a workaround, you can use the numeric IP of the desired
server in the \\server\share notation.
Protocols such as GRE are unsupported: Protocols other than TCP and UDP are
not supported. This means some VPN products (e.g. PPTP from Microsoft) can-
not be used. There are other VPN products which use simply TCP and UDP.
Forwarding host ports < 1024 impossible: On Unix-based hosts (e.g. Linux, So-
laris, Mac OS X) it is not possible to bind to ports below 1024 from applications
that are not run by root. As a result, if you try to configure such a port forward-
ing, the VM will refuse to start.

These limitations normally don’t affect standard network use. But the presence of
NAT has also subtle effects that may interfere with protocols that are normally work-
ing. One example is NFS, where the server is often configured to refuse connections
from non-privileged ports (i.e. ports not below 1024).

107
 6 Virtual networking

6.4 Bridged networking

With bridged networking, VirtualBox uses a device driver on your host system that
filters data from your physical network adapter. This driver is therefore called a “net
filter” driver. This allows VirtualBox to intercept data from the physical network and
inject data into it, effectively creating a new network interface in software. When a
guest is using such a new software interface, it looks to the host system as though the
guest were physically connected to the interface using a network cable: the host can
send data to the guest through that interface and receive data from it. This means that
you can set up routing or bridging between the guest and the rest of your network.
For this to work, VirtualBox needs a device driver on your host system. The way
bridged networking works has been completely rewritten with VirtualBox 2.0 and 2.1,
depending on the host operating system. From the user perspective, the main differ-
ence is that complex configuration is no longer necessary on any of the supported host
operating systems.3

Note: Even though TAP is no longer necessary on Linux with bridged network-
ing, you can still use TAP interfaces for certain advanced setups, since you can
connect a VM to any host interface – which could also be a TAP interface.

To enable bridged networking, all you need to do is to open the Settings dialog of
a virtual machine, go to the “Network” page and select “Bridged network” in the drop
down list for the “Attached to” field. Finally, select desired host interface from the
list at the bottom of the page, which contains the physical network interfaces of your
systems. On a typical MacBook, for example, this will allow you to select between
“en1: AirPort” (which is the wireless interface) and “en0: Ethernet”, which represents
the interface with a network cable.
Depending on your host operating system, the following limitations should be kept
in mind:

• On Macintosh hosts, functionality is limited when using AirPort (the Mac’s wire-
less networking) for bridged networking. Currently, VirtualBox supports only
IPv4 over AirPort. For other protocols such as IPv6 and IPX, you must choose a
wired interface.

• On Linux hosts, functionality is limited when using wireless interfaces for

bridged networking. Currently, VirtualBox supports only IPv4 over wireless. For
other protocols such as IPv6 and IPX, you must choose a wired interface.
3 ForMac OS X and Solaris hosts, net filter drivers were already added in VirtualBox 2.0 (as initial support
for Host Interface Networking on these platforms). With VirtualBox 2.1, net filter drivers were also
added for the Windows and Linux hosts, replacing the mechanisms previously present in VirtualBox for
those platforms; especially on Linux, the earlier method required creating TAP interfaces and bridges,
which was complex and varied from one distribution to the next. None of this is necessary anymore.
Bridged network was formerly called “Host Interface Networking” and has been renamed with version
2.2 without any change in functionality.

108
 6 Virtual networking

Also, setting the MTU to less than 1500 bytes on wired interfaces provided by
the sky2 driver on the Marvell Yukon II EC Ultra Ethernet NIC is known to cause
packet losses under certain conditions.
• On Solaris hosts, there is no support for using wireless interfaces. Filtering guest
traffic using IPFilter is also not completely supported due to technical restrictions
of the Solaris networking subsystem. These issues would be addressed in a future
release of OpenSolaris.
With VirtualBox 2.0.4 and above, it is possible to use Crossbow Virtual Network
Interfaces (VNICs) with bridged networking, but with the following caveats:
– A VNIC cannot be shared between multiple guest network interfaces, i.e.
each guest network interface must have its own, exclusive VNIC.
– The VNIC and the guest network interface that uses the VNIC must be as-
signed identical MAC addresses.
When using VLAN interfaces with VirtualBox, they must be named according to
the PPA-hack naming scheme (e.g. “e1000g513001”), as otherwise the guest
may receive packets in an unexpected format.

6.5 Internal networking

Internal Networking is similar to bridged networking in that the VM can directly com-
municate with the outside world. However, the “outside world” is limited to other VMs
which connect to the same internal network.
Even though technically, everything that can be done using internal networking can
also be done using bridged networking, there are two good reasons why this additional
mode was implemented:

1. Security. In bridged networking mode, all traffic goes through a physical inter-
face of the host system. It is therefore possible to attach a packet sniffer (such
as Wireshark) to the host interface and log all traffic that goes over it. If, for
any reason, you prefer two or more VMs on the same machine to communi-
cate privately, hiding their data from both the host system and the user, bridged
networking therefore is not an option.
2. Speed. Internal networking is more efficient than bridged networking, as
VirtualBox can directly transmit the data without having to send it through the
host operating system’s networking stack.

Internal networks are created automatically as needed, i.e. there is no central con-
figuration. Every internal network is identified simply by its name. Once there is more
than one active virtual network card with the same internal network ID, the VirtualBox
support driver will automatically “wire” the cards and act as a network switch. The
VirtualBox support driver implements a complete Ethernet switch and supports both
broadcast/multicast frames and promiscuous mode.

109
 6 Virtual networking

In order to attach a VM’s network card to an internal network, set its networking
mode to “internal networking”. There are two ways to accomplish this:

• You can use a VM’s “Settings” dialog in the VirtualBox graphical user interface.
In the “Networking” category of the settings dialog, select “Internal Networking”
from the drop-down list of networking modes. Now select the name of an exist-
ing internal network from the drop-down below or enter a new name into the
entry field.
• You can use
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --nic<x> intnet

Optionally, you can specify a network name with the command

VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --intnet<x> "network name"

If you do not specify a network name, the network card will be attached to the
network intnet by default.

Unless you configure the (virtual) network cards in the guest operating systems that
are participating in the internal network to use static IP addresses, you may want to use
the DHCP server that is built into VirtualBox to manage IP addresses for the internal
network. Please see chapter 8.29, VBoxManage dhcpserver, page 157 for details.
As a security measure, the Linux implementation of internal networking only allows
VMs running under the same user ID to establish an internal network.

6.6 Host-only networking

Host-only networking is another networking mode that was added with version 2.2
of VirtualBox. It can be thought of as a hybrid between the bridged and internal net-
working modes: as with bridged networking, the virtual machines can talk to each
other and the host as if they were connected through a physical ethernet switch. Sim-
ilarly, as with internal networking however, a physical networking interface need not
be present, and the virtual machines cannot talk to the world outside the host since
they are not connected to a physical networking interface.
Instead, when host-only networking is used, VirtualBox creates a new software in-
terface on the host which then appears next to your existing network interfaces. In
other words, whereas with bridged networking an existing physical interface is used
to attach virtual machines to, with host-only networking a new “loopback” interface
is created on the host. And whereas with internal networking, the traffic between the
virtual machines cannot be seen, the traffic on the “loopback” interface on the host
can be intercepted.
Host-only networking is particularly useful for preconfigured virtual appliances,
where multiple virtual machines are shipped together and designed to cooperate. For
example, one virtual machine may contain a web server and a second one a database,
and since they are intended to talk to each other, the appliance can instruct VirtualBox

110
 6 Virtual networking

to set up a host-only network for the two. A second (bridged) network would then
connect the web server to the outside world to serve data to, but the outside world
cannot connect to the database.
To change a virtual machine’s virtual network interface to “host only” mode:

• either go to the “Network” page in the virtual machine’s settings notebook in the
graphical user interface and select “Host-only networking”, or
• on the command line, type VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --nic<x>
hostonly; see chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131 for details.

For host-only networking, like with internal networking, you may find the DHCP
server useful that is built into VirtualBox. This can be enabled to then manage the IP
addresses in the host-only network since otherwise you would need to configure all IP
addresses statically.

• In the VirtualBox graphical user interface, you can configure all these items in
the global settings via “File” -> “Settings” -> “Network”, which lists all host-only
networks which are presently in use. Click on the network name and then on the
“Edit” button to the right, and you can modify the adapter and DHCP settings.
• Alternatively, you can use VBoxManage dhcpserver on the command line;
please see chapter 8.29, VBoxManage dhcpserver, page 157 for details.

111
7 Remote virtual machines
7.1 Remote display (VRDP support)
VirtualBox, the graphical user interface, has a built-in server for the VirtualBox Remote
Desktop Protocol (VRDP). This allows you to see the output of a virtual machine’s
window remotely on any other computer and control the virtual machine from there,
as if the virtual machine was running locally.
VRDP is a backwards-compatible extension to Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol
(RDP). Typically graphics updates and audio are sent from the remote machine to the
client, while keyboard and mouse events are sent back. As a result, you can use any
standard RDP client to control the remote VM.
With VirtualBox, the graphical user interface, the VRDP server is disabled by de-
fault, but can easily be enabled on a per-VM basis either in the “Display” settings (see
chapter 3.5, Display settings, page 55) or with VBoxManage:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --vrdp on

If you use VBoxHeadless (described further below), VRDP support will be automat-
ically enabled since VBoxHeadless has no other means of output.

7.1.1 Common third-party RDP viewers

You can use any standard RDP viewer to connect to such a remote virtual machine
(examples follow below). For this to work, you must specify the IP address of your
host system (not of the virtual machine!) as the server address to connect to, as well
as the port number that the RDP server is using.
By default, the VRDP server uses the standard RDP TCP port 3389. You will need
to change the default port if you run more than one VRDP server, since the port can
only be used by one server at a time; you might also need to change it on Windows
hosts since the default port might already be used by the RDP server that is built into
Windows itself. Ports 5000 through 5050 are typically not used and might be a good
choice.
The port can be changed either in the “Display” settings of the graphical user in-
terface or with --vrdpport option of the VBoxManage modifyvm command. You can
specify a comma-separated list of ports or ranges of ports. Use a dash between two
port numbers to specify a range. The VRDP server will bind to one of available ports
from the specified list. For example, VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --vrdpport
5000,5010-5012 will configure the server to bind to one of the ports 5000, 5010, 5011
or 5012. See chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131 for details.

112
 7 Remote virtual machines

The actual port used by a running VM can be either queried with VBoxManage
showvminfo command or seen in the GUI on the Runtime tab of the Session
Information Dialog, which is accessible via the Machine menu of the VM window.
Here follow examples for the most common RDP viewers:

• On Windows, you can use the Microsoft Terminal Services Connector

(mstsc.exe) that ships with Windows. You can start it by bringing up the
“Run” dialog (press the Windows key and “R”) and typing “mstsc”. You can also
find it under “Start” -> “All Programs” -> “Accessories” -> “Remote Desktop
Connection”. If you use the “Run” dialog, you can type in options directly:
mstsc 1.2.3.4[:3389]

Replace “1.2.3.4” with the host IP address, and 3389 with a different port if
necessary.
• On other systems, you can use the standard open-source rdesktop program.
This ships with most Linux distributions, but VirtualBox also comes with a modi-
fied variant of rdesktop for remote USB support (see chapter 7.1.4, Remote USB,
page 116 below).
With rdesktop, use a command line such as the following:
rdesktop -a 16 -N 1.2.3.4:3389

As said for the Microsoft viewer above, replace “1.2.3.4” with the host IP address,
and 3389 with a different port if necessary. The -a 16 option requests a color
depth of 16 bits per pixel, which we recommend. (For best performance, after
installation of the guest operating system, you should set its display color depth
to the same value). The -N option enables use of the NumPad keys.
• If you run the KDE desktop, you might prefer krdc, the KDE RDP viewer. The
command line would look like this:
krdc --window --high-quality rdp:/1.2.3.4[:3389]

Again, replace “1.2.3.4” with the host IP address, and 3389 with a different port
if necessary. The “rdp:/“ bit is required with krdc to switch it into RDP mode.

7.1.2 VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-only server

While the VRDP server that is built into the VirtualBox GUI is perfectly capable of
running virtual machines remotely, it is not convenient to have to run VirtualBox if
you never want to have VMs displayed locally in the first place. In particular, if you
are running servers whose only purpose is to host VMs, and all your VMs are supposed
to run remotely over VRDP, then it is pointless to have a graphical user interface on
the server at all – especially since, on a Linux or Solaris host, VirtualBox comes with
dependencies on the Qt and SDL libraries, which is inconvenient if you would rather
not have the X Window system on your server at all.

113
 7 Remote virtual machines

VirtualBox therefore comes with yet another front-end called VBoxHeadless, which
produces no visible output on the host at all, but instead only delivers VRDP data.1
To start a virtual machine with VBoxHeadless, you have two options:

• You can use

VBoxManage startvm "VM name" --type vrdp

The extra --type option causes the VirtualBox core to use VBoxHeadless as the
front-end to the internal virtualization engine.
• The alternative is to use VBoxHeadless directly, as follows:
VBoxHeadless --startvm <uuid|name>

This way of starting the VM has the advantage that you can see more de-
tailed error messages, especially for early failures before the VM execution is
started. If you have trouble with VBoxManage startvm, it can help greatly to
start VBoxHeadless directly to diagnose the problem cause.

Note that when you use VBoxHeadless to start a VM, since the headless server has
no other means of output, the built-in VRDP server will always be enabled, regardless
of whether you have enabled the VRDP server in the VM’s settings. If this is undesirable
(for example because you want to access the VM via ssh only), start the VM like this:
VBoxHeadless --startvm <uuid|name> --vrdp=off

To have the VRDP server use the setting from the VM configuration, as the other front-
ends would, use this:
VBoxHeadless --startvm <uuid|name> --vrdp=config

7.1.3 Step by step: creating a virtual machine on a headless

server
The following instructions may give you an idea how to create a virtual machine on a
headless server over a network connection. We will create a virtual machine, establish
a VRDP connection and install a guest operating system – all without having to touch
the headless server. All you need is the following:

1. VirtualBox on a server machine with a supported host operating system; for the
following example, we will assume a Linux server;
2. an ISO file on the server, containing the installation data for the guest operating
system to install (we will assume Windows XP in the following example);
3. a terminal connection to that host over which you can access a command line
(e.g. via telnet or ssh);
1 BeforeVirtualBox 1.6, the headless server was called VBoxVRDP. For the sake of backwards compatibility,
the VirtualBox installation still installs an executable with that name as well.

114
 7 Remote virtual machines

4. an RDP viewer on the remote client; see chapter 7.1.1, Common third-party RDP
viewers, page 112 above for examples.

Note again that on the server machine, since we will only use the headless server,
neither Qt nor SDL nor the X Window system will be needed.

1. On the headless server, create a new virtual machine:

VBoxManage createvm --name "Windows XP" --ostype WindowsXP --register

Note that if you do not specify --register, you will have to manually use the
registervm command later.
Note further that you do not need to specify --ostype but doing so selects some
sane default values for certain VM parameters, for example the RAM size and the
type of the virtual network device. To get a complete list of supported operating
systems you can use
VBoxManage list ostypes

2. Make sure the settings for this VM are appropriate for the guest operating system
that we will install. For example:
VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows XP" --memory 256 --acpi on --boot1 dvd --nic1 nat

3. Create a virtual hard disk for the VM (in this case, 10GB in size) and register it
with VirtualBox:
VBoxManage createhd --filename "WinXP.vdi" --size 10000 --remember

4. Add an IDE Controller to the new VM:

VBoxManage storagectl "Windows XP" --name "IDE Controller"
--add ide --controller PIIX4

5. Set this newly created VDI file as the first virtual hard disk of the new VM:
VBoxManage storageattach "Windows XP" --storagectl "IDE Controller"
--port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium "WinXP.vdi"

6. Register the ISO file that contains the operating system installation that you want
to install later:
VBoxManage openmedium dvd /full/path/to/iso.iso

7. Attach this ISO to the virtual machine, so it can boot from it:
VBoxManage storageattach "Windows XP" --storagectl "IDE Controller"
--port 0 --device 1 --type dvddrive --medium /full/path/to/iso.iso

8. Start the virtual machine using VBoxHeadless:

VBoxHeadless --startvm "Windows XP"

If everything worked, you should see a copyright notice. If, instead, you are
returned to the command line, then something went wrong.

115
 7 Remote virtual machines

9. On the client machine, fire up the RDP viewer and try to connect to the server
(see chapter 7.1.1, Common third-party RDP viewers, page 112 above for how to
use various common RDP viewers).
You should now be seeing the installation routine of your guest operating system
in the RDP viewer.

7.1.4 Remote USB

As a special feature on top of the VRDP support, VirtualBox supports remote USB
devices over the wire as well. That is, the VirtualBox guest that runs on one computer
can access the USB devices of the remote computer on which the RDP data is being
displayed the same way as USB devices that are connected to the actual host. This
allows for running virtual machines on a VirtualBox host that acts as a server, where
a client can connect from elsewhere that needs only a network adapter and a display
capable of running an RDP viewer. When USB devices are plugged into the client, the
remote VirtualBox server can access them.
For these remote USB devices, the same filter rules apply as for other USB devices,
as described with chapter 3.10.1, USB settings, page 60. All you have to do is specify
“Remote” (or “Any”) when setting up these rules.
Accessing remote USB devices is only possible if the RDP client supports this ex-
tension. On Linux and Solaris hosts, the VirtualBox installation provides a suitable
RDP client called rdesktop-vrdp. RDP clients for other platforms will be provided in
future VirtualBox versions.
To make a remote USB device available to a VM, rdesktop-vrdp should be started as
follows:
rdesktop-vrdp -r usb -a 16 -N my.host.address

Note that rdesktop-vrdp can access USB devices only through /proc/bus/usb.
Please refer to chapter 12.6.7, USB not working, page 207 for further details on how
to properly set up the permissions. Furthermore it is advisable to disable automatic
loading of any host driver on the remote host which might work on USB devices to
ensure that the devices are accessible by the RDP client. If the setup was properly
done on the remote host, plug/unplug events are visible on the VBox.log file of the
VM.

7.1.5 RDP authentication

For each virtual machine that is remotely accessible via RDP, you can individually
determine if and how RDP connections are authenticated.
For this, use VBoxManage modifyvm command with the --vrdpauthtype option;
see chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131 for a general introduction. Three
methods of authentication are available:

116
 7 Remote virtual machines

• The “null” method means that there is no authentication at all; any client can
connect to the VRDP server and thus the virtual machine. This is, of course, very
insecure and only to be recommended for private networks.

• The “external” method provides external authentication through a special au-

thentication library.
VirtualBox comes with three default libraries for external authentication:
– On Linux hosts, VRDPAuth.so authenticates users against the host’s PAM
system.
– On Windows hosts, VRDPAuth.dll authenticates users against the host’s
WinLogon system.
– On Mac OS X hosts, VRDPAuth.dylib authenticates users against the host’s
directory service.2
In other words, the “external” method per default performs authentication with
the user accounts that exist on the host system. Any user with valid authentica-
tion credentials is accepted, i.e. the username does not have to correspond to
the user running the VM.
• An additional library called VRDPAuthSimple performs authentication against
credentials configured in the VM’s extra data section. This is probably the
simplest way to get authentication that does not depend on a running and
supported guest (see below). In order to enable VRDPAuthSimple, issue
VBoxManage setproperty vrdpauthlibrary "VRDPAuthSimple". To en-
able the library for a VM, switch authentication to external using VBoxManage
modifyvm "VMNAME" --vrdpauthtype external. Last but not least, you
have to configure users and passwords. Here is an example for the user
“john” with the password “secret”: VBoxManage setextradata "VMNAME"
"VRDPAuthSimple/users/john" "secret" To specify an empty password,
use the special reserved value [NULL].
• Finally, the “guest” authentication method performs authentication with a special
component that comes with the Guest Additions; as a result, authentication is
not performed with the host users, but with the guest user accounts. This method
is currently still in testing and not yet supported.

In addition to the methods described above, you can replace the default “external
authentication module with any other module. For this, VirtualBox provides a well-
defined interface that allows you to write your own authentication module; see chapter
9.6.3, Custom external VRDP authentication, page 169 for details.

2 Support for Mac OS X was added in version 3.2.

117
 7 Remote virtual machines

7.1.6 RDP encryption

RDP features data stream encryption, which is based on the RC4 symmetric cipher
(with keys up to 128bit). The RC4 keys are being replaced in regular intervals (every
4096 packets).
RDP provides three different authentication methods:

1. Historically, RDP4 authentication was used, with which the RDP client does not
perform any checks in order to verify the identity of the server it connects to.
Since user credentials can be obtained using a man in the middle (MITM) attack,
RDP4 authentication is insecure and should generally not be used.
2. RDP5.1 authentication employs a server certificate for which the client possesses
the public key. This way it is guaranteed that the server possess the correspond-
ing private key. However, as this hard-coded private key became public some
years ago, RDP5.1 authentication is also insecure and cannot be recommended.
3. RDP5.2 authentication is based on TLS 1.0 with customer-supplied certificates.
The server supplies a certificate to the client which must be signed by a certificate
authority (CA) that the client trusts (for the Microsoft RDP Client 5.2, the CA
has to be added to the Windows Trusted Root Certificate Authorities database).
VirtualBox allows you to supply your own CA and server certificate and uses
OpenSSL for encryption.

While VirtualBox supports all of the above, only RDP5.2 authentication should be
used in environments where security is a concern. As the client that connects to the
server determines what type of encryption will be used, with rdesktop, the Linux RDP
viewer, use the -4 or -5 options.

7.1.7 Multiple VRDP connections

The built-in RDP server of VirtualBox supports simultaneous connections to the same
running VM from different clients. All connected clients see the same screen output
and share a mouse pointer and keyboard focus. This is similar to several people using
the same computer at the same time, taking turns at the keyboard.
The following command enables multiple connection mode:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --vrdpmulticon on

7.1.8 Multiple remote monitors

To access two or more VM remote displays you have to enable the VRDP multiconnec-
tion mode (see chapter 7.1.7, Multiple VRDP connections, page 118).
The RDP client can select the virtual monitor number to connect to using the
domain logon parameter (-d). If the parameter ends with @ followed by a number,
the VirtualBox RDP server interprets this number as the screen index. The primary
guest screen is selected with @1, the first secondary screen is @2, etc.

118
 7 Remote virtual machines

The MS RDP6 client does not let you specify a separate domain name. Instead,
use domain\username in the Username: field – for example, @2\name. name must be
supplied, and must be the name used to log in if the VRDP server is set up to require
credentials. If it is not, you may use any text as the username.

7.1.9 VRDP video redirection

Starting with VirtualBox 3.2, the VRDP server can redirect video streams from the
guest to the RDP client. Video frames are compressed using the JPEG algorithm allow-
ing a higher compression ratio than standard RDP bitmap compression methods. It is
possible to increase the compression ratio by lowering the video quality.
Video streams in a guest are detected by the VRDP server automatically as frequently
updated rectangular areas. Therefore, this method works with any guest operating
system without having to install additional software in the guest.
On the client side, however, currently only the Windows 7 Remote Desktop Con-
nection client supports this feature. If a client does not support video redirection, the
VRDP server uses regular bitmap updates.
The following command enables video redirection:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --vrdpvideochannel on

The quality of the video is defined as a value from 10 to 100 percent, as is common
with JPEG compression. The quality can be changed using the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --vrdpvideochannelquality 75

7.2 Teleporting
Starting with version 3.1, VirtualBox supports “teleporting” – that is, moving a virtual
machine over a network from one VirtualBox host to another, while the virtual machine
is running. This works regardless of the host operating system that is running on the
hosts: you can teleport virtual machines between Solaris and Mac hosts, for example.
Teleporting requires that a machine be currently running on one host, which is then
called the “source”. The host to which the virtual machine will be teleported will
then be called the “target”; the machine on the target is then configured to wait for
the source to contact the target. The machine’s running state will then be transferred
from the source to the target with minimal downtime.
Teleporting happens over any TCP/IP network; the source and the target only need
to agree on a TCP/IP port which is specified in the teleporting settings.
At this time, there are a few prerequisites for this to work, however:

1. On the target host, you must configure a virtual machine in VirtualBox with ex-
actly the same hardware settings as the machine on the source that you want to
teleport. This does not apply to settings which are merely descriptive, such as the
VM name, but obviously for teleporting to work, the target machine must have

119
 7 Remote virtual machines

the same amount of memory and other hardware settings. Otherwise teleporting
will fail with an error message.
2. The two virtual machines on the source and the target must share the same
storage (hard disks as well as floppy and CD/DVD images). This means that they
either use the same iSCSI targets or that the storage resides somewhere on the
network and both hosts have access to it via NFS or SMB/CIFS.
This also means that neither the source nor the target machine can have any
snapshots.
Then perform the following steps:
1. On the target host, configure the virtual machine to wait for a teleport request
to arrive when it is started, instead of actually attempting to start the machine.
This is done with the following VBoxManage command:
VBoxManage modifyvm <targetvmname> --teleporter on --teleporterport <port>

where <targetvmname> is the name of the virtual machine on the target host
and <port> is a TCP/IP port number to be used on both the source and the
target hosts. For example, use 6000. For details, see chapter 8.7.5, Teleporting
settings, page 138.
2. Start the VM on the target host. You will see that instead of actually running, it
will show a progress dialog. indicating that it is waiting for a teleport request to
arrive.
3. Start the machine on the source host as usual. When it is running and you want
it to be teleported, issue the following command on the source host:
VBoxManage controlvm <sourcevmname> teleport --host <targethost> --port <port>

where <sourcevmname> is the name of the virtual machine on the source host
(the machine that is currently running), <targethost> is the host or IP name
of the target host on which the machine is waiting for the teleport request, and
<port> must be the same number as specified in the command on the target
host. For details, see chapter 8.11, VBoxManage controlvm, page 141.
For testing, you can also teleport machines on the same host; in that case, use
“localhost” as the hostname on both the source and the target host.

Note: In rare cases, if the CPUs of the source and the target are very different,
teleporting can fail with an error message, or the target may hang. This may
happen especially if the VM is running application software that is highly
optimized to run on a particular CPU without correctly checking that certain
CPU features are actually present. VirtualBox filters what CPU capabilities
are presented to the guest operating system. Advanced users can attempt
to restrict these virtual CPU capabilities with the VBoxManage --modifyvm
--cpuid command; see chapter 8.7.5, Teleporting settings, page 138.

120
8 VBoxManage
8.1 Introduction
As briefly mentioned in chapter 1.12, Alternative front-ends, page 33, VBoxManage
is the command-line interface to VirtualBox. With it, you can completely control
VirtualBox from the command line of your host operating system. VBoxManage sup-
ports all the features that the graphical user interface gives you access to, but it sup-
ports a lot more than that. It exposes really all the features of the virtualization engine,
even those that cannot (yet) be accessed from the GUI.
You will need to use the command line if you want to

• use a different user interface than the main GUI (for example, VBoxSDL or the
VBoxHeadless server);
• control some of the more advanced and experimental configuration settings for
a VM.

There are two main things to keep in mind when using VBoxManage: First,
VBoxManage must always be used with a specific “subcommand”, such as “list” or “cre-
atevm” or “startvm”. All the subcommands that VBoxManage supports are described in
detail in chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 121.
Second, most of these subcommands require that you specify a particular virtual
machine after the subcommand. There are two ways you can do this:

• You can specify the VM name, as it is shown in the VirtualBox GUI. Note that
if that name contains spaces, then you must enclose the entire name in dou-
ble quotes (as it is always required with command line arguments that contain
spaces).
For example:
VBoxManage startvm "Windows XP"

• You can specify the UUID, which is the internal unique identifier that VirtualBox
uses to refer to the virtual machine. Assuming that the aforementioned VM
called “Windows XP” has the UUID shown below, the following command has
the same effect as the previous:
VBoxManage startvm 670e746d-abea-4ba6-ad02-2a3b043810a5

You can type VBoxManage list vms to have all currently registered VMs listed with
all their settings, including their respective names and UUIDs.

121
 8 VBoxManage

Some typical examples of how to control VirtualBox from the command line are
listed below:

• To create a new virtual machine from the command line and immediately regis-
ter it with VirtualBox, use VBoxManage createvm with the --register option,1
like this:
$ VBoxManage createvm --name "SUSE 10.2" --register
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.8
(C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

Virtual machine ’SUSE 10.2’ is created.

UUID: c89fc351-8ec6-4f02-a048-57f4d25288e5
Settings file: ’/home/username/.VirtualBox/Machines/SUSE 10.2/SUSE 10.2.xml’

As can be seen from the above output, a new virtual machine has been created
with a new UUID and a new XML settings file.

• To show the configuration of a particular VM, use VBoxManage showvminfo; see

chapter 8.4, VBoxManage showvminfo, page 129 for details and an example.
• To change settings while a VM is powered off, use VBoxManage modifyvm, e.g.
as follows:
VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows XP" --memory "512MB"

For details, see chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131.

• To control VM operation, use one of the following:
– To start a VM that is currently powered off, use VBoxManage startvm; see
chapter 8.10, VBoxManage startvm, page 141 for details.
– To pause or save a VM that is currently running or change some of its
settings, use VBoxManage controlvm; see chapter 8.11, VBoxManage con-
trolvm, page 141 for details.

8.2 Commands overview

When running VBoxManage without parameters or when supplying an invalid com-
mand line, the below syntax diagram will be shown. Note that the output will be
slightly different depending on the host platform; when in doubt, check the output of
VBoxManage for the commands available on your particular host.

Usage:

VBoxManage [-v|--version] print version number and exit

1 For details, see chapter 8.6, VBoxManage createvm, page 131.

122
 8 VBoxManage

VBoxManage [-q|--nologo] ... suppress the logo

VBoxManage list [--long|-l] vms|runningvms|ostypes|hostdvds|hostfloppies|

bridgedifs|dhcpservers|hostinfo|
hostcpuids|hddbackends|hdds|dvds|floppies|
usbhost|usbfilters|systemproperties

VBoxManage showvminfo <uuid>|<name> [--details] [--statistics]

[--machinereadable]
VBoxManage showvminfo <uuid>|<name> --log <idx>

VBoxManage registervm <filename>

VBoxManage unregistervm <uuid>|<name> [--delete]

VBoxManage createvm --name <name>

[--ostype <ostype>]
[--register]
[--basefolder <path> | --settingsfile <path>]
[--uuid <uuid>]

VBoxManage modifyvm <uuid|name>

[--name <name>]
[--ostype <ostype>]
[--memory <memorysize in MB>]
[--pagefusion on|off]
[--vram <vramsize in MB>]
[--acpi on|off]
[--ioapic on|off]
[--pae on|off]
[--hpet on|off]
[--hwvirtex on|off]
[--nestedpaging on|off]
[--largepages on|off]
[--vtxvpid on|off]
[--synthcpu on|off]
[--cpuidset <leaf> <eax> <ebx> <ecx> <edx>]
[--cpuidremove <leaf>]
[--cpuidremoveall]
[--hardwareuuid <uuid>]
[--cpus <number>]
[--cpuhotplug on|off]
[--plugcpu <id>]
[--unplugcpu <id>]
[--rtcuseutc on|off]
[--monitorcount <number>]
[--accelerate3d on|off]
[--firmware bios|efi|efi32|efi64]
[--bioslogofadein on|off]
[--bioslogofadeout on|off]
[--bioslogodisplaytime <msec>]
[--bioslogoimagepath <imagepath>]
[--biosbootmenu disabled|menuonly|messageandmenu]
[--biossystemtimeoffset <msec>]
[--biospxedebug on|off]
[--boot<1-4> none|floppy|dvd|disk|net>]

123
 8 VBoxManage

[--nic<1-N> none|null|nat|bridged|intnet]
[--nictype<1-N> Am79C970A|Am79C973]
[--cableconnected<1-N> on|off]
[--nictrace<1-N> on|off]
[--nictracefile<1-N> <filename>]
[--nicspeed<1-N> <kbps>]
[--nicbootprio<1-N> <priority>]
[--bridgeadapter<1-N> none|<devicename>]
[--intnet<1-N> <network name>]
[--natnet<1-N> <network>|default]
[--natsettings<1-N> [<mtu>],[<socksnd>],
[<sockrcv>],[<tcpsnd>],
[<tcprcv>]]
[--natpf<1-N> [<rulename>],tcp|udp,[<hostip>],
<hostport>,[<guestip>],<guestport>]
[--natpf<1-N> delete <rulename>]
[--nattftpprefix<1-N> <prefix>]
[--nattftpfile<1-N> <file>]
[--nattftpserver<1-N> <ip>]
[--natdnspassdomain<1-N> on|off]
[--natdnsproxy<1-N> on|off]
[--natdnshostresolver<1-N> on|off]
[--nataliasmode<1-N> default|[log],[proxyonly],
[sameports]]
[--macaddress<1-N> auto|<mac>]
[--mouse ps2|usb|usbtablet
[--keyboard ps2|usb
[--uart<1-N> off|<I/O base> <IRQ>]
[--uartmode<1-N> disconnected|
server <pipe>|
client <pipe>|
file <file>|
<devicename>]
[--guestmemoryballoon <balloonsize in MB>]
[--gueststatisticsinterval <seconds>]
[--audio none|null|dsound|solaudio|oss|
oss|coreaudio]
[--audiocontroller ac97|sb16]
[--clipboard disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|
bidirectional]
[--vrdp on|off]
[--vrdpport default|<ports>]
[--vrdpaddress <host>]
[--vrdpauthtype null|external|guest]
[--vrdpmulticon on|off]
[--vrdpreusecon on|off]
[--vrdpvideochannel on|off]
[--vrdpvideochannelquality <percent>]
[--usb on|off]
[--usbehci on|off]
[--snapshotfolder default|<path>]
[--teleporter on|off]
[--teleporterport <port>]
[--teleporteraddress <address|empty>
[--teleporterpassword <password>]

124
 8 VBoxManage

VBoxManage import <ovf> [--dry-run|-n] [more options]

(run with -n to have options displayed
for a particular OVF)

VBoxManage export <machines> --output|-o <ovf>

[--legacy09]
[--vsys <number of virtual system>]
[--product <product name>]
[--producturl <product url>]
[--vendor <vendor name>]
[--vendorurl <vendor url>]
[--version <version info>]
[--eula <license text>]
[--eulafile <filename>]

VBoxManage startvm <uuid>|<name>

[--type gui|sdl|vrdp|headless]

VBoxManage controlvm <uuid>|<name>

pause|resume|reset|poweroff|savestate|
acpipowerbutton|acpisleepbutton|
keyboardputscancode <hex> [<hex> ...]|
injectnmi|
setlinkstate<1-N> on|off |
guestmemoryballoon <balloonsize in MB>]
gueststatisticsinterval <seconds>]
usbattach <uuid>|<address> |
usbdetach <uuid>|<address> |
vrdp on|off |
vrdpport default|<ports> |
vrdpvideochannelquality <percent>
setvideomodehint <xres> <yres> <bpp> [display] |
setcredentials <username> <password> <domain>
[--allowlocallogon <yes|no>] |
teleport --host <name> --port <port>
[--maxdowntime <msec>] [--password password]
plugcpu <id>
unplugcpu <id>

VBoxManage discardstate <uuid>|<name>

VBoxManage adoptstate <uuid>|<name> <state_file>

VBoxManage snapshot <uuid>|<name>

take <name> [--description <desc>] [--pause] |
delete <uuid>|<name> |
restore <uuid>|<name> |
restorecurrent |
edit <uuid>|<name>|--current
[--name <name>]
[--description <desc>] |
showvminfo <uuid>|<name>

VBoxManage openmedium disk|dvd|floppy <filename>

[--type normal|immutable|writethrough|
shareable] (disk only)

125
 8 VBoxManage

[--uuid <uuid>]
[--parentuuid <uuid>] (disk only)

VBoxManage closemedium disk|dvd|floppy <uuid>|<filename>

[--delete]

VBoxManage storageattach <uuid|vmname>

--storagectl <name>
--port <number>
--device <number>
[--type dvddrive|hdd|fdd]
[--medium none|emptydrive|
<uuid>|<filename>|host:<drive>]
[--passthrough on|off]
[--forceunmount]

VBoxManage storagectl <uuid|vmname>

--name <name>
[--add ide|sata|scsi|floppy|sas]
[--controller LSILogic|LSILogicSAS|BusLogic|
IntelAHCI|PIIX3|PIIX4|ICH6|I82078]
[--sataideemulation<1-4> <1-30>]
[--sataportcount <1-30>]
[--hostiocache on|off]
[--remove]

VBoxManage showhdinfo <uuid>|<filename>

VBoxManage createhd --filename <filename>

--size <megabytes>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: VDI)
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--type normal|writethrough|
shareable] (default: normal)
[--comment <comment>]
[--remember]

VBoxManage modifyhd <uuid>|<filename>

[--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable]
[--autoreset on|off]
[--compact]

VBoxManage clonehd <uuid>|<filename> <outputfile>

[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|<other>]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable]
[--remember] [--existing]

VBoxManage convertfromraw <filename> <outputfile>

[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
VBoxManage convertfromraw stdin <outputfile> <bytes>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]

VBoxManage addiscsidisk --server <name>|<ip>

126
 8 VBoxManage

--target <target>
[--port <port>]
[--lun <lun>]
[--encodedlun <lun>]
[--username <username>]
[--password <password>]
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable]
[--intnet]

VBoxManage getextradata global|<uuid>|<name>

<key>|enumerate

VBoxManage setextradata global|<uuid>|<name>

<key>
[<value>] (no value deletes key)

VBoxManage setproperty hdfolder default|<folder> |

machinefolder default|<folder> |
vrdpauthlibrary default|<library> |
websrvauthlibrary default|null|<library> |
loghistorycount <value>

VBoxManage usbfilter add <index,0-N>

--target <uuid>|<name>|global
--name <string>
--action ignore|hold (global filters only)
[--active yes|no] (yes)
[--vendorid <XXXX>] (null)
[--productid <XXXX>] (null)
[--revision <IIFF>] (null)
[--manufacturer <string>] (null)
[--product <string>] (null)
[--remote yes|no] (null, VM filters only)
[--serialnumber <string>] (null)
[--maskedinterfaces <XXXXXXXX>]

VBoxManage usbfilter modify <index,0-N>

--target <uuid>|<name>|global
[--name <string>]
[--action ignore|hold] (global filters only)
[--active yes|no]
[--vendorid <XXXX>|""]
[--productid <XXXX>|""]
[--revision <IIFF>|""]
[--manufacturer <string>|""]
[--product <string>|""]
[--remote yes|no] (null, VM filters only)
[--serialnumber <string>|""]
[--maskedinterfaces <XXXXXXXX>]

VBoxManage usbfilter remove <index,0-N>

--target <uuid>|<name>|global

VBoxManage sharedfolder add <vmname>|<uuid>

--name <name> --hostpath <hostpath>
[--transient] [--readonly]

127
 8 VBoxManage

VBoxManage sharedfolder remove <vmname>|<uuid>

--name <name> [--transient]

VBoxManage vmstatistics <vmname>|<uuid> [--reset]

[--pattern <pattern>] [--descriptions]

VBoxManage metrics list [*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]

(comma-separated)

VBoxManage metrics setup

[--period <seconds>] (default: 1)
[--samples <count>] (default: 1)
[--list]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]

VBoxManage metrics query [*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]

VBoxManage metrics enable

[--list]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]

VBoxManage metrics disable

[--list]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]

VBoxManage metrics collect

[--period <seconds>] (default: 1)
[--samples <count>] (default: 1)
[--list]
[--detach]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]

VBoxManage dhcpserver add|modify --netname <network_name> |

[--ip <ip_address>
--netmask <network_mask>
--lowerip <lower_ip>
--upperip <upper_ip>]
[--enable | --disable]

VBoxManage dhcpserver remove --netname <network_name> |

Each time VBoxManage is invoked, only one command can be executed. However, a
command might support several subcommands which then can be invoked in one sin-
gle call. The following sections provide detailed reference information on the different
commands.

8.3 VBoxManage list

The list command gives relevant information about your system and information
about VirtualBox’s current settings.

128
 8 VBoxManage

The following subcommands are available with VBoxManage list:

• vms lists all virtual machines currently registered with VirtualBox. By default
this displays a compact list with each VM’s name and UUID; if you also specify
--long or -l, this will be a detailed list as with the showvminfo command (see
below).

• runningvms lists all currently running virtual machines by their unique identi-
fiers (UUIDs) in the same format as with vms.
• hdds, dvds and floppies all give you information about virtual disk images cur-
rently registered in VirtualBox, including all their settings, the unique identifiers
(UUIDs) associated with them by VirtualBox and all files associated with them.

• ostypes lists all guest operating systems presently known to VirtualBox, along
with the identifiers used to refer to them with the modifyvm command.
• hostdvds, hostfloppies and hostifs, respectively, list DVD, floppy and host
networking interfaces on the host, along with the name used to access them from
within VirtualBox.

• hostusb supplies information about USB devices attached to the host, notably
information useful for constructing USB filters and whether they are currently in
use by the host.
• usbfilters lists all global USB filters registered with VirtualBox – that is, filters
for devices which are accessible to all virtual machines – and displays the filter
parameters.
• systemproperties displays some global VirtualBox settings, such as minimum
and maximum guest RAM and virtual hard disk size, folder settings and the
current authentication library in use.

• hddbackends lists all known hdd backends of VirtualBox. Beside the name of
the backend itself, descriptions about the capabilities, configuration and other
useful informations are displayed.

8.4 VBoxManage showvminfo

The showvminfo command shows information about a particular virtual machine. This
is the same information as VBoxManage list vms --long would show for all virtual
machines.
You will get information similar to the following:
$ VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP"
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.8
(C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

129
 8 VBoxManage

Name: Windows XP
Guest OS: Other/Unknown
UUID: 1bf3464d-57c6-4d49-92a9-a5cc3816b7e7
Config file: /home/username/.VirtualBox/Machines/Windows XP/Windows XP.xml
Memory size: 512MB
VRAM size: 12MB
Number of CPUs: 2
Synthetic Cpu: off
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): DVD
Boot Device (2): HardDisk
Boot Device (3): Not Assigned
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: on
PAE: on
Time offset: 0 ms
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging: on
VT-x VPID: off
State: powered off (since 2009-10-20T14:52:19.000000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller (0): IDE Controller
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller (1): Floppy Controller 1
Storage Controller Type (1): I82078
IDE Controller (0, 0): /home/user/windows.vdi (UUID: 46f6e53a-4557-460a-9b95-68b0f17d744b)
IDE Controller (0, 1): /home/user/openbsd-cd46.iso (UUID: 4335e162-59d3-4512-91d5-b63e94eebe0b)
Floppy Controller 1 (0, 0): /home/user/floppy.img (UUID: 62ac6ccb-df36-42f2-972e-22f836368137)
NIC 1: disabled
NIC 2: disabled
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
Audio: disabled (Driver: Unknown)
Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional
VRDP: disabled
USB: disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Shared folders:

130
 8 VBoxManage

<none>

Statistics update: disabled

8.5 VBoxManage registervm / unregistervm

The registervm command allows you to import a virtual machine definition in an
XML file into VirtualBox. There are some restrictions here: the machine must not
conflict with one already registered in VirtualBox and it may not have any hard or
removable disks attached. It is advisable to place the definition file in the machines
folder before registering it.

Note: When creating a new virtual machine with VBoxManage createvm (see
below), you can directly specify the --register option to avoid having to
register it separately.

The unregistervm command unregisters a virtual machine. If --delete is also

specified then the XML definition file will be deleted.

8.6 VBoxManage createvm

This command creates a new XML virtual machine definition file.
The --name <name> parameter is required and must specify the name of the ma-
chine. Since this name is used by default as the file name of the settings file (with the
extension .xml) and the machine folder (a subfolder of the .VirtualBox/Machines
folder), it must conform to your host operating system’s requirements for file name
specifications. If the VM is later renamed, the file and folder names will change auto-
matically.
However, if the --basefolder <path> and the --settingsfile <filename> op-
tions are used, the XML definition file will be given the name <filename> and the
machine folder will be named <path>. In this case, the names of the file and the
folder will not change if the virtual machine is renamed.
By default, this command only creates the XML file without automatically registering
the VM with your VirtualBox installation. To register the VM instantly, use the optional
--register option, or run VBoxManage registervm separately afterwards.

8.7 VBoxManage modifyvm

This command changes the properties of a registered virtual machine which is not
running. Most of the properties that this command makes available correspond to the
VM settings that VirtualBox graphical user interface displays in each VM’s “Settings”

131
 8 VBoxManage

dialog; these were described in chapter 3, Configuring virtual machines, page 47. Some
of the more advanced settings, however, are only available through the VBoxManage
interface.
These commands require that the machine is powered off (neither running nor in
“saved” state). Some machine settings can also be changed while a machine is run-
ning; those settings will then have a corresponding subcommand with the VBoxManage
controlvm subcommand (see chapter 8.11, VBoxManage controlvm, page 141).

8.7.1 General settings

The following general settings are available through VBoxManage modifyvm:

• --name <name>: This changes the VM’s name and possibly renames the internal
virtual machine files, as described with VBoxManage createvm above.

• --ostype <ostype>: This specifies what guest operating system is supposed to

run in the VM. To learn about the various identifiers that can be used here, use
VBoxManage list ostypes.

• --memory <memorysize>: This sets the amount of RAM, in MB, that the virtual
machine should allocate for itself from the host. See the remarks in chapter 1.6,
Creating your first virtual machine, page 18 for more information.
• --vram <vramsize>: This sets the amount of RAM that the virtual graphics card
should have. See chapter 3.5, Display settings, page 55 for details.
• --acpi on|off; --ioapic on|off: These two determine whether the VM
should have ACPI and I/O APIC support, respectively; see chapter 3.4.1, “Moth-
erboard” tab, page 52 for details.
• --hardwareuuid <uuid>: The UUID presented to the guest via memory tables
(DMI/SMBIOS), hardware and guest properties. By default this is the same as
the VM uuid. Useful when cloning a VM. Teleporting takes care of this automat-
ically.

• --cpus <cpucount>: This sets the number of virtual CPUs for the virtual ma-
chine (see chapter 3.4.2, “Processor” tab, page 54). If CPU hot-plugging is en-
abled (see below), this then sets the maximum number of virtual CPUs that can
be plugged into the virtual machines.

• --rtcuseutc on|off: This option lets the real-time clock (RTC) operate in UTC
time (see chapter 3.4.1, “Motherboard” tab, page 52).
• --cpuhotplug on|off: This enables CPU hot-plugging. When enabled, virtual
CPUs can be added to and removed from a virtual machine while it is running.
See chapter 9.5, CPU hot-plugging, page 167 for more information.

132
 8 VBoxManage

• --plugcpu|unplugcpu <id>: If CPU hot-plugging is enabled (see above), this

adds a virtual CPU to the virtual machines (or removes one). <id> specifies the
index of the virtual CPU to be added or removed and must be a number from
0 to the maximum no. of CPUs configured with the --cpus option. CPU 0 can
never be removed.
• --synthcpu on|off: This setting determines whether VirtualBox will expose
a synthetic CPU to the guest to allow live migration between host systems that
differ significantly.

• --pae on|off: This enables/disables PAE (see chapter 3.4.2, “Processor” tab,
page 54).
• --hpet on|off: This enables/disables a High Precision Event Timer (HPET)
which can replace the legacy system timers. This is turned off by default. Note
that Windows supports a HPET only from Vista onwards.

• --hwvirtex on|off|default: This enables or disables the use of hardware

virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) in the processor of your host
system; see chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page 185.
• --hwvirtexexcl on|off: This specifies whether VirtualBox will make exclu-
sive use of the hardware virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) in the
processor of your host system; see chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtu-
alization, page 185. If you wish to simultaneously share these extensions with
other hypervisors, then you must disable this setting. Doing so has negative
performance implications.
• --nestedpaging on|off: If hardware virtualization is enabled, this additional
setting enables or disables the use of the nested paging feature in the processor
of your host system; see chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page
185.
• --largepages on|off: If hardware virtualization and nested paging are en-
abled, for Intel VT-x only, an additional performance improvement of up to 5%
can be obtained by enabling this setting. This causes the hypervisor to use large
pages to reduce TLB use and overhead.
• --vtxvpid on|off: If hardware virtualization is enabled, for Intel VT-x only,
this additional setting enables or disables the use of the tagged TLB (VPID) fea-
ture in the processor of your host system; see chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software
virtualization, page 185.
• --accelerate3d on|off: This enables, if the Guest Additions are installed,
whether hardware 3D acceleration should be available; see chapter 4.5.1, Hard-
ware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9), page 79.

133
 8 VBoxManage

• You can influence the BIOS logo that is displayed when a virtual machine starts
up with a number of settings. Per default, a VirtualBox logo is displayed.
With --bioslogofadein on|off and --bioslogofadeout on|off, you can
determine whether the logo should fade in and out, respectively.
With --bioslogodisplaytime <msec> you can set how long the logo should
be visible, in milliseconds.
With --bioslogoimagepath <imagepath> you can, if you are so inclined, re-
place the image that is shown, with your own logo. The image must be an
uncompressed 256 color BMP file.
• --biosbootmenu disabled|menuonly|messageandmenu: This specifies
whether the BIOS allows the user to select a temporary boot device. menuonly
suppresses the message, but the user can still press F12 to select a temporary
boot device.
• --boot<1-4> none|floppy|dvd|disk|net: This specifies the boot order for
the virtual machine. There are four “slots”, which the VM will try to access from
1 to 4, and for each of which you can set a device that the VM should attempt to
boot from.
• --snapshotfolder default|<path>: This allows you to specify the folder in
which snapshots will be kept for a virtual machine.
• --firmware efi|bios: Specifies which firmware is used to boot particular vir-
tual machine: EFI or BIOS. Use EFI only if your fully understand what you’re
doing.
• --guestmemoryballoon <size> sets the default size of the guest memory bal-
loon, that is, memory allocated by the VirtualBox Guest Additions from the guest
operating system and returned to the hypervisor for re-use by other virtual ma-
chines. <size> must be specified in megabytes. The default size is 0 megabytes.
For details, see chapter 4.8, Memory ballooning, page 84.

8.7.2 Networking settings

The following networking settings are available through VBoxManage modifyvm. With
all these settings, the decimal number directly following the option name (“1-N” in the
list below) specifies the virtual network adapter whose settings should be changed.

• --nic<1-N> none|null|nat|bridged|intnet|hostonly|vde: With this, you

can set, for each of the VM’s virtual network cards, what type of network-
ing should be available. They can be not present (none), not connected to
the host (null), use network address translation (nat), bridged networking
(bridged) or communicate with other virtual machines using internal network-
ing (intnet), host-only networking (hostonly) or on Linux and FreeBSD hosts
a Virtual Distributed Ethernet switch (vde). These options correspond to the

134
 8 VBoxManage

modes which are described in detail in chapter 6.2, Introduction to networking

modes, page 104.
• --nictype<1-N> Am79C970A|Am79C973|82540EM|82543GC|82545EM|virtio:
This allows you, for each of the VM’s virtual network cards, to specify which net-
working hardware VirtualBox presents to the guest; see chapter 6.1, Virtual
networking hardware, page 103.
• --cableconnected<1-N> on|off: This allows you to temporarily disconnect
a virtual network interface, as if a network cable had been pulled from a real
network card. This might be useful for resetting certain software components in
the VM.
• With the “nictrace” options, you can optionally trace network traffic by dumping
it to a file, for debugging purposes.
With --nictrace<1-N> on|off, you can enable network tracing for a particular
virtual network card.
If enabled, you must specify with --nictracefile<1-N> <filename> what file
the trace should be logged to.
• --bridgeadapter<1-N> none|<devicename>: If bridged networking has been
enabled for a virtual network card (see the --nic option above; otherwise this
setting has no effect), use this option to specify which host interface the given
virtual network interface will use. For details, please see chapter 6.4, Bridged
networking, page 108.
• --hostonlyadapter<1-N> none|<devicename>: If host-only networking has
been enabled for a virtual network card (see the –nic option above; otherwise
this setting has no effect), use this option to specify which host-only networking
interface the given virtual network interface will use. For details, please see
chapter 6.6, Host-only networking, page 110.
• --intnet<1-N> network: If internal networking has been enabled for a virtual
network card (see the --nic option above; otherwise this setting has no effect),
use this option to specify the name of the internal network (see chapter 6.5,
Internal networking, page 109).
• --macaddress<1-N> auto|<mac>: With this option you can set the MAC ad-
dress of the virtual network card. Normally, each virtual network card is assigned
a random address by VirtualBox at VM creation.

• --vdenet<1-N> network: If Virtual Distributed Ethernet is available on the host

and has been enabled for a virtual network card (see the --nic option above;
otherwise this setting has no effect). Use this option to specify the name of a
VDE network for the interface to connect to (see chapter 6.2, Introduction to
networking modes, page 104 and the VDE documentation).

135
 8 VBoxManage

8.7.2.1 NAT Networking settings.

The following NAT networking settings are available through VBoxManage modifyvm.
With all these settings, the decimal number directly following the option name (“1-
N” in the list below) specifies the virtual network adapter whose settings should be
changed.

• --natpf<1-N> [<name>],tcp|udp,[<hostip>],<hostport>,[<guestip>],
<guestport>: This option defines a NAT port-forwarding rule (please see chap-
ter 6.3.1, Configuring port forwarding with NAT, page 106 for details).
• --natpf<1-N> delete <name>: This option deletes a NAT port-forwarding rule
(please see chapter 6.3.1, Configuring port forwarding with NAT, page 106 for
details).
• --nattftpprefix<1-N> <prefix>: This option defines a prefix for the built-in
TFTP server, i.e. where the boot file is located (please see chapter 6.3.2, PXE
booting with NAT, page 107 and chapter 9.10.2, Configuring the boot server (next
server) of a NAT network interface, page 176 for details).
• --nattftpfile<1-N> <bootfile>: This option defines the TFT boot file
(please see chapter 9.10.2, Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT
network interface, page 176 for details).
• --nattftpserver<1-N> <tftpserver>: This option defines the TFTP server
address to boot from (please see chapter 9.10.2, Configuring the boot server (next
server) of a NAT network interface, page 176 for details).
• --natdnspassdomain<1-N> on|off: This option specifies whether the built-in
DHCP server passes the domain name for network name resolution.
• --natdnsproxy<1-N> on|off: This option makes the NAT engine proxy all
guest DNS requests to the host’s DNS servers (please see chapter 9.10.5, En-
abling DNS proxy in NAT mode, page 177 for details).
• --natdnshostresolver<1-N> on|off: This option makes the NAT engine use
the host’s resolver mechanisms to handle DNS requests (please see chapter
9.10.5, Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode, page 177 for details).
• --natnatsettings<1-N> [<mtu>],[<socksnd>],[<sockrcv>],[<tcpsnd>],
[<tcprcv>]: This option controls several NAT settings (please see chapter
9.10.3, Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT, page 176 for details).
• --nataliasmode<1-N> default|[log],[proxyonly],[sameports]: This
option defines behaviour of NAT engine core: log - enables logging, proxy-
only - switches of aliasing mode makes NAT transparent, sameports enforces
NAT engine to send packets via the same port as they originated on, default -
disable all mentioned modes above . (please see chapter 9.10.7, Configuring
aliasing of the NAT engine, page 177 for details).

136
 8 VBoxManage

8.7.3 Serial port, audio, clipboard, VRDP and USB settings

The following other hardware settings are available through VBoxManage modifyvm:

• --uart<1-N> off|<I/O base> <IRQ>: With this option you can configure vir-
tual serial ports for the VM; see chapter 3.9, Serial ports, page 59 for an intro-
duction.

• --uartmode<1-N> <arg>: This setting controls how VirtualBox connects a

given virtual serial port (previously configured with the --uartX setting, see
above) to the host on which the virtual machine is running. As described in
detail in chapter 3.9, Serial ports, page 59, for each such port, you can specify
<arg> as one of the following options:

– disconnected: Even though the serial port is shown to the guest, it has no
“other end” – like a real COM port without a cable.
– server <pipename>: On a Windows host, this tells VirtualBox to create a
named pipe on the host named <pipename> and connect the virtual serial
device to it. Note that Windows requires that the name of a named pipe
begin with \\.\pipe\.
On a Linux host, instead of a named pipe, a local domain socket is used.
– client <pipename>: This operates just like server ..., except that the
pipe (or local domain socket) is not created by VirtualBox, but assumed to
exist already.
– <devicename>: If, instead of the above, the device name of a physical hard-
ware serial port of the host is specified, the virtual serial port is connected
to that hardware port. On a Windows host, the device name will be a
COM port such as COM1; on a Linux host, the device name will look like
/dev/ttyS0. This allows you to “wire” a real serial port to a virtual ma-
chine.
• --audio none|null|oss: With this option, you can set whether the VM should
have audio support.
• --clipboard disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|bidirectional: With
this setting, you can select whether the guest operating system’s clipboard should
be shared with the host; see chapter 3.3, General settings, page 50. This requires
that the Guest Additions be installed in the virtual machine.
• --monitorcount <count>: This enables multi-monitor support; see chapter
3.5, Display settings, page 55.

• --usb on|off: This option enables or disables the VM’s virtual USB controller;
see chapter 3.10.1, USB settings, page 60 for details.
• --usbehci on|off: This option enables or disables the VM’s virtual USB 2.0
controller; see chapter 3.10.1, USB settings, page 60 for details.

137
 8 VBoxManage

8.7.4 Remote machine settings

The following settings that affect remote machine behavior are available through
VBoxManage modifyvm:

• --vrdp on|off: With the VirtualBox graphical user interface, this enables or
disables the built-in VRDP server. Note that if you are using VBoxHeadless (see
chapter 7.1.2, VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-only server, page 113), VRDP output is
always enabled.
• --vrdpport default|<ports>: A port or a range of ports the VRDP server
can bind to; “default” or “0” means port 3389, the standard port for RDP. You
can specify a comma-separated list of ports or ranges of ports. Use a dash be-
tween two port numbers to specify a range. The VRDP server will bind to one
of available ports from the specified list. Only one machine can use a given port
at a time. For example, the option --vrdpport 5000,5010-5012 will tell the
server to bind to one of following ports: 5000, 5010, 5011 or 5012.
• --vrdpaddress <IP address>: The IP address of the host network interface
the VRDP server will bind to. If specified, the VRDP server will accept connec-
tions only on the specified host network interface.
• --vrdpauthtype null|external|guest: This allows you to choose whether
and how authorization will be performed; see chapter 7.1.5, RDP authentication,
page 116 for details.
• --vrdpmulticon on|off: This enables multiple VRDP connections to the same
VRDP server; see chapter 7.1.7, Multiple VRDP connections, page 118.
• --vrdpreusecon on|off: This specifies the VRDP server behavior when multi-
ple connections are disabled. When this option is enabled, the VRDP server will
allow a new client to connect and drop the existing connection. When this option
is disabled (this is the default setting), a new connection will not be accepted if
there is already a client connected to the server.
• --vrdpvideochannel on|off: This enables VRDP video acceleration; see chap-
ter 7.1.9, VRDP video redirection, page 119.
• --vrdpvideochannelquality <percent>: Sets the image quality for VRDP
video acceleration; see chapter 7.1.9, VRDP video redirection, page 119.

8.7.5 Teleporting settings

With the following commands for VBoxManage modifyvm you can configure a ma-
chine to be a target for teleporting. See chapter 7.2, Teleporting, page 119 for an
introduction.

138
 8 VBoxManage

• --teleporter on|off: With this setting you turn on or off whether a machine
waits for a teleporting request to come in on the network when it is started. If
“on”, when the machine is started, it does not boot the virtual machine as it
would normally; instead, it then waits for a teleporting request to come in on
the port and address listed with the next two parameters.
• --teleporterport <port>, --teleporteraddress <address>: these must
be used with –teleporter and tell the virtual machine on which port and address
it should listen for a teleporting request from another virtual machine. <port>
can be any free TCP/IP port number (e.g. 6000); <address> can be any IP
address or hostname and specifies the TCP/IP socket to bind to. The default is
“0.0.0.0”, which means any address.
• --teleporterpassword <password>: if this optional argument is given, then
the teleporting request will only succeed if the source machine specifies the same
password as the one given with this command.
• --cpuid <leaf> <eax> <ebx> <ecx> <edx>: Advanced users can use this
command before a teleporting operation to restrict the virtual CPU capabilities
that VirtualBox presents to the guest operating system. This must be run on
both the source and the target machines involved in the teleporting and will
then modify what the guest sees when it executes the CPUID machine instruc-
tion. This might help with misbehaving applications that wrongly assume that
certain CPU capabilities are present. The meaning of the parameters is hardware
dependent; please refer to the AMD or Intel processor manuals.

8.8 VBoxManage import

This command imports a virtual appliance in OVF format by copying the virtual disk
images and creating virtual machines in VirtualBox. See chapter 1.11, Importing and
exporting virtual machines, page 30 for an introduction to appliances.
The import subcommand takes at least the path name of an OVF file as input and
expects the disk images, if needed, in the same directory as the OVF file. A lot of addi-
tional command-line options are supported to control in detail what is being imported
and modify the import parameters, but the details depend on the content of the OVF
file.
It is therefore recommended to first run the import subcommand with the
--dry-run or -n option. This will then print a description of the appliance’s con-
tents to the screen how it would be imported into VirtualBox, together with the
optional command-line options to influence the import behavior.
As an example, here is the screen output with a sample appliance containing a
Windows XP guest:
VBoxManage import WindowsXp.ovf --dry-run
Interpreting WindowsXp.ovf...
OK.

139
 8 VBoxManage

Virtual system 0:
0: Suggested OS type: "WindowsXP"
(change with "--vsys 0 --ostype <type>"; use "list ostypes" to list all)
1: Suggested VM name "Windows XP Professional_1"
(change with "--vsys 0 --vmname <name>")
3: Number of CPUs: 1
(change with "--vsys 0 --cpus <n>")
4: Guest memory: 956 MB (change with "--vsys 0 --memory <MB>")
5: Sound card (appliance expects "ensoniq1371", can change on import)
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 5 --ignore")
6: USB controller
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 6 --ignore")
7: Network adapter: orig bridged, config 2, extra type=bridged
8: Floppy
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 8 --ignore")
9: SCSI controller, type BusLogic
(change with "--vsys 0 --unit 9 --scsitype {BusLogic|LsiLogic}";
disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 9 --ignore")
10: IDE controller, type PIIX4
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 10 --ignore")
11: Hard disk image: source image=WindowsXp.vmdk,
target path=/home/user/disks/WindowsXp.vmdk, controller=9;channel=0
(change controller with "--vsys 0 --unit 11 --controller <id>";
disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 11 --ignore")

As you can see, the individual configuration items are numbered, and depending
on their type support different command-line options. The import subcommand can
be directed to ignore many such items with a --vsys X --unit Y --ignore option,
where X is the number of the virtual system (zero unless there are several virtual
system descriptions in the appliance) and Y the item number, as printed on the screen.
In the above example, Item #1 specifies the name of the target machine in
VirtualBox. Items #9 and #10 specify hard disk controllers, respectively. Item #11 de-
scribes a hard disk image; in this case, the additional --controller option indicates
which item the disk image should be connected to, with the default coming from the
OVF file.
You can combine several items for the same virtual system behind the same --vsys
option. For example, to import a machine as described in the OVF, but without the
sound card and without the USB controller, and with the disk image connected to the
IDE controller instead of the SCSI controller, use this:
VBoxManage import WindowsXp.ovf
--vsys 0 --unit 5 --ignore --unit 6 --ignore --unit 11 --controller 10

8.9 VBoxManage export

This command exports one or more virtual machines from VirtualBox into a virtual
appliance in OVF format, including copying their virtual disk images to compressed
VMDK. See chapter 1.11, Importing and exporting virtual machines, page 30 for an
introduction to appliances.

140
 8 VBoxManage

The export command is simple to use: list the machine (or the machines) that
you would like to export to the same OVF file and specify the target OVF file after an
additional --output or -o option. Note that the directory of the target OVF file will
also receive the exported disk images in the compressed VMDK format (regardless of
the original format) and should have enough disk space left for them.
Beside a simple export of a given virtual machine, you can append several prod-
uct information to the appliance file. Use --product, --producturl, --vendor,
--vendorurl and --version to specify this additional information. For legal rea-
sons you may add a license text or the content of a license file by using the --eula
and --eulafile option respectively. As with OVF import, you must use the --vsys X
option to direct the previously mentioned options to the correct virtual machine.
For virtualization products which aren’t fully compatible with the OVF standard 1.0
you can enable a OVF 0.9 legacy mode with the --legacy09 option.

8.10 VBoxManage startvm

This command starts a virtual machine that is currently in the “Powered off” or “Saved”
states.

Note: This is provided for backwards compatibility only. We recommend to

start virtual machines directly by running the respective front-end, as you
might otherwise miss important error and state information that VirtualBox
may display on the console. This is especially important for front-ends other
than VirtualBox, our graphical user interface, because those cannot display
error messages in a popup window. See chapter 7.1.2, VBoxHeadless, the
VRDP-only server, page 113 for more information.

The optional --type specifier determines whether the machine will be started in a
window (GUI mode, which is the default) or whether the output should go through
VBoxHeadless, with VRDP enabled or not; see chapter 7.1.2, VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-
only server, page 113 for more information. The list of types is subject to change, and
it’s not guaranteed that all types are accepted by any product variant.
The following values are allowed:
gui Starts a VM showing a GUI window. This is the default.
vrdp Starts a VM showing a GUI window, with its graphics card output accessible by
an RDP client.
headless Starts a VM without a window for remote RDP display only.

8.11 VBoxManage controlvm

The controlvm subcommand allows you to change the state of a virtual machine that
is currently running. The following can be specified:

141
 8 VBoxManage

• VBoxManage controlvm <vm> pause temporarily puts a virtual machine on

hold, without changing its state for good. The VM window will be painted in
gray to indicate that the VM is currently paused. (This is equivalent to selecting
the “Pause” item in the “Machine” menu of the GUI.)
• Use VBoxManage controlvm <vm> resume to undo a previous pause com-
mand. (This is equivalent to selecting the “Resume” item in the “Machine” menu
of the GUI.)
• VBoxManage controlvm <vm> reset has the same effect on a virtual machine
as pressing the “Reset” button on a real computer: a cold reboot of the virtual
machine, which will restart and boot the guest operating system again immedi-
ately. The state of the VM is not saved beforehand, and data may be lost. (This
is equivalent to selecting the “Reset” item in the “Machine” menu of the GUI.)
• VBoxManage controlvm <vm> poweroff has the same effect on a virtual ma-
chine as pulling the power cable on a real computer. Again, the state of the VM is
not saved beforehand, and data may be lost. (This is equivalent to selecting the
“Close” item in the “Machine” menu of the GUI or pressing the window’s close
button, and then selecting “Power off the machine” in the dialog.)
After this, the VM’s state will be “Powered off”. From there, it can be started
again; see chapter 8.10, VBoxManage startvm, page 141.
• VBoxManage controlvm <vm> savestate will save the current state of the VM
to disk and then stop the VM. (This is equivalent to selecting the “Close” item in
the “Machine” menu of the GUI or pressing the window’s close button, and then
selecting “Save the machine state” in the dialog.)
After this, the VM’s state will be “Saved”. From there, it can be started again; see
chapter 8.10, VBoxManage startvm, page 141.
• VBoxManage controlvm <vm> teleport --hostname <name> --port <port>
[--password <password>] makes the machine the source of a teleporting op-
eration and initiates a teleport to the given target. See chapter 7.2, Teleporting,
page 119 for an introduction. If the optional password is specified, it must match
the password that was given to the modifyvm command for the target machine;
see chapter 8.7.5, Teleporting settings, page 138 for details.

A few extra options are available with controlvm that do not directly affect the
VM’s running state:

• The setlinkstate<1-N> operation connects or disconnects virtual network ca-

bles from their network interfaces.
• nic<1-N> null|nat|bridged|intnet|hostonly: With this, you can set, for
each of the VM’s virtual network cards, what type of networking should be
available. They can be not connected to the host (null), use network address
translation (nat), bridged networking (bridged) or communicate with other

142
 8 VBoxManage

virtual machines using internal networking (intnet) or host-only networking

(hostonly). These options correspond to the modes which are described in
detail in chapter 6.2, Introduction to networking modes, page 104.

• usbattach and usbdettach make host USB devices visible to the virtual ma-
chine on the fly, without the need for creating filters first. The USB devices can
be specified by UUID (unique identifier) or by address on the host system.
You can use VBoxManage list usbhost to locate this information.
• vrdp on|off lets you enable or disable the built-in VRDP server.

• vrdpport default|<ports> changes the port or a range of ports that the VRDP
server can bind to; “default” or “0” means port 3389, the standard port for RDP.
For details, see the description for the --vrdpport option in chapter 8.7.3, Serial
port, audio, clipboard, VRDP and USB settings, page 137.

• setvideomodehint requests that the guest system change to a particular video

mode. This requires that the Guest Additions be installed, and will not work for
all guest systems.
• The setcredentials operation is used for remote logons in Windows guests.
For details, please refer to chapter 9.3, Automated guest logons, page 163.

• The guestmemoryballoon operation changes the size of the guest memory bal-
loon, that is, memory allocated by the VirtualBox Guest Additions from the guest
operating system and returned to the hypervisor for re-use by other virtual ma-
chines. This must be specified in megabytes. For details, see chapter 4.8, Memory
ballooning, page 84.

8.12 VBoxManage discardstate

This command discards the saved state of a virtual machine which is not currently
running, which will cause its operating system to restart next time you start it. This
is the equivalent of pulling out the power cable on a physical machine, and should be
avoided if possible.

8.13 VBoxManage snapshot

This command is used to control snapshots from the command line. A snapshot con-
sists of a complete copy of the virtual machine settings, copied at the time when the
snapshot was taken, and optionally a virtual machine saved state file if the snapshot
was taken while the machine was running. After a snapshot has been taken, VirtualBox
creates differencing hard disk for each normal hard disk associated with the machine
so that when a snapshot is restored, the contents of the virtual machine’s virtual hard
disks can be quickly reset by simply dropping the pre-existing differencing files.

143
 8 VBoxManage

The take operation takes a snapshot of the current state of the virtual machine. You
must supply a name for the snapshot and can optionally supply a description. The new
snapshot is inserted into the snapshots tree as a child of the current snapshot and then
becomes the new current snapshot.
The delete operation deletes a snapshot (specified by name or by UUID). This can
take a while to finish since the differencing images associated with the snapshot might
need to be merged with their child differencing images.
The restore operation will restore the given snapshot (specified by name or by
UUID) by resetting the virtual machine’s settings and current state to that of the snap-
shot. The previous current state of the machine will be lost. After this, the given
snapshot becomes the new “current” snapshot so that subsequent snapshots are in-
serted under the snapshot from which was restored.
The restorecurrent operation is a shortcut to restore the current snapshot (i.e.
the snapshot from which the current state is derived). This subcommand is equivalent
to using the “restore” subcommand with the name or UUID of the current snapshot,
except that it avoids the extra step of determining that name or UUID.
With the edit operation, you can change the name or description of an existing
snapshot.
With the showvminfo operation, you can view the virtual machine settings that were
stored with an existing snapshot.

8.14 VBoxManage openmedium / closemedium

These commands register or unregister hard disk, DVD or floppy images in VirtualBox.
This is the command-line equivalent of the Virtual Media Manager; see chapter 5.3,
The Virtual Media Manager, page 91 for more information.

Note: For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the “registerim-

age” and “unregisterimage” commands are also supported and mapped inter-
nally to the “openmedium” and “closemedium” commands, respectively.

When you register an images you can optionally specify a new UUID for the image.
For hard disk images the parent UUID can be changed as well. You can also specify the
type of the medium, see chapter 5.4, Special image write modes, page 93 for details.
When you unregister an image, you can optionally specify that the image should
be deleted. You will get appropriate diagnostics that the deletion failed, however the
image will become unregistered in any case.

8.15 VBoxManage storagectl / storageattach

These commands allow to attach new storage controllers to a VM, modify or remove
the existing ones and also allows the user to change the hard disk, DVD or floppy

144
 8 VBoxManage

images attached to them. The list of the storage controllers attached to the VM can be
found by the command:
VBoxManage showvminfo <vmname>

See also chapter 8.4, VBoxManage showvminfo, page 129.

8.15.1 VBoxManage storagectl

This command attaches/modifies/removes a storage controller. The syntax is as fol-
lows:
VBoxManage storagectl <uuid|vmname>
--name <name>
[--add <ide/sata/scsi/floppy>]
[--controller <LsiLogic/BusLogic/IntelAhci/PIIX3/
PIIX4/ICH6/I8207>]
[--sataideemulation<1-4> <1-30>]
[--sataportcount <1-30>]
[--hostiocache on|off]
[--remove]

where the parameters mean:

uuid|vmname The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.

name Name of the storage controller. Mandatory.

add Define the type of the system bus to which the storage controller must be con-
nected.
controller Allows to choose the type of chipset being emulated for the given storage
controller.
sataideemulation This specifies which SATA ports should operate in IDE emulation
mode. As explained in chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI,
SAS, page 87, by default, this is the case for SATA ports 1-4; with this command,
you can map four IDE channels to any of the 30 supported SATA ports.

sataportcount This determines how many ports the SATA controller should support.
hostiocache Configures the use of the host I/O cache for all disk images attached to
this storage controller. For details, please see chapter 5.7, Disk images and I/O
caching, page 98.

remove Removes the storage controller from the VM config.

145
 8 VBoxManage

8.15.2 VBoxManage storageattach

This command attaches/modifies/removes a storage medium connected to the storage
controller named by –storagectl. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage storageattach <uuid|vmname>
--storagectl <name>
--port <number>
--device <number>
[--type dvddrive|hdd|fdd
--medium none|emptydrive|uuid|filename|host:<drive>]
[--passthrough on|off]
[--forceunmount]

where the parameters mean:

uuid|vmname The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.

storagectl Name of the storage controller. Mandatory.
port Port number to which the medium has to be attached/detached/modified.
Mandatory.

device Device Number to which the medium has to be attached/detached/modified.

Mandatory.
type Define the type of the drive to which the medium is being attached/detached/modified.
medium Allows to specify if the DVD/Floppy drive or Harddisk is to be completely
detached (none) or just an empty DVD/Floppy drive needs to be attached (emp-
tydrive). If uuid, filename or host:<drive> is specified then it is attached to the
storage controller at the specified port and device number.
passthrough With this, you can enable DVD writing support (currently experimental;
see chapter 5.9, Writing CDs and DVDs using the host drive, page 100).

forceunmount If this option is specified then you can unmount the DVD/CD/Floppy
or mount a new DVD/CD/Floppy even if the previous one is locked down by the
guest for reading.

Note: The option “–medium none” doesn’t work when the VM is running
because you can’t remove DVD/Floppy Drives or Harddisks when the VM is
running.

146
 8 VBoxManage

8.16 VBoxManage showhdinfo

This command shows information about a virtual hard disk image, notably its size, its
size on disk, its type and the VM it is in use by.

Note: For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the “showvdiinfo”

command is also supported and mapped internally to the “showhdinfo” com-
mand.

8.17 VBoxManage createhd

This command creates a new virtual hard disk image. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage createhd --filename <filename>
--size <megabytes>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: VDI)
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--type normal|writethrough] (default: normal)
[--comment <comment>]
[--remember]

where the parameters mean:

filename Allows to choose a file name. Mandatory.

size Allows to define the image capacity, in 1 MiB units. Mandatory.
format Allows to choose a file format for the output file different from the file format
of the input file.
variant Allows to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-
separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying
inconsistent flags will result in an error message.
type Only honored if –remember is also specified. Defines what kind of hard disk type
this image should be.
comment Allows to attach a comment to the image.
remember Keep the destination image registered after it was successfully written.

Note: For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the “createvdi”

command is also supported and mapped internally to the “createhd” com-
mand.

147
 8 VBoxManage

8.18 VBoxManage modifyhd

With the modifyhd command, you can change the type of an existing image between
the normal, immutable and write-through modes; see chapter 5.4, Special image write
modes, page 93 for details.

Note: For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the “modifyvdi”

command is also supported and mapped internally to the “modifyhd” com-
mand.

For immutable (differencing) hard disks only, the modifyhd autoreset on|off
command determines whether the disk is automatically reset on every VM startup
(again, see chapter 5.4, Special image write modes, page 93). The default is “on”.
In addition, the modifyhd --compact command can be used to compact disk im-
ages, i.e. remove blocks that only contains zeroes. For this operation to be effective,
it is required to zero out free space in the guest system using a suitable software tool.
Microsoft provides the sdelete tool for Windows guests. Execute sdelete -c in the
guest to zero the free disk space before compressing the virtual disk image. Com-
paction works both for base images and for diff images created as part of a snapshot.

8.19 VBoxManage clonehd

This command duplicates a registered virtual hard disk image to a new image file
with a new unique identifier (UUID). The new image can be transferred to another
host system or imported into VirtualBox again using the Virtual Media Manager; see
chapter 5.3, The Virtual Media Manager, page 91 and chapter 5.6, Cloning disk images,
page 98. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage clonehd <uuid>|<filename> <outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|<other>]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable]
[--remember]

where the parameters mean:

format Allow to choose a file format for the output file different from the file format
of the input file.
variant Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-
separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying
inconsistent flags will result in an error message.

type Only honored if –remember is also specified. Defines what kind of hard disk type
this image should be.

148
 8 VBoxManage

remember Keep the destination image registered after it was successfully written.

Note: For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the “clonevdi”

command is also supported and mapped internally to the “clonehd” com-
mand.

8.20 VBoxManage convertfromraw

This command converts a raw disk image to a VirtualBox Disk Image (VDI) file. The
syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage convertfromraw <filename> <outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
VBoxManage convertfromraw stdin <outputfile> <bytes>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]

where the parameters mean:

format Select the disk image format to create. Default is VDI.

variant Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-
separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying
inconsistent flags will result in an error message.

The second form forces VBoxManage to read the content for the disk image from
standard input (useful for using that command in a pipe).

Note: For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the “convertdd”

command is also supported and mapped internally to the “convertfromraw”
command.

8.21 VBoxManage addiscsidisk

The addiscsidisk command attaches an iSCSI network storage unit to VirtualBox.
The iSCSI target can then be made available to and used by a virtual machine as
though it were a standard write-through virtual disk image.
This command has the following syntax:

149
 8 VBoxManage

VBoxManage addiscsidisk --server <name>|<ip>

--target <target>
[--port <port>]
[--lun <lun>]
[--username <username>]
[--password <password>]
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable]
[--comment <comment>]
[--intnet]

where the parameters mean:

server The host name or IP address of the iSCSI target.

target Target name string. This is determined by the iSCSI target and used to identify
the storage resource.
port TCP/IP port number of the iSCSI service on the target (optional).

lun Logical Unit Number of the target resource (optional). Often, this value is zero.
username, password Username and password for target authentication, if required
(optional).

Note: Currently, username and password are stored without encryption (i.e.
in cleartext) in the machine configuration file.

type Defines what kind of hard disk type this image should be.
comment Any description that you want to have stored with this item (optional; e.g.
“Big storage server downstairs”). This is stored internally only and not needed
for operation.
intnet Connect to the iSCSI target via Internal Networking. This needs further con-
figuration which is described in chapter 5.10.1, Access iSCSI targets via Internal
Networking, page 101.

8.22 VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata

These commands let you attach and retrieve string data to a virtual machine or to a
VirtualBox configuration (by specifying global instead of a virtual machine name).
You must specify a key (as a text string) to associate the data with, which you can
later use to retrieve it. For example:
VBoxManage setextradata Fedora5 installdate 2006.01.01
VBoxManage setextradata SUSE10 installdate 2006.02.02

150
 8 VBoxManage

would associate the string “2006.01.01” with the key installdate for the virtual ma-
chine Fedora5, and “2006.02.02” on the machine SUSE10. You could retrieve the
information as follows:
VBoxManage getextradata Fedora5 installdate

which would return

VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.8
(C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.

Value: 2006.01.01

8.23 VBoxManage setproperty

This command is used to change global settings which affect the entire VirtualBox
installation. Some of these correspond to the settings in the “Global settings” dialog in
the graphical user interface. The following properties are available:

hdfolder This specifies the default folder that is used to keep disk image files (.vdi,
.vmdk, .vhd).
machinefolder This specifies the default folder in which virtual machine definitions
are kept; see chapter 9.1, VirtualBox configuration data, page 159 for details.
vrdpauthlibrary This specifies which library to use when “external” VRDP authenti-
cation has been selected for a particular virtual machine; see chapter 7.1.5, RDP
authentication, page 116 for details.

websrvauthlibrary This specifies which library the web service uses to authenticate
users. For details about the VirtualBox web service, please refer to the separate
VirtualBox SDK reference (see chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces,
page 192).
hwvirtexenabled This selects whether or not hardware virtualization support is en-
abled by default.

8.24 VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove

The usbfilter commands are used for working with USB filters in virtual machines,
or global filters which affect the whole VirtualBox setup. Global filters are applied be-
fore machine-specific filters, and may be used to prevent devices from being captured
by any virtual machine. Global filters are always applied in a particular order, and only
the first filter which fits a device is applied. So for example, if the first global filter says
to hold (make available) a particular Kingston memory stick device and the second to

151
 8 VBoxManage

ignore all Kingston devices, that memory stick will be available to any machine with
an appropriate filter, but no other Kingston device will.
When creating a USB filter using usbfilter add, you must supply three or four
mandatory parameters. The index specifies the position in the list at which the filter
should be placed. If there is already a filter at that position, then it and the following
ones will be shifted back one place. Otherwise the new filter will be added onto the
end of the list. The target parameter selects the virtual machine that the filter should
be attached to or use “global” to apply it to all virtual machines. name is a name for
the new filter and for global filters, action says whether to allow machines access to
devices that fit the filter description (“hold”) or not to give them access (“ignore”). In
addition, you should specify parameters to filter by. You can find the parameters for
devices attached to your system using VBoxManage list usbhost. Finally, you can
specify whether the filter should be active, and for local filters, whether they are for
local devices, remote (over an RDP connection) or either.
When you modify a USB filter using usbfilter modify, you must specify the filter
by index (see the output of VBoxManage list usbfilters to find global filter in-
dexes and that of VBoxManage showvminfo to find indexes for individual machines)
and by target, which is either a virtual machine or “global”. The properties which can
be changed are the same as for usbfilter add. To remove a filter, use usbfilter
remove and specify the index and the target.

8.25 VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove

This command allows you to share folders on the host computer with guest operating
systems. For this, the guest systems must have a version of the VirtualBox Guest
Additions installed which supports this functionality.
Shared folders are described in detail in chapter 4.3, Shared folders, page 76.

8.26 VBoxManage metrics

This command supports monitoring the usage of system resources. Resources are
represented by various metrics associated with the host system or a particular VM. For
example, the host system has a CPU/Load/User metric that shows the percentage of
time CPUs spend executing in user mode over a specific sampling period.
Metric data is collected and retained internally; it may be retrieved at any time with
the VBoxManage metrics query subcommand. The data is available as long as the
background VBoxSVC process is alive. That process terminates shortly after all VMs
and frontends have been closed.
By default no metrics are collected at all. Metrics collection does not start un-
til VBoxManage metrics setup is invoked with a proper sampling interval and the
number of metrics to be retained. The interval is measured in seconds. For example,
to enable collecting the host processor and memory usage metrics every second and
keeping the 5 most current samples, the following command can be used:

152
 8 VBoxManage

VBoxManage metrics setup --period 1 --samples 5 host CPU/Load,RAM/Usage

Metric collection can only be enabled for started VMs. Collected data and collection
settings for a particular VM will disappear as soon as it shuts down. Use VBoxManage
metrics list subcommand to see which metrics are currently available. You can
also use --list option with any subcommand that modifies metric settings to find out
which metrics were affected.
Note that the VBoxManage metrics setup subcommand discards all samples that
may have been previously collected for the specified set of objects and metrics.
To enable or disable metrics collection without discarding the data VBoxManage
metrics enable and VBoxManage metrics disable subcommands can be used.
Note that these subcommands expect metrics, not submetrics, like CPU/Load or
RAM/Usage as parameters. In other words enabling CPU/Load/User while disabling
CPU/Load/Kernel is not supported.
The host and VMs have different sets of associated metrics. Available metrics can be
listed with VBoxManage metrics list subcommand.
A complete metric name may include an aggregate function. The name has
the following form: Category/Metric[/SubMetric][:aggregate]. For example,
RAM/Usage/Free:min stands for the minimum amount of available memory over all
retained data if applied to the host object.
Subcommands may apply to all objects and metrics or can be limited to one object
or/and a list of metrics. If no objects or metrics are given in the parameters, the sub-
commands will apply to all available metrics of all objects. You may use an asterisk
(“*“) to explicitly specify that the command should be applied to all objects or metrics.
Use “host” as the object name to limit the scope of the command to host-related met-
rics. To limit the scope to a subset of metrics, use a metric list with names separated
by commas.
For example, to query metric data on the CPU time spent in user and kernel modes
by the virtual machine named “test”, you can use the following command:
VBoxManage query test CPU/Load/User,CPU/Load/Kernel

The following list summarizes the available subcommands:

list This subcommand shows the parameters of the currently existing metrics. Note
that VM-specific metrics are only available when a particular VM is running.

setup This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples of metric data
and the number of samples retained internally. The retained data is available
for displaying with the query subcommand. The --list option shows which
metrics have been modified as the result of the command execution.
enable This subcommand “resumes” data collection after it has been stopped with
disable subcommand. Note that specifying submetrics as parameters will not
enable underlying metrics. Use --list to find out if the command did what was
expected.

153
 8 VBoxManage

disable This subcommand “suspends” data collection without affecting collection pa-
rameters or collected data. Note that specifying submetrics as parameters will
not disable underlying metrics. Use --list to find out if the command did what
was expected.
query This subcommand retrieves and displays the currently retained metric data.

Note: The query subcommand does not remove or “flush” retained data. If
you query often enough you will see how old samples are gradually being
“phased out” by new samples.

collect This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples of metric data
and the number of samples retained internally. The collected data is displayed
periodically until Ctrl-C is pressed unless the --detach option is specified. With
the --detach option, this subcommand operates the same way as setup does.
The --list option shows which metrics match the specified filter.

8.27 VBoxManage guestproperty

The “guestproperty” commands allow you to get or set properties of a running virtual
machine. Please see chapter 4.6, Guest properties, page 81 for an introduction. As
explained there, guest properties are arbitrary key/value string pairs which can be
written to and read from by either the guest or the host, so they can be used as a
low-volume communication channel for strings, provided that a guest is running and
has the Guest Additions installed. In addition, a number of values whose keys begin
with “/VirtualBox/“ are automatically set and maintained by the Guest Additions.
The following subcommands are available (where <vm>, in each case, can either be
a VM name or a VM UUID, as with the other VBoxManage commands):

• enumerate <vm> [-patterns <pattern>]: This lists all the guest properties
that are available for the given VM, including the value. This list will be very
limited if the guest’s service process cannot be contacted, e.g. because the VM is
not running or the Guest Additions are not installed.
If --patterns <pattern> is specified, it acts as a filter to only list properties
that match the given pattern. The pattern can contain the following wildcard
characters:
– * (asterisk): represents any number of characters; for example,
“/VirtualBox*“ would match all properties beginning with “/VirtualBox”.
– ? (question mark): represents a single arbitrary character; for example,
“fo?“ would match both “foo” and “for”.
– | (pipe symbol): can be used to specify multiple alternative patterns; for
example, “s*|t*“ would match anything starting with either “s” or “t”.

154
 8 VBoxManage

• get <vm>: This retrieves the value of a single property only. If the property
cannot be found (e.g. because the guest is not running), this will print “No value
set¡‘.

• set <vm> <property> [<value> [-flags <flags>]]: This allows you to set
a guest property by specifying the key and value. If <value> is omitted, the
property is deleted. With --flags you can optionally specify additional behavior
(you can combine several by separating them with commas):
– TRANSIENT: the value will not be stored with the VM data when the VM
exits;
– RDONLYGUEST: the value can only be changed by the host, but the guest can
only read it;
– RDONLYHOST: reversely, the value can only be changed by the guest, but the
host can only read it;
– READONLY: a combination of the two, the value cannot be changed at all.
• wait <vm> <pattern> --timeout <timeout>: This waits for a particular
value described by “pattern” to change or to be deleted or created. The pattern
rules are the same as for the “enumerate” subcommand above.

8.28 VBoxManage guestcontrol

The “guestcontrol” commands allow you to control certain things inside a guest from
the host. Please see chapter 4.7, Guest control, page 83 for an introduction.
Generally, the syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage guestcontrol <command>

At this time, the only available <command> is “execute”, which allows for executing
a program/script (process) which is already installed and runnable on the guest. This
command only works while a VM is up and running and has the following syntax:
VBoxManage guestcontrol execute <vmname>|<uuid>
<pathToProgram>
--username <name> --password <password>
[--arguments "<arguments>"]
[--environment "<NAME>=<VALUE> [<NAME>=<VALUE>]"]
[--flags <flags>] [--timeout <msec>]
[--verbose] [--wait-for exit,stdout,stderr||]

where the parameters mean:

uuid|vmname The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.

pathToProgram Absolute path and process name of process to execute in the guest,
e.g. C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe

155
 8 VBoxManage

–arguments “<arguments>“ One or more arguments to pass to the process being

executed.
Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in quotation marks. More than
one --arguments at a time can be specified to keep the command line tidy.
–environment “<NAME>=<VALUE>“ One or more environment variables to be set
or unset.
By default, the new process in the guest will be created with the the standard
environment of the guest OS. This option allows for modifying that environment.
To set/modify a variable, a pair of NAME=VALUE must be specified; to unset a
certain variable, the name with no value must set, e.g. NAME=.
Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in quotation marks. More than
one --environment at a time can be specified to keep the command line tidy.
–flags <flags> Additional flags to set. This is not used at the moment.

–timeout <msec> Value (in milliseconds) that specifies the time how long the started
process is allowed to run and how long VBoxManage waits for getting output
from that process. If no timeout is specified, VBoxManage will wait forever until
the started process ends or an error occured.

–username <name> Name of the user the process should run under. This user must
exist on the guest OS.
–password <password> Password of the user account specified with --username.
If not given, an empty password is assumed.
–verbose Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose during the execution.

–wait-for <action> Tells VBoxManage to wait for a certain action to happen and react
to it. The following actions are available:
exit Waits until the process ends and outputs its exit code along with the exit
reason/flags.
stdout or stderr Waits until the process ends and outputs its exit code along
with the exit reason/flags. After that VBoxManage retrieves the output
collected from the guest process’s stdout and stderr.

Note: On Windows there are certain limitations for graphical applications;

please see chapter 13, Known limitations, page 210 for more information.

Examples:
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol execute "My VM" "/bin/ls" --arguments "-l /usr"
--username foo --password bar --wait-for stdout

156
 8 VBoxManage

VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol execute "My VM" "c:\\windows\\system32\\ipconfig.exe"

--username foo --password bar --wait-for stdout

Note that the double backslashes in the second example are only required on Unix
hosts.

8.29 VBoxManage dhcpserver

The “dhcpserver” commands allow you to control the DHCP server that is built into
VirtualBox. You may find this useful when using internal or host-only networking.
(Theoretically, you can enable it for a bridged network as well, but that will likely
cause conflicts with other DHCP servers in your physical network.)
Use the following command line options:

• If you use internal networking for a virtual network adapter of a virtual

machine, use VBoxManage dhcpserver add --netname <network_name>,
where <network_name> is the same network name you used with VBoxManage
modifyvm <vmname> --intnet<X> <network_name>.

• If you use host-only networking for a virtual network adapter of a virtual ma-
chine, use VBoxManage dhcpserver add --ifname <hostonly_if_name>
instead, where <hostonly_if_name> is the same host-only interface name
you used with VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname> --hostonlyadapter<X>
<hostonly_if_name>.
Alternatively, you can also use the –netname option as with internal net-
works if you know the host-only network’s name; you can see the names with
VBoxManage list hostonlyifs (see chapter 8.3, VBoxManage list, page 128
above).

The following additional parameters are required when first adding a DHCP server:

• With --ip, specify the IP address of the DHCP server itself.

• With --netmask, specify the netmask of the network.
• With --lowerip and --upperip, you can specify the lowest and highest IP ad-
dress, respectively, that the DHCP server will hand out to clients.

Finally, you must specify --enable or the DHCP server will be created in the dis-
abled state, doing nothing.
After this, VirtualBox will automatically start the DHCP server for given internal
or host-only network as soon as the first virtual machine which uses that network is
started.
Reversely, use VBoxManage dhcpserver remove with the given --netname
<network_name> or --ifname <hostonly_if_name> to remove the DHCP server
again for the given internal or host-only network.

157
 8 VBoxManage

To modify the settings of a DHCP server created earlier with VBoxManage

dhcpserver add, you can use VBoxManage dhcpserver modify for a given net-
work or host-only interface name.

158
9 Advanced topics
9.1 VirtualBox configuration data
For each system user, VirtualBox stores configuration data in the user’s home directory,
as per the conventions of the host operating system:

• On Windows, this is %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\.VirtualBox; typically some-

thing like C:\Documents and Settings\Username\.VirtualBox.
• On Mac OS X, this is $HOME/Library/VirtualBox.

• On Unix-like systems (Linux, Solaris), this is $HOME/.VirtualBox.

VirtualBox creates this configuration directory automatically, if necessary. Op-

tionally, you can supply an alternate configuration directory by setting the
VBOX_USER_HOME environment variable. You can globally change some of the lo-
cations where VirtualBox keeps extra configuration and data by selecting “Global
settings” from the “File” menu in the VirtualBox main window. Then, in the window
that pops up, click on the “General” tab.
VirtualBox stores all its global and machine-specific configuration data in XML doc-
uments. We intentionally do not document the specifications of these files, as we must
reserve the right to modify them in the future. We therefore strongly suggest that you
do not edit these files manually. VirtualBox provides complete access to its configura-
tion data through its the VBoxManage command line tool (see chapter 8, VBoxManage,
page 121) and its API (see chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces, page 192).
The XML files are versioned. When a new settings file is created (e.g. because a
new virtual machine is created), VirtualBox automatically uses the settings format of
the current VirtualBox version. These files may not be readable if you downgrade to
an earlier version of VirtualBox. However, when VirtualBox encounters a settings file
from an earlier version (e.g. after upgrading VirtualBox), it attempts to preserve the
settings format as much as possible. It will only silently upgrade the settings format
if the current settings cannot be expressed in the old format, for example because you
enabled a feature that was not present in an earlier version of VirtualBox.1 In such
1 As an example, before VirtualBox 3.1, it was only possible to enable or disable a single DVD drive in a
virtual machine. If it was enabled, then it would always be visible as the secondary master of the IDE
controller. With VirtualBox 3.1, DVD drives can be attached to arbitrary slots of arbitrary controllers, so
they could be the secondary slave of an IDE controller or in a SATA slot. If you have a machine settings
file from an earlier version and upgrade VirtualBox to 3.1 and then move the DVD drive from its default
position, this cannot be expressed in the old settings format; the XML machine file would get written in
the new format, and a backup file of the old format would be kept.

159
 9 Advanced topics

cases, VirtualBox backs up the old settings file in the virtual machine’s configuration
directory. If you need to go back to the earlier version of VirtualBox, then you will
need to manually copy these backup files back.
In detail, the following settings files are in use:

• In the configuration directory, VirtualBox.xml is the main configuration file.

This includes global configuration options and the media and virtual machine
registry. The media registry links to all CD/DVD, floppy and disk images that
have been added to the Virtual Media Manager. For each registered VM, there is
one entry which points to the VM configuration file, also in XML format.
• Virtual machine settings and files are, by default, saved as XML files in a sub-
directory of the Machines directory, which VirtualBox creates under the main
configuration directory (see above). You can change the location of this main
“Machines” folder in the “Global settings” dialog.
By default, for each virtual machine, VirtualBox uses another subdirectory of
the “Machines” directory that carries the same name as the virtual machine. As
a result, your virtual machine names must conform to the conventions of your
operating system for valid file names. For example, a machine called “Fedora 6”
would, by default, have its settings saved in .VirtualBox/Machines/Fedora
6/Fedora 6.xml (on a Linux or Solaris host).
If you would like more control over the file names used, you can create the
machine using VBoxManage createvm with the --settingsfile option; see
chapter 8.6, VBoxManage createvm, page 131.
The virtual machine directory will be renamed if you change the machine name.
If you do not wish this to happen, you can create the machine using VBoxManage
createvm with the --basefolder option. In this case, the folder name will
never change.

• VirtualBox keeps snapshots and saved states in another special folder for
each virtual machine. By default, this is a subfolder of the virtual machine
folder called Snapshots – in our example, .VirtualBox/Machines/Fedora
6/Snapshots. You can change this setting for each machine using VBoxManage
as well.
• VDI container files are, by default, created in the HardDisks directory under the
main configuration directory (see above). In particular, this directory is used
when the “Create new virtual disk” wizard is started to create a new VDI file.
Changing this default is probably most useful if the disk containing your home
directory does not have enough room to hold your VDI files, which can grow
very large.

160
 9 Advanced topics

9.2 VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer

9.2.1 Introduction
VBoxSDL is a simple graphical user interface (GUI) that lacks the nice point-and-click
support which VirtualBox, our main GUI, provides. VBoxSDL is currently primarily
used internally for debugging VirtualBox and therefore not officially supported. Still,
you may find it useful for environments where the virtual machines are not necessarily
controlled by the same person that uses the virtual machine.

Note: VBoxSDL is not available on the Mac OS X host platform.

As you can see in the following screenshot, VBoxSDL does indeed only provide a
simple window that contains only the “pure” virtual machine, without menus or other
controls to click upon and no additional indicators of virtual machine activity:

To start a virtual machine with VBoxSDL instead of the VirtualBox GUI, enter the
following on a command line:
VBoxSDL --startvm <vm>

where <vm> is, as usual with VirtualBox command line parameters, the name or
UUID of an existing virtual machine.

161
 9 Advanced topics

9.2.2 Secure labeling with VBoxSDL

When running guest operating systems in fullscreen mode, the guest operating system
usually has control over the whole screen. This could present a security risk as the
guest operating system might fool the user into thinking that it is either a different
system (which might have a higher security level) or it might present messages on the
screen that appear to stem from the host operating system.
In order to protect the user against the above mentioned security risks, the secure
labeling feature has been developed. Secure labeling is currently available only for
VBoxSDL. When enabled, a portion of the display area is reserved for a label in which
a user defined message is displayed. The label height in set to 20 pixels in VBoxSDL.
The label font color and background color can be optionally set as hexadecimal RGB
color values. The following syntax is used to enable secure labeling:
VBoxSDL --startvm "VM name"
--securelabel --seclabelfnt ~/fonts/arial.ttf
--seclabelsiz 14 --seclabelfgcol 00FF00 --seclabelbgcol 00FFFF

In addition to enabling secure labeling, a TrueType font has to be supplied. To use

another font size than 12 point use the parameter --seclabelsiz.
The label text can be set with
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxSDL/SecureLabel" "The Label"

Changing this label will take effect immediately.

Typically, full screen resolutions are limited to certain “standard” geometries such
as 1024 x 768. Increasing this by twenty lines is not usually feasible, so in most cases,
VBoxSDL will chose the next higher resolution, e.g. 1280 x 1024 and the guest’s screen
will not cover the whole display surface. If VBoxSDL is unable to choose a higher
resolution, the secure label will be painted on top of the guest’s screen surface. In order
to address the problem of the bottom part of the guest screen being hidden, VBoxSDL
can provide custom video modes to the guest that are reduced by the height of the
label. For Windows guests and recent Solaris and Linux guests, the VirtualBox Guest
Additions automatically provide the reduced video modes. Additionally, the VESA
BIOS has been adjusted to duplicate its standard mode table with adjusted resolutions.
The adjusted mode IDs can be calculated using the following formula:
reduced_modeid = modeid + 0x30

For example, in order to start Linux with 1024 x 748 x 16, the standard mode 0x117
(1024 x 768 x 16) is used as a base. The Linux video mode kernel parameter can then
be calculated using:
vga = 0x200 | 0x117 + 0x30
vga = 839

The reason for duplicating the standard modes instead of only supplying the ad-
justed modes is that most guest operating systems require the standard VESA modes
to be fixed and refuse to start with different modes.

162
 9 Advanced topics

When using the X.org VESA driver, custom modelines have to be calculated and
added to the configuration (usually in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. A handy tool to deter-
mine modeline entries can be found at http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/
faq/vga2rgb/calc.html.)

9.2.3 Releasing modifiers with VBoxSDL on Linux

When switching from a X virtual terminal (VT) to another VT using Ctrl-Alt-Fx while
the VBoxSDL window has the input focus, the guest will receive Ctrl and Alt keypress
events without receiving the corresponding key release events. This is an architectural
limitation of Linux. In order to reset the modifier keys, it is possible to send SIGUSR1
to the VBoxSDL main thread (first entry in the ps list). For example, when switching
away to another VT and saving the virtual machine from this terminal, the following
sequence can be used to make sure the VM is not saved with stuck modifiers:
kill -usr1 <pid>
VBoxManage controlvm "Windows 2000" savestate

9.3 Automated guest logons

VirtualBox provides Guest Addition modules for Windows, Linux and Solaris to enable
automated logons on the guest.
When a guest operating system is running in a virtual machine, it might be desirable
to perform coordinated and automated logons using credentials from a master logon
system. (With “credentials”, we are referring to logon information consisting of user
name, password and domain name, where each value might be empty.)

9.3.1 Automated Windows guest logons

Since Windows NT, Windows has provided a modular system logon subsystem (“Win-
logon”) which can be customized and extended by means of so-called GINA modules
(Graphical Identification and Authentication). With Windows Vista and Windows 7,
the GINA modules were replaced with a new mechanism called “credential providers”.
The VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows come with both, a GINA and a creden-
tial provider module, and therefore enable any Windows guest to perform automated
logons.
To activate the VirtualBox GINA or credential provider module, install the Guest
Additions with using the command line switch /with_autologon. All the following
manual steps required for installing these modules will be then done by the installer.
To manually install the VirtualBox GINA module, extract the Guest Additions (see
chapter 4.2.1.4, Manual file extraction, page 68) and copy the file VBoxGINA.dll to
the Windows SYSTEM32 directory. Then, in the registry, create the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\
Winlogon\GinaDLL

163
 9 Advanced topics

with a value of VBoxGINA.dll.

Note: The VirtualBox GINA is implemented as a wrapper around the standard

Windows GINA (MSGINA.DLL), therefore it will most likely not work correctly
with 3rd party GINA modules.

To manually install the VirtualBox credential module, extract the Guest Ad-
ditions (see chapter 4.2.1.4, Manual file extraction, page 68) and copy the file
VBoxCredProv.dll to the Windows SYSTEM32 directory. Then, in the registry, cre-
ate the following keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Authentication\Credential Providers\{275D3BCC-22BB-4948-A7F6-3A3054EBA92B}

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{275D3BCC-22BB-4948-A7F6-3A3054EBA92B}

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{275D3BCC-22BB-4948-A7F6-3A3054EBA92B}\InprocServer32

with all default values (the key named (Default) in each key) set to
VBoxCredProv. After that a new string named

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{275D3BCC-22BB-4948-A7F6-3A3054EBA92B}\InprocServer32\ThreadingModel

with a value of Apartment has to be created.

To set credentials, use the following command on a running VM:
VBoxManage controlvm "Windows XP"
setcredentials "John Doe" "secretpassword" "DOMTEST"

While the VM is running, the credentials can be queried by the VirtualBox logon
modules (GINA or credential provider) using the VirtualBox Guest Additions device
driver. When Windows is in “logged out” mode, the logon modules will constantly poll
for credentials and if they are present, a logon will be attempted. After retrieving the
credentials, the logon modules will erase them so that the above command will have
to be repeated for subsequent logons.
For security reasons, credentials are not stored in any persistent manner and will be
lost when the VM is reset. Also, the credentials are “write-only”, i.e. there is no way to
retrieve the credentials from the host side. Credentials can be reset from the host side
by setting empty values.
Depending on the particular variant of the Windows guest, the following restrictions
apply:

1. For Windows XP guests, the logon subsystem needs to be configured to use the
classic logon dialog as the VirtualBox GINA module does not support the XP-style
welcome dialog.

164
 9 Advanced topics

2. For Windows Vista and Windows 7 guests, the logon subsystem does not sup-
port the so-called Secure Attention Sequence (CTRL+ALT+DEL). As a result, the
guest’s group policy settings need to be changed to not use the Secure Attention
Sequence. Also, the user name given is only compared to the true user name,
not the user friendly name. This means that when you rename a user, you still
have to supply the original user name (internally, Windows never renames user
accounts).

The following command forces VirtualBox to keep the credentials after they were
read by the guest and on VM reset:
VBoxManage setextradata "Windows XP"
VBoxInternal/Devices/VMMDev/0/Config/KeepCredentials 1

Note that this is a potential security risk as a malicious application running on the
guest could request this information using the proper interface.

9.3.2 Automated Linux/Unix guest logons

Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox provides a custom PAM module (Pluggable Au-
thentication Module) which can be used to perform automated guest logons on plat-
forms which support this framework. Virtually all modern Linux/Unix distributions
rely on PAM.
The pam_vbox.so module itself does not do an actual verification of the creden-
tials passed to the guest OS; instead it relies on other modules such as pam_unix.so
or pam_unix2.so down in the PAM stack to do the actual validation using the cre-
dentials retrieved by pam_vbox.so. Therefore pam_vbox.so has to be on top of the
authentication PAM service list.

Note: The pam_vbox.so only supports the auth primitive. Other primitives
such as account, session or password are not supported.

The pam_vbox.so module is shipped as part of the Guest Additions but it is not
installed and/or activated on the guest OS by default. In order to install it, it has to be
copied from /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-<version>/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/
to the security modules directory, usually /lib/security/. Please refer to your guest
OS documentation for the correct PAM module directory.
For example, to use pam_vbox.so with a Ubuntu Linux guest OS and GDM (the
GNOME Desktop Manager) to logon users automatically with the credentials passed
by the host, the guest OS has to be configured like the following:

1. The pam_vbox.so module has to be copied to the security modules directory, in

this case it is /lib/security.

165
 9 Advanced topics

2. Edit the PAM configuration file for GDM found at /etc/pam.d/gdm, adding the
line auth requisite pam_vbox.so at the top. Additionaly, in most Linux dis-
tributions there is a file called /etc/pam.d/common-auth. This file is included
in many other services (like the GDM file mentioned above). There you also
have to add add the line auth requisite pam_vbox.so.
3. If authentication against the shadow database using pam_unix.so or
pam_unix2.so is desired, the argument try_first_pass is needed in or-
der to pass the credentials from the VirtualBox module to the shadow
database authentication module. For Ubuntu, this needs to be added to
/etc/pam.d/common-auth, to the end of the line referencing pam_unix.so.
This argument tells the PAM module to use credentials already present in the
stack, i.e. the ones provided by the VirtualBox PAM module.

Warning: An incorrectly configured PAM stack can effectively prevent you

from logging into your guest system!

To make deployment easier, you can pass the argument debug right after the
pam_vbox.so statement. Debug log output will then be recorded using syslog.

Warning: At present, the GDM display manager only retrieves credentials at

startup so unless the credentials have been supplied to the guest before GDM
starts, automatic logon will not work. This limitation needs to be addressed
by the GDM developers or another display manager must be used.

9.4 Advanced configuration for Windows guests

9.4.1 Automated Windows system preparation
Beginning with Windows NT 4.0, Microsoft offers a “system preparation” tool (in short:
Sysprep) to prepare a Windows system for deployment or redistribution. Whereas
Windows 2000 and XP ship with Sysprep on the installation medium, the tool also
is available for download on the Microsoft web site. In a standard installation of
Windows Vista and 7, Sysprep is already included. Sysprep mainly consists of an
executable called sysprep.exe which is invoked by the user to put the Windows in-
stallation into preparation mode.
Starting with VirtualBox 3.2.2, the Guest Additions offer a way to launch a system
preparation on the guest operating system in an automated way, controlled from the
host system. To achieve that, see chapter 4.7, Guest control, page 83 for using the
feature with the special identifier sysprep as the program to execute, along with the
user name sysprep and password sysprep for the credentials. Sysprep then gets
launched with the required system rights.

166
 9 Advanced topics

Note: Specifying the location of “sysprep.exe” is not possible – instead the

following paths are used (based on the operating system):

• C:\sysprep\sysprep.exe for Windows NT 4.0, 2000 and XP

• %WINDIR%\System32\Sysprep\sysprep.exe for Windows Vista, 2008
Server and 7

The Guest Additions will automatically use the appropriate path to execute
the system preparation tool.

9.5 CPU hot-plugging

With virtual machines running modern server operating systems, VirtualBox supports
CPU hot-plugging.2 Whereas on a physical computer this would mean that a CPU can
be added or removed while the machine is running, VirtualBox supports adding and
removing virtual CPUs while a virtual machine is running.
CPU hot-plugging works only with guest operating systems that support it. So far
this applies only to Linux and Windows Server 2008 x64 Data Center Edition. Win-
dows supports only hot-add while Linux supports hot-add and hot-remove but to use
this feature with more than 8 CPUs a 64bit Linux guest is required.
At this time, CPU hot-plugging requires using the VBoxManage command-line inter-
face. First, hot-plugging needs to be enabled for a virtual machine:
VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname> --cpuhotplug on

After that, the –cpus option specifies the maximum number of CPUs that the virtual
machine can have:
VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname> --cpus 8

When the VM is off, you can then add and remove virtual CPUs with the modifyvm
–plugcpu and –unplugcpu subcommands, which take the number of the virtual CPU
as a parameter, like this:
VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname> --plugcpu 3
VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname> --unplugcpu 3

Note that CPU 0 can never be removed.

While the VM is running, CPUs can be added with the controlvm plugcpu/unplugcpu
commands instead:
VBoxManage controlvm <vmname> plugcpu 3
VBoxManage controlvm <vmname> unplugcpu 3

2 Support for CPU hot-plugging was introduced with VirtualBox 3.2.

167
 9 Advanced topics

See chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm, page 131 and chapter 8.11, VBoxManage
controlvm, page 141 for details.
With Linux guests, the following applies: To prevent ejection while the CPU is still
used it has to be ejected from within the guest before. The Linux Guest Additions
contain a service which receives hot-remove events and ejects the CPU. Also, after
a CPU is added to the VM it is not automatically used by Linux. The Linux Guest
Additions service will take care of that if installed. If not a CPU can be started with the
following command:
echo 1 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu<id>/online

9.6 Advanced display configuration

9.6.1 Custom VESA resolutions
Apart from the standard VESA resolutions, the VirtualBox VESA BIOS allows you to
add up to 16 custom video modes which will be reported to the guest operating system.
When using Windows guests with the VirtualBox Guest Additions, a custom graphics
driver will be used instead of the fallback VESA solution so this information does not
apply.
Additional video modes can be configured for each VM using the extra data facility.
The extra data key is called CustomVideoMode<x> with x being a number from 1 to
16. Please note that modes will be read from 1 until either the following number is not
defined or 16 is reached. The following example adds a video mode that corresponds
to the native display resolution of many notebook computers:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
"CustomVideoMode1" "1400x1050x16"

The VESA mode IDs for custom video modes start at 0x160. In order to use the
above defined custom video mode, the following command line has be supplied to
Linux:
vga = 0x200 | 0x160
vga = 864

For guest operating systems with VirtualBox Guest Additions, a custom video mode
can be set using the video mode hint feature.

9.6.2 Configuring the maximum resolution of guests when using

the graphical frontend
When guest systems with the Guest Additions installed are started using the graphical
frontend (the normal VirtualBox application), they will not be allowed to use screen
resolutions greater than the host’s screen size unless the user manually resizes them
by dragging the window, switching to fullscreen or seamless mode or sending a video

168
 9 Advanced topics

mode hint using VBoxManage. This behavior is what most users will want, but if
you have different needs, it is possible to change it by issuing one of the following
commands from the command line:
VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution any

will remove all limits on guest resolutions.

VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution
>width,height<

manually specifies a maximum resolution.

VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution auto

restores the default settings. Note that these settings apply globally to all guest
systems, not just to a single machine.

9.6.3 Custom external VRDP authentication

As described in chapter 7.1.5, RDP authentication, page 116, VirtualBox supports ar-
bitrary external modules to perform authentication with its VRDP servers. When the
authentication method is set to “external” for a particular VM, VirtualBox calls the
library that was specified with VBoxManage setproperty vrdpauthlibrary. This
library will be loaded by the VM process on demand, i.e. when the first RDP connec-
tion is made by an external client.
External authentication is the most flexible as the external handler can both choose
to grant access to everyone (like the “null” authentication method would) and delegate
the request to the guest authentication component. When delegating the request to
the guest component, it will still be called afterwards with the option to override the
result.
A VRDP authentication library is required to implement exactly one entry point:
#include "VRDPAuth.h"

/**
* Authentication library entry point. Decides whether to allow
* a client connection.
*
* Parameters:
*
* pUuid Pointer to the UUID of the virtual machine
* which the client connected to.
* guestJudgement Result of the guest authentication.
* szUser User name passed in by the client (UTF8).
* szPassword Password passed in by the client (UTF8).
* szDomain Domain passed in by the client (UTF8).
* fLogon Boolean flag. Indicates whether the entry point is called
* for a client logon or the client disconnect.
* clientId Server side unique identifier of the client.
*

169
 9 Advanced topics

* Return code:
*
* VRDPAuthAccessDenied Client access has been denied.
* VRDPAuthAccessGranted Client has the right to use the
* virtual machine.
* VRDPAuthDelegateToGuest Guest operating system must
* authenticate the client and the
* library must be called again with
* the result of the guest
* authentication.
*/
VRDPAuthResult VRDPAUTHCALL VRDPAuth2(
PVRDPAUTHUUID pUuid,
VRDPAuthGuestJudgement guestJudgement,
const char *szUser,
const char *szPassword
const char *szDomain
int fLogon,
unsigned clientId)
{
/* process request against your authentication source of choice */
return VRDPAuthAccessGranted;
}

A note regarding the UUID implementation of the first argument: VirtualBox uses a
consistent binary representation of UUIDs on all platforms. For this reason the integer
fields comprising the UUID are stored as little endian values. If you want to pass such
UUIDs to code which assumes that the integer fields are big endian (often also called
network byte order), you need to adjust the contents of the UUID to e.g. achieve the
same string representation. The required changes are:

• reverse the order of byte 0, 1, 2 and 3

• reverse the order of byte 4 and 5
• reverse the order of byte 6 and 7.

Using this conversion you will get identical results when converting the binary UUID
to the string representation.
The second arguments contains information about the guest authentication status.
For the first call, it is always set to VRDPAuthGuestNotAsked. In case the function
returns VRDPAuthDelegateToGuest, a guest authentication will be attempted and
another call to the method is made with its result. This can be either granted / de-
nied or no judgement (the guest component chose for whatever reason to not make
a decision). In case there is a problem with the guest authentication module (e.g.
the Additions are not installed or not running or the guest did not respond within a
timeout), the “not reacted” status will be returned.

170
 9 Advanced topics

9.7 Advanced storage configuration

9.7.1 Using a raw host hard disk from a guest
Starting with version 1.4, as an alternative to using virtual disk images (as described in
detail in chapter 5, Virtual storage, page 87), VirtualBox can also present either entire
physical hard disks or selected partitions thereof as virtual disks to virtual machines.
With VirtualBox, this type of access is called “raw hard disk access”; it allows a guest
operating system to access its virtual hard disk without going through the host OS file
system. The actual performance difference for image files vs. raw disk varies greatly
depending on the overhead of the host file system, whether dynamically growing im-
ages are used and on host OS caching strategies. The caching indirectly also affects
other aspects such as failure behavior, i.e. whether the virtual disk contains all data
written before a host OS crash. Consult your host OS documentation for details on
this.

Warning: Raw hard disk access is for expert users only. Incorrect use or use
of an outdated configuration can lead to total loss of data on the physical
disk. Most importantly, do not attempt to boot the partition with the cur-
rently running host operating system in a guest. This will lead to severe data
corruption.

Raw hard disk access – both for entire disks and individual partitions – is imple-
mented as part of the VMDK image format support. As a result, you will need to create
a special VMDK image file which defines where the data will be stored. After creating
such a special VMDK image, you can use it like a regular virtual disk image. For exam-
ple, you can use the Virtual Media Manager (chapter 5.3, The Virtual Media Manager,
page 91) or VBoxManage to assign the image to a virtual machine.

9.7.1.1 Access to entire physical hard disk

While this variant is the simplest to set up, you must be aware that this will give a guest
operating system direct and full access to an entire physical disk. If your host operating
system is also booted from this disk, please take special care to not access the partition
from the guest at all. On the positive side, the physical disk can be repartitioned in
arbitrary ways without having to recreate the image file that gives access to the raw
disk.
To create an image that represents an entire physical hard disk (which will not
contain any actual data, as this will all be stored on the physical disk), on a Linux
host, use the command
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk
-rawdisk /dev/sda

This creates the image /path/to/file.vmdk (must be absolute), and all data will be
read and written from /dev/sda.

171
 9 Advanced topics

On a Windows host, instead of the above device specification, use e.g.

\\.\PhysicalDrive0. On a Mac OS X host, instead of the above device specifi-
cation use e.g. /dev/disk1. Note that on OS X you can only get access to an entire
disk if no volume is mounted from it.
Creating the image requires read/write access for the given device. Read/write
access is also later needed when using the image from a virtual machine.
Just like with regular disk images, this does not automatically register the newly cre-
ated image in the internal registry of hard disks. If you want this done automatically,
add -register:
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk
-rawdisk /dev/sda -register

After registering, you can assign the newly created image to a virtual machine with
e.g.
VBoxManage storageattach WindowsXP --storagectl "IDE Controller"
--port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium /path/to/file.vmdk

When this is done the selected virtual machine will boot from the specified physical
disk.

9.7.1.2 Access to individual physical hard disk partitions

This “raw partition support” is quite similar to the “full hard disk” access described
above. However, in this case, any partitioning information will be stored inside the
VMDK image, so you can e.g. install a different boot loader in the virtual hard disk
without affecting the host’s partitioning information. While the guest will be able to
see all partitions that exist on the physical disk, access will be filtered in that reading
from partitions for which no access is allowed the partitions will only yield zeroes, and
all writes to them are ignored.
To create a special image for raw partition support (which will contain a small
amount of data, as already mentioned), on a Linux host, use the command
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk
-rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1,5

As you can see, the command is identical to the one for “full hard disk” access,
except for the additional -partitions parameter. This example would create the
image /path/to/file.vmdk (which, again, must be absolute), and partitions 1 and 5
of /dev/sda would be made accessible to the guest.
VirtualBox uses the same partition numbering as your Linux host. As a result, the
numbers given in the above example would refer to the first primary partition and the
first logical drive in the extended partition, respectively.
On a Windows host, instead of the above device specification, use e.g.
\\.\PhysicalDrive0. On a Mac OS X host, instead of the above device specifi-
cation use e.g. /dev/disk1. Note that on OS X you can only use partitions which are

172
 9 Advanced topics

not mounted (eject the respective volume first). Partition numbers are the same on
Linux, Windows and Mac OS X hosts.
The numbers for the list of partitions can be taken from the output of
VBoxManage internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk /dev/sda

The output lists the partition types and sizes to give the user enough information to
identify the partitions necessary for the guest.
Images which give access to individual partitions are specific to a particular host
disk setup. You cannot transfer these images to another host; also, whenever the host
partitioning changes, the image must be recreated.
Creating the image requires read/write access for the given device. Read/write
access is also later needed when using the image from a virtual machine. If this is not
feasible, there is a special variant for raw partition access (currently only available on
Linux hosts) that avoids having to give the current user access to the entire disk. To
set up such an image, use
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk
-rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1,5 -relative

When used from a virtual machine, the image will then refer not to the entire disk,
but only to the individual partitions (in the example /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda5). As a
consequence, read/write access is only required for the affected partitions, not for the
entire disk. During creation however, read-only access to the entire disk is required to
obtain the partitioning information.
In some configurations it may be necessary to change the MBR code of the created
image, e.g. to replace the Linux boot loader that is used on the host by another boot
loader. This allows e.g. the guest to boot directly to Windows, while the host boots
Linux from the “same” disk. For this purpose the -mbr parameter is provided. It
specifies a file name from which to take the MBR code. The partition table is not
modified at all, so a MBR file from a system with totally different partitioning can be
used. An example of this is
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk
-rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1,5 -mbr winxp.mbr

The modified MBR will be stored inside the image, not on the host disk.
For each of the above variants, you can register the resulting image for immediate
use in VirtualBox by adding -register to the respective command line. The image
will then immediately appear in the list of registered disk images. An example is
VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk
-rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 1,5 -relative -register

which creates an image referring to individual partitions, and registers it when the
image is successfully created.

173
 9 Advanced topics

9.7.2 Configuring the hard disk vendor product data (VPD)

VirtualBox reports vendor product data for its virtual hard disks which consist of hard
disk serial number, firmware revision and model number. These can be changed using
the following commands:
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/Config/Port0/SerialNumber"
"serial"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/Config/Port0/FirmwareRevision"
"firmware"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/Config/Port0/ModelNumber"
"model"

The serial number is a 20 byte alphanumeric string, the firmware revision an 8 byte
alphanumeric string and the model number a 40 byte alphanumeric string. Instead of
“Port0” (referring to the first port), specify the desired SATA hard disk port.
Additional three parameters are needed for CD/DVD drives to report the vendor
product data:
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/Config/Port0/ATAPIVendorId"
"vendor"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/Config/Port0/ATAPIProductId"
"product"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/Config/Port0/ATAPIRevision"
"revision"

The vendor id is an 8 byte alphanumeric string, the product id an 16 byte alphanu-

meric string and the revision a 4 byte alphanumeric string. Instead of “Port0” (referring
to the first port), specify the desired SATA hard disk port.

9.8 Launching more than 120 VMs on Solaris hosts

Solaris hosts have a fixed number of IPC semaphores IDs per process preventing users
from starting more than 120 VMs. While trying to launch more VMs you would be
shown a “Cannot create IPC semaphore” error.
In order to run more VMs, you will need to bump the semaphore ID limit of the
VBoxSVC process. Execute as root the prctl command as shown below. The process
ID of VBoxSVC can be obtained using the ps list command.
prctl -r -n project.max-sem-ids -v 2048 <pid-of-VBoxSVC>

174
 9 Advanced topics

9.9 Legacy commands for using serial ports

Starting with version 1.4, VirtualBox provided support for virtual serial ports, which,
at the time, was rather complicated to set up with a sequence of VBoxManage
setextradata statements. Since version 1.5, that way of setting up serial ports is
no longer necessary and deprecated. To set up virtual serial ports, use the methods
now described in chapter 3.9, Serial ports, page 59.

Note: For backwards compatibility, the old setextradata statements, whose

description is retained below from the old version of the manual, take prece-
dence over the new way of configuring serial ports. As a result, if configuring
serial ports the new way doesn’t work, make sure the VM in question does not
have old configuration data such as below still active.

The old sequence of configuring a serial port used the following 6 commands:
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/Config/IRQ" 4
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/Config/IOBase" 0x3f8
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/Driver" Char
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Driver" NamedPipe
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Config/Location"
"\\.\pipe\vboxCOM1"
VBoxManage setextradata "YourVM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/serial/0/LUN#0/AttachedDriver/Config/IsServer"
1

This sets up a serial port in the guest with the default settings for COM1 (IRQ 4, I/O
address 0x3f8) and the Location setting assumes that this configuration is used on a
Windows host, because the Windows named pipe syntax is used. Keep in mind that
on Windows hosts a named pipe must always start with \\.\pipe\. On Linux the
same config settings apply, except that the path name for the Location can be chosen
more freely. Local domain sockets can be placed anywhere, provided the user running
VirtualBox has the permission to create a new file in the directory. The final command
above defines that VirtualBox acts as a server, i.e. it creates the named pipe itself
instead of connecting to an already existing one.

9.10 Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine

9.10.1 Configuring the address of a NAT network interface
In NAT mode, the guest network interface is assigned to the IPv4 range 10.0.x.0/24
by default where x corresponds to the instance of the NAT interface +2. So x is 2

175
 9 Advanced topics

when there is only one NAT instance active. In that case the guest is assigned to the
address 10.0.2.15, the gateway is set to 10.0.2.2 and the name server can be found
at 10.0.2.3.
If, for any reason, the NAT network needs to be changed, this can be achieved with
the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --natnet1 "192.168/16"

This command would reserve the network addresses from 192.168.0.0 to

192.168.254.254 for the first NAT network instance of “My VM”. The guest IP
would be assigned to 192.168.0.15 and the default gateway could be found at
192.168.0.2.

9.10.2 Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network

interface
For network booting in NAT mode, by default VirtualBox uses a built-in TFTP server
at the IP address 10.0.2.3. This default behavior should work fine for typical remote-
booting scenarios. However, it is possible to change the boot server IP and the location
of the boot image with the following commands:
VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --nattftpserver1 10.0.2.2
VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --nattftpfile1 /srv/tftp/boot/MyPXEBoot.pxe

9.10.3 Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT

The VirtualBox NAT stack performance is often determined by its interaction with the
host’s TCP/IP stack and the size of several buffers (SO_RCVBUF and SO_SNDBUF). For
certain setups users might want to adjust the buffer size for a better performance. This
can by achieved using the following commands (values are in kilobytes and can range
from 8 to 1024):
VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --natsettings1 16000,128,128,0,0

This example illustrates tuning the NAT settings. The first parameter is the MTU,
then the size of the socket’s send buffer and the size of the socket’s receive buffer,
the initial size of the TCP send window, and lastly the initial size of the TCP receive
window. Note that specifying zero means fallback to the default value.
Each of these buffers has a default size of 64KB and default MTU is 1500.

9.10.4 Binding NAT sockets to a specific interface

By default, VirtualBox’s NAT engine will route TCP/IP packets through the default
interface assigned by the host’s TCP/IP stack. (The technical reason for this is that the
NAT engine uses sockets for communication.) If, for some reason, you want to change
this behavior, you can tell the NAT engine to bind to a particular IP address instead.
Use the following command:

176
 9 Advanced topics

VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --natbindip1 "10.45.0.2"

After this, all outgoing traffic will be sent through the interface with the IP address
10.45.0.2. Please make sure that this interface is up and running prior to this assign-
ment.

9.10.5 Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode

The NAT engine by default offers the same DNS servers to the guest that are configured
on the host. In some scenarios, it can be desirable to hide the DNS server IPs from the
guest, for example when this information can change on the host due to expiring
DHCP leases. In this case, you can tell the NAT engine to act as DNS proxy using the
following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --natdnsproxy1 on

9.10.6 Using the host’s resolver as a DNS proxy in NAT mode

For resolving network names, the DHCP server of the NAT engine offers a list of regis-
tered DNS servers of the host. If for some reason you need to hide this DNS server list
and use the host’s resolver settings, thereby forcing the VirtualBox NAT engine to in-
tercept DNS requests and forward them to host’s resolver, use the following command:
VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --natdnshostresolver1 on

Note that this setting is similar to the DNS proxy mode, however whereas the proxy
mode just forwards DNS requests to the appropriate servers, the resolver mode will
interpret the DNS requests and use the host’s DNS API to query the information and
return it to the guest.

9.10.7 Configuring aliasing of the NAT engine

By default, the NAT core uses aliasing and uses random ports when generating an
alias for a connection. This works well for the most protocols like SSH, FTP and so on.
Though some protocols might need a more transparent behavior or may depend on
the real port number the packet was sent from. It is possible to change the NAT mode
via the VBoxManage frontend with the following commands:
VBoxManage modifyvm "My VM" --nataliasmode proxyonly

and
VBoxManage modifyvm "Linux Guest" --nataliasmode sameports

The first example disables aliasing and switches NAT into transparent mode, the
second example enforces preserving of port values. These modes can be combined if
necessary.

177
 9 Advanced topics

9.11 Configuring the BIOS DMI information

The DMI data VirtualBox provides to guests can be changed for a specific VM. Use the
following commands to configure the DMI BIOS information:
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSVendor" "BIOS Vendor"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSVersion" "BIOS Version"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSReleaseDate" "BIOS Release Date"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSReleaseMajor" 1
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSReleaseMinor" 2
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSFirmwareMajor" 3
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiBIOSFirmwareMinor" 4
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemVendor" "System Vendor"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemProduct" "System Product"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemVersion" "System Version"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemSerial" "System Serial"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemFamily" "System Family"
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemUuid"
"9852bf98-b83c-49db-a8de-182c42c7226b"

If a DMI string is not set, the default value of VirtualBox is used. To set an empty
string use "<EMPTY>".
Note that in the above list, all quoted parameters (DmiBIOSVendor, DmiBIOSVersion
but not DmiBIOSReleaseMajor) are expected to be strings. If such a string is a valid
number, the parameter is treated as number and the VM will most probably refuse to
start with an VERR_CFGM_NOT_STRING error. In that case, use "string:<value>", for
instance
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/pcbios/0/Config/DmiSystemSerial" "string:1234"

Changing this information can be necessary to provide the DMI information of the
host to the guest to prevent Windows from asking for a new product key. On Linux
hosts the DMI BIOS information can be obtained with
dmidecode -t0

and the DMI system information can be obtained with

dmidecode -t1

178
 9 Advanced topics

9.12 Fine-tuning timers and time synchronization

9.12.1 Configuring the guest time stamp counter (TSC) to reflect
guest execution
By default, VirtualBox keeps all sources of time visible to the guest synchronized to a
single time source, the monotonic host time. This reflects the assumptions of many
guest operating systems, which expect all time sources to reflect “wall clock” time. In
special circumstances it may be useful however to make the TSC (time stamp counter)
in the guest reflect the time actually spent executing the guest.
This special TSC handling mode can be enabled on a per-VM basis, and for best
results must be used only in combination with hardware virtualization. To enable this
mode use the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCTiedToExecution" 1

To revert to the default TSC handling mode use:

VBoxManage setextradata "My VM" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCTiedToExecution"

Note that if you use the special TSC handling mode with a guest operating system
which is very strict about the consistency of time sources you may get a warning or
error message about the timing inconsistency. It may also cause clocks to become
unreliable with some guest operating systems depending on they use the TSC.

9.12.2 Accelerate or slow down the guest clock

For certain purposes it can be useful to accelerate or to slow down the (virtual) guest
clock. This can be achieved as follows:
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/TM/WarpDrivePercentage" 200

The above example will double the speed of the guest clock while
VBoxManage setextradata "My VM"
"VBoxInternal/TM/WarpDrivePercentage" 50

will halve the speed of the guest clock. Note that changing the rate of the virtual
clock can confuse the guest and can even lead to abnormal guest behavior. For in-
stance, a higher clock rate means shorter timeouts for virtual devices with the result
that a slightly increased response time of a virtual device due to an increased host load
can cause guest failures. Note further that any time synchronization mechanism will
frequently try to resynchronize the guest clock with the reference clock (which is the
host clock if the VirtualBox Guest Additions are active). Therefore any time synchro-
nization should be disabled if the rate of the guest clock is changed as described above
(see chapter 9.12.3, Tuning the Guest Additions time synchronization parameters, page
180).

179
 9 Advanced topics

9.12.3 Tuning the Guest Additions time synchronization

parameters
The VirtualBox Guest Additions ensure that the guest’s system time is synchronized
with the host time. There are several parameters which can be tuned. The parameters
can be set for a specific VM using the following command:
VBoxManage guestproperty set VM_NAME "/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/VBoxService/PARAMETER" VALUE

where PARAMETER is one of the following:

--timesync-interval Specifies the interval at which to synchronize the time with

the host. The default is 10000 ms (10 seconds).
--timesync-min-adjust The minimum absolute drift value measured in millisec-
onds to make adjustments for. The default is 1000 ms on OS/2 and 100 ms
elsewhere.
--timesync-latency-factor The factor to multiply the time query latency with to
calculate the dynamic minimum adjust time. The default is 8 times, that means
in detail: Measure the time it takes to determine the host time (the guest has
to contact the VM host service which may take some time), multiply this value
by 8 and do an adjustment only if the time difference between host and guest is
bigger than this value. Don’t do any time adjustment otherwise.
--timesync-max-latency The max host timer query latency to accept. The default
is 250 ms.
--timesync-set-threshold The absolute drift threshold, given as milliseconds
where to start setting the time instead of trying to smoothly adjust it. The default
is 20 minutes.
--timesync-set-start Set the time when starting the time sync service.

All these parameters can be specified as command line parameters to VBoxService

as well.

9.13 Configuring multiple host-only network

interfaces on Solaris hosts
By default VirtualBox provides you with one host-only network interface. Adding more
host-only network interfaces on Solaris hosts requires manual configuration. Here’s
how to add two more host-only network interface.
First you need to stop all running VMs and unplumb all existing “vboxnet” interfaces.
Execute the following commands as root
ifconfig vboxnet0 unplumb

180
 9 Advanced topics

Once you make sure all vboxnet interfaces are unplumbed, remove the driver using:
rem_drv vboxnet

then edit the file /platform/i86pc/kernel/drv/vboxnet.conf and add a line for

the new interface:
name="vboxnet" parent="pseudo" instance=1;
name="vboxnet" parent="pseudo" instance=2;

Add as many of these lines as required and make sure “instance” number is uniquely
incremented. Next reload the vboxnet driver using:
add_drv vboxnet

Now plumb all the interfaces using ifconfig vboxnetX plumb (where X can be 0,
1 or 2 in this case) and once plumbed you can then configure the interface like any
other network interface.
To make your newly added interfaces’ settings persistent across reboots you will
need to edit the files /etc/netmasks, and if you are using NWAM /etc/nwam/llp
and add the appropriate entries to set the netmask and static IP for each of those
interfaces. The VirtualBox installer only updates these configuration files for the one
“vboxnet0” interface it creates by default.

9.14 Locking down the GUI

There are several advanced customization settings for locking down the GUI, that is,
removing some features that the user should not see.
VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/Customizations OPTION[,OPTION...]

where OPTION is one of the following keywords:

noSelector Don’t allow to start the VM selector GUI. Trying to do so will show a
window containing a proper error message.
noMenuBar The VM windows will not contain a menu bar.

noStatusBar The VM windows will not contain a status bar.

To disable any GUI customization do

VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/Customizations

To disable all host key combinations, open the global settings and change the host
key to None. This might be useful when using VirtualBox in a kiosk mode.
Furthermore, you can disallow certain actions when terminating a VM from the GUI.
To disallow specific actions, type:

181
 9 Advanced topics

VBoxManage setextradata "My VM" GUI/RestrictedCloseActions OPTION[,OPTION...]

where OPTION is one of the following keywords:

SaveState Don’t allow the user to save the VM state plus terminate the VM.

Shutdown Don’t allow the user to shutdown the VM by sending the ACPI power off
event to the guest.
PowerOff Don’t allow the user to power off the VM.

Restore Don’t allow the user to return to the last snapshot when powering off the
VM.

Combinations of all of these options are allowed. If all options are specified, the VM
cannot be shut down from the GUI.

182
10 Technical background
The contents of this chapter are not required to use VirtualBox successfully. The fol-
lowing is provided as additional information for readers who are more familiar with
computer architecture and technology and wish to find out more about how VirtualBox
works “under the hood”.

10.1 VirtualBox executables and components

VirtualBox was designed to be modular and flexible. When the VirtualBox graphical
user interface (GUI) is opened and a VM is started, at least three processes are running:

1. VBoxSVC, the VirtualBox service process which always runs in the background.
This process is started automatically by the first VirtualBox client process (the
GUI, VBoxManage, VBoxHeadless, the web service or others) and exits a short
time after the last client exits. The service is responsible for bookkeeping,
maintaining the state of all VMs, and for providing communication between
VirtualBox components. This communication is implemented via COM/XPCOM.

Note: When we refer to “clients” here, we mean the local clients of a par-
ticular VBoxSVC server process, not clients in a network. VirtualBox employs
its own client/server design to allow its processes to cooperate, but all these
processes run under the same user account on the host operating system, and
this is totally transparent to the user.

2. The GUI process, VirtualBox, a client application based on the cross-platform

Qt library. When started without the --startvm option, this application acts
as the VirtualBox main window, displaying the VMs and their settings. It then
communicates settings and state changes to VBoxSVC and also reflects changes
effected through other means, e.g., VBoxManage.
3. If the VirtualBox client application is started with the --startvm argument,
it loads the VMM library which includes the actual hypervisor and then runs a
virtual machine and provides the input and output for the guest.

Any VirtualBox front-end (client) will communicate with the service process and
can both control and reflect the current state. For example, either the VM selector

183
 10 Technical background

or the VM window or VBoxManage can be used to pause the running VM, and other
components will always reflect the changed state.
The VirtualBox GUI application is only one of several available front-ends (clients).
The complete list shipped with VirtualBox is:

1. VirtualBox, the Qt GUI front end mentioned earlier.

2. VBoxManage, a less user-friendly but more powerful alternative to the GUI de-
scribed in chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 121.
3. VBoxSDL, a simple graphical front end based on the SDL library; see chapter 9.2,
VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer, page 161.
4. VBoxHeadless, a VM front end which does not directly provide any video output
and keyboard/mouse input, but allows redirection via VRDP; see chapter 7.1.2,
VBoxHeadless, the VRDP-only server, page 113.
5. vboxwebsrv, the VirtualBox web service process which allows for controlling a
VirtualBox host remotely. This is described in detail in the VirtualBox Software
Development Kit (SDK) reference; please see chapter 11, VirtualBox program-
ming interfaces, page 192 for details.
6. The VirtualBox Python shell, a Python alternative to VBoxManage. This is also
described in the SDK reference.

Internally, VirtualBox consists of many more or less separate components. You may
encounter these when analyzing VirtualBox internal error messages or log files. These
include:

• IPRT, a portable runtime library which abstracts file access, threading, string
manipulation, etc. Whenever VirtualBox accesses host operating features, it does
so through this library for cross-platform portability.
• VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor), the heart of the hypervisor.
• EM (Execution Manager), controls execution of guest code.
• REM (Recompiled Execution Monitor), provides software emulation of CPU in-
structions.
• TRPM (Trap Manager), intercepts and processes guest traps and exceptions.
• HWACCM (Hardware Acceleration Manager), provides support for VT-x and
AMD-V.
• PDM (Pluggable Device Manager), an abstract interface between the VMM and
emulated devices which separates device implementations from VMM internals
and makes it easy to add new emulated devices. Through PDM, third-party
developers can add new virtual devices to VirtualBox without having to change
VirtualBox itself.

184
 10 Technical background

• PGM (Page Manager), a component controlling guest paging.

• PATM (Patch Manager), patches guest code to improve and speed up software
virtualization.
• TM (Time Manager), handles timers and all aspects of time inside guests.
• CFGM (Configuration Manager), provides a tree structure which holds configu-
ration settings for the VM and all emulated devices.
• SSM (Saved State Manager), saves and loads VM state.
• VUSB (Virtual USB), a USB layer which separates emulated USB controllers from
the controllers on the host and from USB devices; this also enables remote USB.
• DBGF (Debug Facility), a built-in VM debuger.
• VirtualBox emulates a number of devices to provide the hardware environment
that various guests need. Most of these are standard devices found in many PC
compatible machines and widely supported by guest operating systems. For net-
work and storage devices in particular, there are several options for the emulated
devices to access the underlying hardware. These devices are managed by PDM.
• Guest Additions for various guest operating systems. This is code that is installed
from within a virtual machine; see chapter 4, Guest Additions, page 64.
• The “Main” component is special: it ties all the above bits together and is the
only public API that VirtualBox provides. All the client processes listed above
use only this API and never access the hypervisor components directly. As a
result, third-party applications that use the VirtualBox Main API can rely on the
fact that it is always well-tested and that all capabilities of VirtualBox are fully
exposed. It is this API that is described in the VirtualBox SDK mentioned above
(again, see chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces, page 192).

10.2 Hardware vs. software virtualization

VirtualBox allows software in the virtual machine to run directly on the processor of
the host, but an array of complex techniques is employed to intercept operations that
would interfere with your host. Whenever the guest attempts to do something that
could be harmful to your computer and its data, VirtualBox steps in and takes action.
In particular, for lots of hardware that the guest believes to be accessing, VirtualBox
simulates a certain “virtual” environment according to how you have configured a vir-
tual machine. For example, when the guest attempts to access a hard disk, VirtualBox
redirects these requests to whatever you have configured to be the virtual machine’s
virtual hard disk – normally, an image file on your host.
Unfortunately, the x86 platform was never designed to be virtualized. Detecting sit-
uations in which VirtualBox needs to take control over the guest code that is executing,
as described above, is difficult. There are two ways in which to achive this:

185
 10 Technical background

• Since 2006, Intel and AMD processors have had support for so-called “hard-
ware virtualization”. This means that these processors can help VirtualBox to
intercept potentially dangerous operations that a guest operating system may
be attempting and also makes it easier to present virtual hardware to a virtual
machine.
These hardware features differ between Intel and AMD processors. Intel named
its technology VT-x; AMD calls theirs AMD-V. The Intel and AMD support for
virtualization is very different in detail, but not very different in principle.

Note: On many systems, the hardware virtualization features first need to be

enabled in the BIOS before VirtualBox can use them.

• As opposed to other virtualization software, for many usage scenarios,

VirtualBox does not require hardware virtualization features to be present.
Through sophisticated techniques, VirtualBox virtualizes many guest operating
systems entirely in software. This means that you can run virtual machines even
on older processors which do not support hardware virtualization.
Even though VirtualBox does not always require hardware virtualization, enabling
it is required in the following scenarios:
• Certain rare guest operating systems like OS/2 make use of very esoteric pro-
cessor instructions that are not supported with our software virtualization. For
virtual machines that are configured to contain such an operating system, hard-
ware virtualization is enabled automatically.
• VirtualBox’s 64-bit guest support (added with version 2.0) and multiprocessing
(SMP, added with version 3.0) both require hardware virtualization to be en-
abled. (This is not much of a limitation since the vast majority of today’s 64-bit
and multicore CPUs ship with hardware virtualization anyway; the exceptions to
this rule are e.g. older Intel Celeron and AMD Opteron CPUs.)

Warning: Do not run other hypervisors (open-source or commercial virtu-

alization products) together with VirtualBox! While several hypervisors can
normally be installed in parallel, do not attempt to run several virtual ma-
chines from competing hypervisors at the same time. VirtualBox cannot track
what another hypervisor is currently attempting to do on the same host, and
especially if several products attempt to use hardware virtualization features
such as VT-x, this can crash the entire host. Also, within VirtualBox, you can
mix software and hardware virtualization when running multiple VMs. In cer-
tain cases a small performance penalty will be unavoidable when mixing VT-x
and software virtualization VMs. We recommend not mixing virtualization
modes if maximum performance and low overhead are essential. This does
not apply to AMD-V.

186
 10 Technical background

10.3 Details about software virtualization

Implementing virtualization on x86 CPUs with no hardware virtualization support is
an extraordinarily complex task because the CPU architecture was not designed to
be virtualized. The problems can usually be solved, but at the cost of reduced per-
formance. Thus, there is a constant clash between virtualization performance and
accuracy.
The x86 instruction set was originally designed in the 1970s and underwent sig-
nificant changes with the addition of protected mode in the 1980s with the 286 CPU
architecture and then again with the Intel 386 and its 32-bit architecture. Whereas
the 386 did have limited virtualization support for real mode operation (V86 mode, as
used by the “DOS Box” of Windows 3.x and OS/2 2.x), no support was provided for
virtualizing the entire architecture.
In theory, software virtualization is not overly complex. In addition to the four
privilege levels (“rings”) provided by the hardware (of which typically only two are
used: ring 0 for kernel mode and ring 3 for user mode), one needs to differentiate
between “host context” and “guest context”.
In “host context”, everything is as if no hypervisor was active. This might be the
active mode if another application on your host has been scheduled CPU time; in
that case, there is a host ring 3 mode and a host ring 0 mode. The hypervisor is not
involved.
In “guest context”, however, a virtual machine is active. So long as the guest code is
running in ring 3, this is not much of a problem since a hypervisor can set up the page
tables properly and run that code natively on the processor. The problems mostly lie
in how to intercept what the guest’s kernel does.
There are several possible solutions to these problems. One approach is full software
emulation, usually involving recompilation. That is, all code to be run by the guest is
analyzed, transformed into a form which will not allow the guest to either modify or
see the true state of the CPU, and only then executed. This process is obviously highly
complex and costly in terms of performance. (VirtualBox contains a recompiler based
on QEMU which can be used for pure software emulation, but the recompiler is only
activated in special situations, described below.)
Another possible solution is paravirtualization, in which only specially modified
guest OSes are allowed to run. This way, most of the hardware access is abstracted
and any functions which would normally access the hardware or privileged CPU state
are passed on to the hypervisor instead. Paravirtualization can achieve good function-
ality and performance on standard x86 CPUs, but it can only work if the guest OS can
actually be modified, which is obviously not always the case.
VirtualBox chooses a different approach. When starting a virtual machine, through
its ring-0 support kernel driver, VirtualBox has set up the host system so that it can run
most of the guest code natively, but it has inserted itself at the “bottom” of the picture.
It can then assume control when needed – if a privileged instruction is executed, the
guest traps (in particular because an I/O register was accessed and a device needs
to be virtualized) or external interrupts occur. VirtualBox may then handle this and
either route a request to a virtual device or possibly delegate handling such things to

187
 10 Technical background

the guest or host OS. In guest context, VirtualBox can therefore be in one of three
states:

• Guest ring 3 code is run unmodified, at full speed, as much as possible. The
number of faults will generally be low (unless the guest allows port I/O from
ring 3, something we cannot do as we don’t want the guest to be able to access
real ports). This is also referred to as “raw mode”, as the guest ring-3 code runs
unmodified.
• For guest code in ring 0, VirtualBox employs a nasty trick: it actually reconfigures
the guest so that its ring-0 code is run in ring 1 instead (which is normally not
used in x86 operating systems). As a result, when guest ring-0 code (actually
running in ring 1) such as a guest device driver attempts to write to an I/O
register or execute a privileged instruction, the VirtualBox hypervisor in “real”
ring 0 can take over.
• The hypervisor (VMM) can be active. Every time a fault occurs, VirtualBox looks
at the offending instruction and can relegate it to a virtual device or the host OS
or the guest OS or run it in the recompiler.
In particular, the recompiler is used when guest code disables interrupts and
VirtualBox cannot figure out when they will be switched back on (in these situ-
ations, VirtualBox actually analyzes the guest code using its own disassembler).
Also, certain privileged instructions such as LIDT need to be handled specially.
Finally, any real-mode or protected-mode code (e.g. BIOS code, a DOS guest, or
any operating system startup) is run in the recompiler entirely.

Unfortunately this only works to a degree. Among others, the following situations
require special handling:

1. Running ring 0 code in ring 1 causes a lot of additional instruction faults, as

ring 1 is not allowed to execute any privileged instructions (of which guest’s
ring-0 contains plenty). With each of these faults, the VMM must step in and
emulate the code to achieve the desired behavior. While this works, emulating
thousands of these faults is very expensive and severely hurts the performance
of the virtualized guest.
2. There are certain flaws in the implementation of ring 1 in the x86 architec-
ture that were never fixed. Certain instructions that should trap in ring 1 don’t.
This affect for example the LGDT/SGDT, LIDT/SIDT, or POPF/PUSHF instruction
pairs. Whereas the “load” operation is privileged and can therefore be trapped,
the “store” instruction always succeed. If the guest is allowed to execute these, it
will see the true state of the CPU, not the virtualized state. The CPUID instruction
also has the same problem.
3. A hypervisor typically needs to reserve some portion of the guest’s address space
(both linear address space and selectors) for its own use. This is not entirely
transparent to the guest OS and may cause clashes.

188
 10 Technical background

4. The SYSENTER instruction (used for system calls) executed by an application

running in a guest OS always transitions to ring 0. But that is where the hyper-
visor runs, not the guest OS. In this case, the hypervisor must trap and emulate
the instruction even when it is not desirable.
5. The CPU segment registers contain a “hidden” descriptor cache which is not
software-accessible. The hypervisor cannot read, save, or restore this state, but
the guest OS may use it.
6. Some resources must (and can) be trapped by the hypervisor, but the access is
so frequent that this creates a significant performance overhead. An example is
the TPR (Task Priority) register in 32-bit mode. Accesses to this register must be
trapped by the hypervisor, but certain guest operating systems (notably Windows
and Solaris) write this register very often, which adversely affects virtualization
performance.

To fix these performance and security issues, VirtualBox contains a Code Scanning
and Analysis Manager (CSAM), which disassembles guest code, and the Patch Manager
(PATM), which can replace it at runtime.
Before executing ring 0 code, CSAM scans it recursively to discover problematic
instructions. PATM then performs in-situ patching, i.e. it replaces the instruction with
a jump to hypervisor memory where an integrated code generator has placed a more
suitable implementation. In reality, this is a very complex task as there are lots of odd
situations to be discovered and handled correctly. So, with its current complexity, one
could argue that PATM is an advanced in-situ recompiler.
In addition, every time a fault occurs, VirtualBox analyzes the offending code to
determine if it is possible to patch it in order to prevent it from causing more faults in
the future. This approach works well in practice and dramatically improves software
virtualization performance.

10.4 Details about hardware virtualization

With Intel VT-x, there are two distinct modes of CPU operation: VMX root mode and
non-root mode.

• In root mode, the CPU operates much like older generations of processors with-
out VT-x support. There are four privilege levels (“rings”), and the same instruc-
tion set is supported, with the addition of several virtualization specific instruc-
tion. Root mode is what a host operating system without virtualization uses, and
it is also used by a hypervisor when virtualization is active.
• In non-root mode, CPU operation is significantly different. There are still four
privilege rings and the same instruction set, but a new structure called VMCS
(Virtual Machine Control Structure) now controls the CPU operation and deter-
mines how certain instructions behave. Non-root mode is where guest systems
run.

189
 10 Technical background

Switching from root mode to non-root mode is called “VM entry”, the switch back is
“VM exit”. The VMCS includes a guest and host state area which is saved/restored at
VM entry and exit. Most importantly, the VMCS controls which guest operations will
cause VM exits.
The VMCS provides fairly fine-grained control over what the guests can and can’t
do. For example, a hypervisor can allow a guest to write certain bits in shadowed
control registers, but not others. This enables efficient virtualization in cases where
guests can be allowed to write control bits without disrupting the hypervisor, while
preventing them from altering control bits over which the hypervisor needs to retain
full control. The VMCS also provides control over interrupt delivery and exceptions.
Whenever an instruction or event causes a VM exit, the VMCS contains information
about the exit reason, often with accompanying detail. For example, if a write to the
CR0 register causes an exit, the offending instruction is recorded, along with the fact
that a write access to a control register caused the exit, and information about source
and destination register. Thus the hypervisor can efficiently handle the condition with-
out needing advanced techniques such as CSAM and PATM described above.
VT-x inherently avoids several of the problems which software virtualization faces.
The guest has its own completely separate address space not shared with the hyper-
visor, which eliminates potential clashes. Additionally, guest OS kernel code runs at
privilege ring 0 in VMX non-root mode, obviating the problems by running ring 0 code
at less privileged levels. For example the SYSENTER instruction can transition to ring
0 without causing problems. Naturally, even at ring 0 in VMX non-root mode, any I/O
access by guest code still causes a VM exit, allowing for device emulation.
The biggest difference between VT-x and AMD-V is that AMD-V provides a more
complete virtualization environment. VT-x requires the VMX non-root code to run
with paging enabled, which precludes hardware virtualization of real-mode code and
non-paged protected-mode software. This typically only includes firmware and OS
loaders, but nevertheless complicates VT-x hypervisor implementation. AMD-V does
not have this restriction.
Of course hardware virtualization is not perfect. Compared to software virtualiza-
tion, the overhead of VM exits is relatively high. This causes problems for devices
whose emulation requires high number of traps. One example is the VGA device in
16-color modes, where not only every I/O port access but also every access to the
framebuffer memory must be trapped.

10.5 Nested paging and VPIDs

In addition to “plain” hardware virtualization, your processor may also support addi-
tional sophisticated techniques:1

1 VirtualBox2.0 added support for AMD’s nested paging; support for Intel’s EPT and VPIDs was added with
version 2.1.

190
 10 Technical background

• A newer feature called “nested paging” implements some memory management

in hardware, which can greatly accelerate hardware virtualization since these
tasks no longer need to be performed by the virtualization software.
With nested paging, the hardware provides another level of indirection when
translating linear to physical addresses. Page tables function as before, but linear
addresses are now translated to “guest physical” addresses first and not physical
addresses directly. A new set of paging registers now exists under the traditional
paging mechanism and translates from guest physical addresses to host physical
addresses, which are used to access memory.
Nested paging eliminates the overhead caused by VM exits and page table ac-
cesses. In essence, with nested page tables the guest can handle paging without
intervention from the hypervisor. Nested paging thus significantly improves vir-
tualization performance.
On AMD processors, nested paging has been available starting with the
Barcelona (K10) architecture; Intel added support for nested paging, which
they call “extended page tables” (EPT), with their Core i7 (Nehalem) processors.
If nested paging is enabled, the VirtualBox hypervisor can also use large pages
to reduce TLB usage and overhead. This can yield a performance improvement
of up to 5%. To enable this feature for a VM, you need to use the VBoxManage
modifyvm --largepages command; see chapter 8.7, VBoxManage modifyvm,
page 131.
• On Intel CPUs, another hardware feature called “Virtual Processor Identifiers”
(VPIDs) can greatly accelerate context switching by reducing the need for ex-
pensive flushing of the processor’s Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLBs).
To enable these features for a VM, you need to use the VBoxManage modifyvm
--vtxvpids and --largepages commands; see chapter 8.7, VBoxManage mod-
ifyvm, page 131.

191
11 VirtualBox programming
interfaces
VirtualBox comes with comprehensive support for third-party developers. The so-
called “Main API” of VirtualBox exposes the entire feature set of the virtualization
engine. It is completely documented and available to anyone who wishes to control
VirtualBox programmatically.
The Main API is made available to C++ clients through COM (on Windows hosts)
or XPCOM (on other hosts). Bridges also exist for SOAP, Java and Python.
All programming information (documentation, reference information, header and
other interface files as well as samples) have been split out to a separate Soft-
ware Development Kit (SDK), which is available for download from http://www.
virtualbox.org. In particular, the SDK comes with a “Programming Guide and Ref-
erence” in PDF format, which contains, among other things, the information that was
previously in this chapter of the User Manual.

192
12 Troubleshooting
This chapter provides answers to commonly asked questions. In order to improve your
user experience with VirtualBox, it is recommended to read this section to learn more
about common pitfalls and get recommendations on how to use the product.

12.1 Procedures and tools

12.1.1 Categorizing and isolating problems
More often than not, a virtualized guest behaves like a physical system. Any problems
that a physical machine would encounter, a virtual machine will encounter as well. If,
for example, Internet connectivity is lost due to external issues, virtual machines will
be affected just as much as physical ones.
If a true VirtualBox problem is encountered, it helps to categorize and isolate the
problem first. Here are some of the questions that should be answered before reporting
a problem:

1. Is the problem specific to a certain guest OS? Specific release of a guest OS? Es-
pecially with Linux guest related problems, the issue may be specific to a certain
distribution and version of Linux.
2. Is the problem specific to a certain host OS? Problems are usually not host OS
specific (because most of the VirtualBox code base is shared across all supported
platforms), but especially in the areas of networking and USB support, there are
significant differences between host platforms. Some GUI related issues are also
host specific.
3. Is the problem specific to certain host hardware? This category of issues is typi-
cally related to the host CPU. Because of significant differences between VT-x and
AMD-V, problems may be specific to one or the other technology. The exact CPU
model may also make a difference (even for software virtualization) because dif-
ferent CPUs support different features, which may affect certain aspects of guest
CPU operation.
4. Is the problem specific to a certain virtualization mode? Some problems may
only occur in software virtualization mode, others may be specific to hardware
virtualization.

193
 12 Troubleshooting

5. Is the problem specific to guest SMP? That is, is it related to the number of vir-
tual CPUs (VCPUs) in the guest? Using more than one CPU usually significantly
affects the internal operation of a guest OS.

6. Is the problem specific to the Guest Additions? In some cases, this is a given
(e.g., a shared folders problem), in other cases it may be less obvious (for exam-
ple, display problems). And if the problem is Guest Additions specific, is it also
specific to a certain version of the Additions?
7. Is the problem specific to a certain environment? Some problems are related
to a particular environment external to the VM; this usually involves network
setup. Certain configurations of external servers such as DHCP or PXE may ex-
pose problems which do not occur with other, similar servers.
8. Is the problem a regression? Knowing that an issue is a regression usually makes
it significantly easier to find the solution. In this case, it is crucial to know which
version is affected and which is not.

12.1.2 Collecting debugging information

For problem determination, it is often important to collect debugging information
which can be analyzed by VirtualBox support. This section contains information about
what kind of information can be obtained.
Every time VirtualBox starts up a VM, a so-called “release log file” is created con-
taining lots of information about the VM configuration and runtime events. The log
file is called VBox.log and resides in the VM log file folder. Typically this will be a
directory like this:
$HOME/.VirtualBox/Machines/{machinename}/Logs

When starting a VM, the configuration file of the last run will be renamed to .1, up
to .3. Sometimes when there is a problem, it is useful to have a look at the logs.
Also when requesting support for VirtualBox, supplying the corresponding log file is
mandatory.
For convenience, for each virtual machine, the VirtualBox main window can show
these logs in a window. To access it, select a virtual machine from the list on the left
and select “Show logs...“ from the “Machine” window.
The release log file (VBox.log) contains a wealth of diagnostic information, such as
Host OS type and version, VirtualBox version and build (32-bit or 64-bit), a complete
dump of the guest’s configuration (CFGM), detailed information about the host CPU
type and supported features, whether hardware virtualization is enabled, information
about VT-x/AMD-V setup, state transitions (creating, running, paused, stopping, etc.),
guest BIOS messages, guest Additions messages, device specific log entries and at the
end of execution, final guest state and condensed statistics.

194
 12 Troubleshooting

In case of crashes, it is very important to collect crash dumps. This is true for both
host and guest crashes. For information about enabling core dumps on Linux, Solaris,
and OS X systems, refer to the core dump article on the VirtualBox website.1
For network related problems, it is often helpful to capture a trace of network traffic.
If the traffic is routed through an adapter on the host, it is possible to use Wireshark
or a similar tool to capture the traffic there. However, this often also includes a lot of
traffic unrelated to the VM.
VirtualBox provides an ability to capture network traffic only on a specific VM’s
network adapter. Refer to the network tracing article on the VirtualBox website2 for
information on enabling this capture. Note that the trace files created by VirtualBox
are in .pcap format and can be easily analyzed with Wireshark.

12.1.3 The built-in VM debugger

VirtualBox includes a built-in VM debugger, which advanced users may find useful.
This debugger allows the user to examine, and to some extent, control, the VM state.

Note: Use the VM debugger at your own risk. There is no support for it, and
the following documentation is only made available for advanced users with
a very high level of familiarity with the x86/AMD64 machine instruction set,
as well as detailed knowledge of the PC architecture. A degree of familiarity
with the internals of the guest OS in question is not required, but may be very
helpful.

The VM debugger is available in all regular production versions of VirtualBox, but

it is disabled by default because the average user will have little use for it. There are
two ways to access the debugger:
• A debugger console window displayed alongside the VM
• Via the telnet protocol at port 5000
The debugger can be enabled in two ways:
• Start the VirtualBox process with a --dbg, --debug, or --debug-command-line
argument. See the VirtualBox usage help for details. Note that these arguments
are only useful when a VM is started immediately, using the --startvm argu-
ment.
• Set the VBOX_GUI_DBG_ENABLED or VBOX_GUI_DBG_AUTO_SHOW environment
variable to an arbitrary value before launching the VirtualBox process. Setting
these variables (only their presence is checked) is effective even when the first
VirtualBox process is the VM selector window. VMs subsequently launched from
the selector will have the debugger enabled.
1 http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Core_dump.
2 http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Network_tips.

195
 12 Troubleshooting

A new ’Debug’ menu entry will be added to the VirtualBox application. This menu
allows the user to open the debugger console.
The VM debugger command syntax is loosely modeled on Microsoft and IBM debug-
gers used on DOS, OS/2 and Windows. Users familiar with symdeb, CodeView, or the
OS/2 kernel debugger will find the VirtualBox VM debugger familiar.
The most important command is help. This will print brief usage help for all de-
bugger commands. The set of commands supported by the VM debugger changes
frequently and the help command is always up-to-date.
A brief summary of frequently used commands follows:

• stop – stops the VM execution and enables single stepping

• g – continue VM execution

• t – single step an instruction

• rg/rh/r – print the guest/hypervisor/current registers
• kg/kh/k – print the guest/hypervisor/current call stack

• da/db/dw/dd/dq – print memory contents as ASCII/bytes/words/dwords/qwords

• u – unassemble memory
• dg – print the guest’s GDT
• di – print the guest’s IDT

• dl – print the guest’s LDT

• dt – print the guest’s TSS
• dp* – print the guest’s page table structures

• bp/br – set a normal/recompiler breakpoint

• bl – list breakpoints
• bc – clear a breakpoint

See the built-in help for other available commands.

The VM debugger supports symbolic debugging, although symbols for guest code
are often not available. For Solaris guests, the detect command automatically deter-
mines the guest OS version and locates kernel symbols in guest’s memory. Symbolic
debugging is then available. For Linux guests, the detect commands also determines
the guest OS version, but there are no symbols in the guest’s memory. Kernel symbols
are available in the file /proc/kallsyms on Linux guests. This file must be copied
to the host, for example using scp. The loadmap debugger command can be used to
make the symbol information available to the VM debugger. Note that the kallsyms

196
 12 Troubleshooting

file contains the symbols for the currently loaded modules; if the guest’s configuration
changes, the symbols will change as well and must be updated.
For all guests, a simple way to verify that the correct symbols are loaded is the
k command. The guest is normally idling and it should be clear from the symbolic
information that the guest operating system’s idle loop is being executed.
Another group of debugger commands is the set of info commands. Running info
help provides complete usage information. The information commands provide ad-
hoc data pertinent to various emulated devices and aspects of the VMM. There is no
general guideline for using the info commands, the right command to use depends
entirely on the problem being investigated. Some of the info commands are:

• cfgm – print a branch of the configuration tree

• cpuid – display the guest CPUID leaves
• ioport – print registered I/O port ranges
• mmio – print registered MMIO ranges
• mode – print the current paging mode
• pit – print the i8254 PIT state
• pic – print the i8259A PIC state
• ohci/ehci – print a subset of the OHCI/EHCI USB controller state
• pcnet0 – print the PCnet state
• vgatext – print the contents of the VGA framebuffer formatted as standard text
mode
• timers – print all VM timers

The output of the info commands generally requires in-depth knowledge of the
emulated device and/or VirtualBox VMM internals. However, when used properly, the
information provided can be invaluable.

12.2 General
12.2.1 Guest shows IDE/SATA errors for file-based images on
slow host file system
Occasionally, some host file systems provide very poor writing performance and as a
consequence cause the guest to time out IDE/SATA commands. This is normal behavior
and should normally cause no real problems, as the guest should repeat commands
that have timed out. However some guests (e.g. some Linux versions) have severe
problems if a write to an image file takes longer than about 15 seconds. Some file

197
 12 Troubleshooting

systems however require more than a minute to complete a single write, if the host
cache contains a large amount of data that needs to be written.
The symptom for this problem is that the guest can no longer access its files during
large write or copying operations, usually leading to an immediate hang of the guest.
In order to work around this problem (the true fix is to use a faster file system that
doesn’t exhibit such unacceptable write performance), it is possible to flush the image
file after a certain amount of data has been written. This interval is normally infinite,
but can be configured individually for each disk of a VM.
For IDE disks use the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/piix3ide/0/LUN#[x]/Config/FlushInterval" [b]

For SATA disks use the following command:

VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#[x]/Config/FlushInterval" [b]

The value [x] that selects the disk for IDE is 0 for the master device on the first
channel, 1 for the slave device on the first channel, 2 for the master device on the
second channel or 3 for the master device on the second channel. For SATA use values
between 0 and 29. Only disks support this configuration option; it must not be set for
CD/DVD drives.
The unit of the interval [b] is the number of bytes written since the last flush. The
value for it must be selected so that the occasional long write delays do not occur.
Since the proper flush interval depends on the performance of the host and the host
filesystem, finding the optimal value that makes the problem disappear requires some
experimentation. Values between 1000000 and 10000000 (1 to 10 megabytes) are
a good starting point. Decreasing the interval both decreases the probability of the
problem and the write performance of the guest. Setting the value unnecessarily low
will cost performance without providing any benefits. An interval of 1 will cause a
flush for each write operation and should solve the problem in any case, but has a
severe write performance penalty.
Providing a value of 0 for [b] is treated as an infinite flush interval, effectively
disabling this workaround. Removing the extra data key by specifying no value for [b]
has the same effect.

12.2.2 Responding to guest IDE/SATA flush requests

If desired, the virtual disk images can be flushed when the guest issues the IDE FLUSH
CACHE command. Normally these requests are ignored for improved performance.
The parameters below are only accepted for disk drives. They must not be set for DVD
drives.
To enable flushing for IDE disks, issue the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/piix3ide/0/LUN#[x]/Config/IgnoreFlush" 0

198
 12 Troubleshooting

The value [x] that selects the disk is 0 for the master device on the first channel, 1
for the slave device on the first channel, 2 for the master device on the second channel
or 3 for the master device on the second channel.
To enable flushing for SATA disks, issue the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#[x]/Config/IgnoreFlush" 0

The value [x] that selects the disk can be a value between 0 and 29.
Note that this doesn’t affect the flushes performed according to the configuration
described in chapter 12.2.1, Guest shows IDE/SATA errors for file-based images on slow
host file system, page 197. Restoring the default of ignoring flush commands is possible
by setting the value to 1 or by removing the key.

12.3 Windows guests

12.3.1 Windows bluescreens after changing VM configuration
Changing certain virtual machine settings can cause Windows guests to fail during
start up with a bluescreen. This may happen if you change VM settings after installing
Windows, or if you copy a disk image with an already installed Windows to a newly
created VM which has settings that differ from the original machine.
This applies in particular to the following settings:

• The ACPI and I/O APIC settings should never be changed after installing Win-
dows. Depending on the presence of these hardware features, the Windows
installation program chooses special kernel and device driver versions and will
fail to startup should these hardware features be removed. (Enabling them for a
Windows VM which was installed without them does not cause any harm. How-
ever, Windows will not use these features in this case.)
• Changing the storage controller hardware will cause bootup failures as well.
This might also apply to you if you copy a disk image from an older version of
VirtualBox to a virtual machine created with a newer VirtualBox version; the
default subtype of IDE controller hardware was changed from PIIX3 to PIIX4
with VirtualBox 2.2. Make sure these settings are identical.

12.3.2 Windows 0x101 bluescreens with SMP enabled (IPI

timeout)
If a VM is configured to have more than one processor (symmetrical multiprocessing,
SMP), some configurations of Windows guests crash with an 0x101 error message,
indicating a timeout for inter-processor interrupts (IPIs). These interrupts synchronize
memory management between processors.

199
 12 Troubleshooting

According to Microsoft, this is due to a race condition in Windows. A hotfix is

available.3 If this does not help, please reduce the number of virtual processors to 1.

12.3.3 Windows 2000 installation failures

When installing Windows 2000 guests, you might run into one of the following issues:

• Installation reboots, usually during component registration.

• Installation fills the whole hard disk with empty log files.
• Installation complains about a failure installing msgina.dll.

These problems are all caused by a bug in the hard disk driver of Windows 2000.
After issuing a hard disk request, there is a race condition in the Windows driver code
which leads to corruption if the operation completes too fast, i.e. the hardware in-
terrupt from the IDE controller arrives too soon. With physical hardware, there is a
guaranteed delay in most systems so the problem is usually hidden there (however it
should be possible to reproduce it on physical hardware as well). In a virtual environ-
ment, it is possible for the operation to be done immediately (especially on very fast
systems with multiple CPUs) and the interrupt is signaled sooner than on a physical
system. The solution is to introduce an artificial delay before delivering such inter-
rupts. This delay can be configured for a VM using the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name"
"VBoxInternal/Devices/piix3ide/0/Config/IRQDelay" 1

This sets the delay to one millisecond. In case this doesn’t help, increase it to a value
between 1 and 5 milliseconds. Please note that this slows down disk performance.
After installation, you should be able to remove the key (or set it to 0).

12.3.4 How to record bluescreen information from Windows

guests
When Windows guests run into a kernel crash, they display the infamous bluescreen.
Depending on how Windows is configured, the information will remain on the screen
until the machine is restarted or it will reboot automatically. During installation, Win-
dows is usually configured to reboot automatically. With automatic reboots, there is
no chance to record the bluescreen information which might be important for problem
determination.
VirtualBox provides a method of halting a guest when it wants to perform a reset.
In order to enable this feature, issue the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" "VBoxInternal/PDM/HaltOnReset" 1

3 See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955076.

200
 12 Troubleshooting

12.3.5 No networking in Windows Vista guests

Unfortunately, with Vista, Microsoft dropped support for the virtual AMD PCNet card
that we are providing to virtual machines. As a result, after installation, Vista guests
initially have no networking. VirtualBox therefore ships a driver for that card with the
Windows Guest Additions; see chapter 4.2.1.5, Windows Vista networking, page 68.
Starting with version 1.6.0 VirtualBox can emulate an Intel E1000 network device
which is supported by Vista without any third-party drivers.

12.3.6 Windows guests may cause a high CPU load

Several background applications of Windows guests, especially virus scanners, are
known to increases the CPU load notably even if the guest appears to be idle. We
recommend to deactivate virus scanners within virtualized guests if possible.

12.3.7 No audio in Windows Vista (64-bit) and Windows 7 guests

32-bit Windows 7 does not ship with drivers for our emulated audio hardware (AC’97).
However, running Windows Update should solve the problem by getting an appropri-
ate driver for it automatically. After that update followed by a reboot you should have
working audio.
For the 64-bit versions of Windows Vista and 7 you have to download the Realtek
AC’97 drivers to enable audio.
See http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads for download instructions.

12.3.8 Long delays when accessing shared folders

The performance for accesses to shared folders from a Windows guest might
be decreased due to delays during the resolution of the VirtualBox shared fold-
ers name service. To fix these delays, add the following entries to the file
\windows\system32\drivers\etc\lmhosts of the Windows guest:

255.255.255.255 VBOXSVR #PRE

255.255.255.255 VBOXSRV #PRE

After doing this change, a reboot of the guest is required.

12.4 Linux and X11 guests

12.4.1 Linux guests may cause a high CPU load
Some Linux guests may cause a high CPU load even if the guest system appears to
be idle. This can be caused by a high timer frequency of the guest kernel. Some
Linux distributions, for example Fedora, ship a Linux kernel configured for a timer

201
 12 Troubleshooting

frequency of 1000Hz. We recommend to recompile the guest kernel and to select a

timer frequency of 100Hz.
Linux kernels shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as of release 4.7 and
5.1 as well as kernels of related Linux distributions (for instance CentOS and Oracle
Enterprise Linux) support a kernel parameter divider=N. Hence, such kernels support a
lower timer frequency without recompilation. We suggest to add the kernel parameter
divider=10 to select a guest kernel timer frequency of 100Hz.

12.4.2 AMD Barcelona CPUs

Most Linux-based guests will fail with AMD Phenoms or Barcelona-level Opterons due
to a bug in the Linux kernel. Enable the I/O-APIC to work around the problem (see
chapter 3.3.2, “Advanced” tab, page 51).

12.4.3 Buggy Linux 2.6 kernel versions

The following bugs in Linux kernels prevent them from executing correctly in
VirtualBox, causing VM boot crashes:

• The Linux kernel version 2.6.18 (and some 2.6.17 versions) introduced a race
condition that can cause boot crashes in VirtualBox. Please use a kernel version
2.6.19 or later.

• With hardware virtualization and the I/O APIC enabled, kernels before 2.6.24-
rc6 may panic on boot with the following message:
Kernel panic - not syncing: IO-APIC + timer doesn’t work! Boot with
apic=debug and send a report. Then try booting with the ’noapic’ option

If you see this message, either disable hardware virtualization or the I/O APIC
(see chapter 3.4, System settings, page 52), or upgrade the guest to a newer
kernel.4

12.4.4 Shared clipboard, auto-resizing and seamless desktop in

X11 guests
Guest desktop services in guests running the X11 window system (Solaris, Linux and
others) are provided by a guest service called VBoxClient, which runs under the ID
of the user who started the desktop session and is automatically started using the
following command lines
VBoxClient --clipboard
VBoxClient --display
VBoxClient --seamless

4 See http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg30813.html for de-

tails about the kernel fix.

202
 12 Troubleshooting

when your X11 user session is started if you are using a common desktop environment
(Gnome, KDE and others). If a particular desktop service is not working correctly, it is
worth checking whether the process which should provide it is running.
The VBoxClient processes create files in the user’s home directory with names of
the form .vboxclient-*.pid when they are running in order to prevent a given
service from being started twice. It can happen due to misconfiguration that these
files are created owned by root and not deleted when the services are stopped, which
will prevent them from being started in future sessions. If the services cannot be
started, you may wish to check whether these files still exist.

12.5 Windows hosts

12.5.1 VBoxSVC out-of-process COM server issues
VirtualBox makes use of the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM) for inter-
and intra-process communication. This allows VirtualBox to share a common config-
uration among different virtual machine processes and provide several user interface
options based on a common architecture. All global status information and config-
uration is maintained by the process VBoxSVC.exe, which is an out-of-process COM
server. Whenever a VirtualBox process is started, it requests access to the COM server
and Windows automatically starts the process. Note that it should never be started by
the end user.
When the last process disconnects from the COM server, it will terminate itself after
some seconds. The VirtualBox configuration (XML files) is maintained and owned by
the COM server and the files are locked whenever the server runs.
In some cases - such as when a virtual machine is terminated unexpectedly - the
COM server will not notice that the client is disconnected and stay active for a longer
period (10 minutes or so) keeping the configuration files locked. In other rare cases
the COM server might experience an internal error and subsequently other processes
fail to initialize it. In these situations, it is recommended to use the Windows task
manager to kill the process VBoxSVC.exe.

12.5.2 CD/DVD changes not recognized

In case you have assigned a physical CD/DVD drive to a guest and the guest does
not notice when the medium changes, make sure that the Windows media change
notification (MCN) feature is not turned off. This is represented by the following key
in the Windows registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom\Autorun

Certain applications may disable this key against Microsoft’s advice. If it is set to 0,
change it to 1 and reboot your system. VirtualBox relies on Windows notifying it of
media changes.

203
 12 Troubleshooting

12.5.3 Sluggish response when using Microsoft RDP client

If connecting to a Virtual Machine via the Microsoft RDP client (called Remote Desktop
Connection), there can be large delays between input (moving the mouse over a menu
is the most obvious situation) and output. This is because this RDP client collects input
for a certain time before sending it to the VRDP server built into VirtualBox.
The interval can be decreased by setting a Windows registry key to smaller values
than the default of 100. The key does not exist initially and must be of type DWORD.
The unit for its values is milliseconds. Values around 20 are suitable for low-bandwidth
connections between the RDP client and server. Values around 4 can be used for a
gigabit Ethernet connection. Generally values below 10 achieve a performance that is
very close to that of the local input devices and screen of the host on which the Virtual
Machine is running.
Depending whether the setting should be changed for an individual user or for the
system, either
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server
Client\Min Send Interval

or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Terminal Server
Client\Min Send Interval

can be set appropriately.

12.5.4 Running an iSCSI initiator and target on a single system

Deadlocks can occur on a Windows host when attempting to access an iSCSI target
running in a guest virtual machine with an iSCSI initiator (e.g. Microsoft iSCSI Ini-
tiator) that is running on the host. This is caused by a flaw in the Windows cache
manager component, and causes sluggish host system response for several minutes,
followed by a “Delayed Write Failed” error message in the system tray or in a sepa-
rate message window. The guest is blocked during that period and may show error
messages or become unstable.
Setting the environment variable VBOX_DISABLE_HOST_DISK_CACHE to 1 will enable
a workaround for this problem until Microsoft addresses the issue. For example, open
a command prompt window and start VirtualBox like this:
set VBOX_DISABLE_HOST_DISK_CACHE=1
VirtualBox

While this will decrease guest disk performance (especially writes), it does not affect
the performance of other applications running on the host.

204
 12 Troubleshooting

12.6 Linux hosts

12.6.1 Linux kernel module refuses to load
If the VirtualBox kernel module (vboxdrv) refuses to load, i.e. you get an “Error in-
serting vboxdrv: Invalid argument”, check (as root) the output of the dmesg command
to find out why the load failed. The most common reasons are:

• With Linux 2.6.19 and higher, the NMI watchdog may be active. Add
nmi_watchdog=0 to the kernel command line (e.g. in your grub configura-
tion) and reboot. With the Debian and Ubuntu installation modules, execute
sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox again.

• The kernel disagrees about the version of the gcc used to compile the module.
Make sure that you use the same compiler as used to build the kernel.

12.6.2 Linux host CD/DVD drive not found

If you have configured a virtual machine to use the host’s CD/DVD drive, but this
does not appear to work, make sure that the current user has permission to access the
corresponding Linux device file (/dev/hdc or /dev/scd0 or /dev/cdrom or similar).
On most distributions, the user must be added to a corresponding group (usually called
cdrom or cdrw).

12.6.3 Linux host CD/DVD drive not found (older distributions)

On older Linux distributions, if your CD/DVD device has a different name, VirtualBox
may be unable to find it. On older Linux hosts, VirtualBox performs the following steps
to locate your CD/DVD drives:

1. VirtualBox examines if the environment variable VBOX_CDROM is defined (see

below). If so, VirtualBox omits all the following checks.
2. VirtualBox tests if /dev/cdrom works.
3. In addition, VirtualBox checks if any CD/DVD drives are currently mounted by
checking /etc/mtab.
4. In addition, VirtualBox checks if any of the entries in /etc/fstab point to
CD/DVD devices.

In other words, you can try to set VBOX_CDROM to contain a list of your CD/DVD
devices, separated by colons, for example as follows:
export VBOX_CDROM=’/dev/cdrom0:/dev/cdrom1’

On modern Linux distributions, VirtualBox uses the hardware abstraction layer (hal)
to locate CD and DVD hardware.

205
 12 Troubleshooting

12.6.4 Linux host floppy not found

The previous instructions (for CD and DVD drives) apply accordingly to floppy disks,
except that on older distributions VirtualBox tests for /dev/fd* devices by default,
and this can be overridden with the VBOX_FLOPPY environment variable.

12.6.5 Strange guest IDE error messages when writing to CD/DVD

If the experimental CD/DVD writer support is enabled with an incorrect VirtualBox,
host or guest configuration, it is possible that any attempt to access the CD/DVD writer
fails and simply results in guest kernel error messages (for Linux guests) or applica-
tion error messages (for Windows guests). VirtualBox performs the usual consistency
checks when a VM is powered up (in particular it aborts with an error message if the
device for the CD/DVD writer is not writable by the user starting the VM), but it can-
not detect all misconfigurations. The necessary host and guest OS configuration is not
specific for VirtualBox, but a few frequent problems are listed here which occurred in
connection with VirtualBox.
Special care must be taken to use the correct device. The configured host CD/DVD
device file name (in most cases /dev/cdrom) must point to the device that allows
writing to the CD/DVD unit. For CD/DVD writer units connected to a SCSI controller
or to a IDE controller that interfaces to the Linux SCSI subsystem (common for some
SATA controllers), this must refer to the SCSI device node (e.g. /dev/scd0). Even
for IDE CD/DVD writer units this must refer to the appropriate SCSI CD-ROM device
node (e.g. /dev/scd0) if the ide-scsi kernel module is loaded. This module is required
for CD/DVD writer support with all Linux 2.4 kernels and some early 2.6 kernels.
Many Linux distributions load this module whenever a CD/DVD writer is detected in
the system, even if the kernel would support CD/DVD writers without the module.
VirtualBox supports the use of IDE device files (e.g. /dev/hdc), provided the kernel
supports this and the ide-scsi module is not loaded.
Similar rules (except that within the guest the CD/DVD writer is always an IDE
device) apply to the guest configuration. Since this setup is very common, it is likely
that the default configuration of the guest works as expected.

12.6.6 VBoxSVC IPC issues

On Linux, VirtualBox makes use of a custom version of Mozilla XPCOM (cross plat-
form component object model) for inter- and intra-process communication (IPC). The
process VBoxSVC serves as a communication hub between different VirtualBox pro-
cesses and maintains the global configuration, i.e. the XML database. When starting a
VirtualBox component, the processes VBoxSVC and VirtualBoxXPCOMIPCD are started
automatically. They are only accessible from the user account they are running un-
der. VBoxSVC owns the VirtualBox configuration database which normally resides in
/̃.VirtualBox. While it is running, the configuration files are locked. Communication
between the various VirtualBox components and VBoxSVC is performed through a local

206
 12 Troubleshooting

domain socket residing in /tmp/.vbox-<username>-ipc. In case there are commu-

nication problems (i.e. a VirtualBox application cannot communicate with VBoxSVC),
terminate the daemons and remove the local domain socket directory.

12.6.7 USB not working

If USB is not working on your Linux host, make sure that the current user is a member
of the vboxusers group. On older hosts, you need to make sure that the user has
permission to access the USB filesystem (usbfs), which VirtualBox relies on to retrieve
valid information about your host’s USB devices. The rest of this section only applies
to those older systems.

Note: The current rdesktop-vrdp implementation does not support accessing

USB devices through the sysfs!

As usbfs is a virtual filesystem, a chmod on /proc/bus/usb has no effect. The

permissions for usbfs can therefore only be changed by editing the /etc/fstab file.
For example, most Linux distributions have a user group called usb or similar, of
which the current user must be a member. To give all users of that group access to
usbfs, make sure the following line is present:
# 85 is the USB group
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=85,devmode=664 0 0

Replace 85 with the group ID that matches your system (search /etc/group for “usb”
or similar). Alternatively, if you don’t mind the security hole, give all users access to
USB by changing “664” to “666”.
The various distributions are very creative from which script the usbfs filesys-
tem is mounted. Sometimes the command is hidden in unexpected places.
For SuSE 10.0 the mount command is part of the udev configuration file
/etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules. As this distribution has no user group called
usb, you may e.g. use the vboxusers group which was created by the VirtualBox
installer. Since group numbers are allocated dynamically, the following example uses
85 as a placeholder. Modify the line containing (a linebreak has been inserted to
improve readability)
DEVPATH="/module/usbcore", ACTION=="add",
RUN+="/bin/mount -t usbfs usbfs /proc/bus/usb"

and add the necessary options (make sure that everything is in a single line):
DEVPATH="/module/usbcore", ACTION=="add",
RUN+="/bin/mount -t usbfs usbfs /proc/bus/usb -o devgid=85,devmode=664"

Debian Etch has the mount command in /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh. Since

that distribution has no group usb, it is also the easiest solution to allow all members
of the group vboxusers to access the USB subsystem. Modify the line

207
 12 Troubleshooting

domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev

so that it contains
domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=85,devmode=664

As usual, replace the 85 with the actual group number which should get access to
USB devices.
Other distributions do similar operations in scripts stored in the /etc/init.d di-
rectory.

12.6.8 PAX/grsec kernels

Linux kernels including the grsec patch (see http://www.grsecurity.net/) and
derivates have to disable PAX_MPROTECT for the VBox binaries to be able to start
a VM. The reason is that VBox has to create executable code on anonymous memory.

12.6.9 Linux kernel vmalloc pool exhausted

When running a large number of VMs with a lot of RAM on a Linux system (say 20
VMs with 1GB of RAM each), additional VMs might fail to start with a kernel error
saying that the vmalloc pool is exhausted and should be extended. The error message
also tells you to specify vmalloc=256MB in your kernel parameter list. If adding this
parameter to your GRUB or LILO configuration makes the kernel fail to boot (with
a weird error message such as “failed to mount the root partition”), then you have
probably run into a memory conflict of your kernel and initial RAM disk. This can be
solved by adding the following parameter to your GRUB configuration:
uppermem 524288

12.7 Solaris hosts

12.7.1 Cannot start VM, not enough contiguous memory
The ZFS file system is known to use all available RAM as cache if the default system
settings are not changed. This may lead to a heavy fragmentation of the host memory
preventing VirtualBox VMs from being started. We recommend to limit the ZFS cache
by adding a line
set zfs:zfs_arc_max = xxxx

to /etc/system where xxxx bytes is the amount of memory usable for the ZFS cache.

208
 12 Troubleshooting

12.7.2 VM aborts with out of memory errors on Solaris 10 hosts

Solaris 10 hosts (bug 1225025) requires swap space equal to, or greater than the host’s
physical memory size. For example, 8 GB physical memory would require at least 8 GB
swap. This can be configured during a Solaris 10 install by choosing a ’custom install’
and changing the default partitions.
For existing Solaris 10 installs, an additional swap image needs to be mounted and
used as swap. Hence if you have 1 GB swap and 8 GB of physical memory, you require
to add 7 GB more swap. This can be done as follows:
For ZFS (as root user):
zfs create -V 8gb /_<ZFS volume>_/swap
swap -a /dev/zvol/dsk/_<ZFS volume>_/swap

To mount if after reboot, add the following line to /etc/vfstab:

/dev/zvol/dsk/_<ZFS volume>_/swap - - swap - no -

Alternatively, you could grow the existing swap using:

zfs set volsize=8G rpool/swap

And reboot the system for the changes to take effect.

For UFS (as root user):
mkfile 7g /path/to/swapfile.img
swap -a /path/to/swapfile.img

To mount it after reboot, add the following line to /etc/vfstab:

/path/to/swap.img - - swap - no -

209
13 Known limitations
This sections describes known problems with VirtualBox 3.2.8. Unless marked other-
wise, these issues are planned to be fixed in later releases.

• The following Guest SMP (multiprocessor) limitations exist:

– Poor performance with 32-bit guests on AMD CPUs. This affects mainly
Windows and Solaris guests, but possibly also some Linux kernel revisions.
Partially solved in 3.0.6 for 32 bits Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 guests.
Requires 3.0.6 or higher Guest Additions to be installed.
– Poor performance with 32-bit guests on certain Intel CPU models that
do not include virtual APIC hardware optimization support. This affects
mainly Windows and Solaris guests, but possibly also some Linux kernel
revisions. Partially solved in 3.0.12 for 32 bits Windows NT, 2000, XP and
2003 guests. Requires 3.0.12 or higher Guest Additions to be installed.
• 64-bit guests on some 32-bit host systems with VT-x can cause instabilities
to your system. If you experience this, do not attempt to execute 64-bit guests.
Refer to the VirtualBox user forum for additional information.
• Direct 3D support in Windows guests. For this to work, the Guest Additions
must be installed in Windows “safe mode”. Press F8 when the Windows guest
is booting and select “Safe mode”, then install the Guest Additions. Otherwise
Windows’ file protection mechanism will interfere with the replacement DLLs
installed by VirtualBox and keep restoring the original Windows system DLLs.
• Guest multi-monitor support. This feature is currently only supported with
Windows guests.
• Deleting the only snapshot with a running VM is not implemented. Trying
to perform this operation will result in an error message. This feature will be
added in one of the next maintenance releases. It is possible to delete the only
snapshot when the VM is not running, e.g. in “poweroff” or “saved” state.
• Disabled host I/O caches. Disabling the host I/O cache (see chapter 5.7, Disk
images and I/O caching, page 98) will yield poor performance with VHD and
sparse VMDK files as these do not currently support asynchronous I/O. This does
not apply to VDI files and raw disk/partition VMDK files, which do support async
I/O. This restriction will be lifted in a future maintenance update.

210
 13 Known limitations

• Compacting virtual disk images is limited to VDI files. The VBoxManage

modifyhd -compact command is currently only implemented for VDI files. At
the moment the only way to optimize the size of a virtual disk images in other
formats (VMDK, VHD) is to clone the image and then use the cloned image in
the VM configuration.
• OVF import/export:
– When importing an OVF that was previously exported by VirtualBox 3.2
or higher which contains a complete VirtualBox machine configuration in
the <vbox:Machine> element, some of the import customizations that can
be specified (in either the GUI or on the VBoxManage command line) are
presently ignored. In particular, customizations of the imported storage
configuration are ignored. This will be fixed in the next release.
– OVF localization (multiple languages in one OVF file) is not yet supported.
– Some OVF sections like StartupSection, DeploymentOptionSection and In-
stallSection are ignored.
– OVF environment documents, including their property sections and appli-
ance configuration with ISO images, are not yet supported.
– OVA archives (TAR containers) are not yet supported.
– Remote files via HTTP or other mechanisms are not yet supported.

• Seamless mode does not work correctly with Linux guests that have 3D effects
enabled (such as with compiz-enabled window managers).
• Mac OS X hosts. The following restrictions apply (all of which will be resolved
in future versions):
– The numlock emulation has not yet been implemented.
– The CPU frequency metric is not supported.
– 3D OpenGL acceleration, in particular with Linux guests that have 3D ef-
fects enabled (such as with compiz-enabled window managers).
– Memory ballooning is not supported.

• Mac OS X Server guests.

– Mac OS X Server guests can only run on a certain host hardware. For details
about license and host hardware limitations, please see chapter 3.1.1, Mac
OS X Server guests, page 48.
– VirtualBox does not provide Guest Additions for Mac OS X Server at this
time.
– The graphics resolution currently defaults to 1024x768 as Mac OS X Server
falls back to the built-in EFI display support. See chapter 3.12.1, Video
modes in EFI, page 63 for more information on how to change EFI video
modes.

211
 13 Known limitations

– Even when idle, Mac OS X Server guests currently burn 100% CPU. This is
a power management issue that will be addressed in a future release.
– Mac OS X Server guests only work with one CPU assigned to the VM. Sup-
port for SMP will be provided in a future release.
– Depending on your system and version of Mac OS X Server, you might expe-
rience guest hangs after some time. This can be fixed by turning off energy
saving (set timeout to “Never”) in the system preferences.
– By default, the VirtualBox EFI enables debug output of the Mac OS X Server
kernel to help you diagnose boot problems. Note that there is a lot of output
and not all errors are fatal (they would also show on your physical Mac).
You can turn off these messages by issuing this command:
VBoxManage setextradata vmname "VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs" " "

To revert to the previous behavior, use:

VBoxManage setextradata vmname "VBoxInternal2/EfiBootArgs" ""

• Solaris hosts. The following restrictions apply for OpenSolaris and Solaris 10:
– There is no support for USB on Solaris 10 hosts.
– USB support on OpenSolaris requires version snv_124 or higher. Webcams
and other isochronous devices are known to have poor performance.
– No ACPI information (battery status, power source) is reported to the guest.
– No support for using wireless with bridged networking.

• Guest Additions for OS/2. Shared folders are not yet supported with OS/2
guests. In addition, seamless windows and automatic guest resizing will prob-
ably never be implemented due to inherent limitations of the OS/2 graphics
system.

212
14 Change log
This section summarizes the changes between VirtualBox versions. Note that this
change log is not exhaustive; not all changes are listed.
VirtualBox version numbers consist of three numbers separated by dots where the
first and second number represent the major version and the 3rd number the minor
version. Minor version numbers of official releases are always even. An odd minor
version number represents an internal development or test build. In addition, each
build contains a revision number.

14.1 Version 3.2.8 (2010-08-05)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: properly terminate the VM with an error if the guest is trying to switch to
the PAE mode but PAE is disabled in the VM settings
• GUI: switch to native file dialogs (Windows hosts only; bug 5459)
• GUI: don’t use native file dialogs on KDE hosts (Linux hosts only; bug #6809)
• 3D support: fixed GL_EXT_texture_sRGB support

• PXE: fixed ZENworks PXE boot regression

• OVF: fixed slower export and larger images under certain circumstances (3.2.6
regression; bug #7073)
• USB: properly signal an interrupt if the port suspend status changes

• USB: respect the remote-only filter

• USB: avoid VM hang when changing the configuration of certain devices (Win-
dows hosts only)
• USB: fix a crash with older Linux kernels and non-ASCII characters in device
strings (Linux hosts only; bug #6983)
• PageFusion: fixed conflict with the guest execution feature
• PageFusion: fixed stability issues with a large number of VMs
• PageFusion: host crashes with guest SMP and Win64 guests

213
 14 Change log

• Memory ballooning: fixed problems restoring VMs with pre-allocation enabled

• Bridged networking: fixed performance issue with GRO enabled on bridged de-
vice (bug #7059)

• Hostonly networking: fixed performance issue (3.2.6 regression; bug #7081)

• Hard disks: fix auto-reset of immutable disk at VM startup (bug #6832)
• BusLogic: several fixes for Windows NT/2000 and SCO OpenServer guests

• LsiLogic: fixed I/O errors under rare circumstances

• Sharing disks: support for attaching one disk to several VMs without external
tools and tricks
• Shared folders: several fixes and performance enhancements for Solaris guests
(bugs #4154 and #6512)

• Solaris Installer: added support for remote installations

• Guest Properties API: correctly support enumerating the properties of a running
VM with an empty “patterns” field (bug #7171)
• Guest properties: properly delete transient properties on shutdown

• RDP video redirection performance improvements and stability fixes

• Settings: silently fix host audio driver when reading machine XML settings files
or OVF written by VirtualBox on a different host OS, for example convert Direct-
Sound to PulseAudio (bug #7209)

• Settings: properly store the NAT network setting in XML settings file version 1.10
and later (bug #6176)
• VBoxManage: handle differencing images with parent UUID correctly in sub-
command openmedium disk (bug #6751)

• Web service: enabled HTTP keepalive for much better performance

• Web service: added timestamps to logging output
• Web service: treat 8-bit strings as UTF-8 not ASCII
• X11 Additions: fix for Xorg 6.8 guests (e.g. RHEL4)

214
 14 Change log

14.2 Version 3.2.6 (2010-06-25)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed host crash when running 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts with certain
Intel CPUs (VT-x only; bug #6166)
• VMM: allow 64-bit SMP guests on 32-bit hosts (VT-x and AMD-V only; does not
apply to Mac OS X, which already supports it)
• VMM: fixed Guru mediation if guests with more than 2GB are booted with VT-
x/AMD-V disabled (bug #5740)
• VMM: fixed TR limit trashing (VT-x and 64-bit host only; bug #7052)
• Page Fusion: several bug fixes for SMP guests (including bug #6964)
• Teleportation: several fixes and improvements
• Mac OS X server guests: compatibility fix
• EFI: fixed memory detection for guests with 2GB or more RAM assigned
• GUI: added a workaround for a Linux kernel bug which affecting asynchronous
I/O on ext4 / xfs file systems (Linux hosts only)
• GUI: added setting for multiple VRDP connections; useful if multiple screens are
enabled
• GUI: another fix for the keyboard capturing bug under metacity (bug #6727)
• GUI: fixed quit dialog when used in seamless or fullscreen mode (Mac OS X hosts
only; bug #6938)
• GUI: handle the extra key on the Brazilian keyboard on X11 hosts again (bug
#7022).
• 2D Video acceleration: fixed crashes when leaving the fullscreen mode (bug
#6768)
• VBoxManage: fixed storageattach error handling (bug #6927)
• VBoxManage: fixed dhcpserver add (3.2.0 regression; bug #7031)
• Storage: fixed hang with images located on filesystems which don’t support
async I/O (bug #6905)
• Storage: fixed raw disks on Windows hosts (3.2.0 regression; bug #6987)
• LsiLogic: fixed hang with older Linux guests
• BusLogic: fixed hang during I/O

215
 14 Change log

• SATA: set initial number of ports to 1 as some guests can’t handle 30 ports (e.g.
CentOS 4 and FreeBSD; bug #6984)
• SATA: performance improvement

• SCSI: fixed error when using the full format option during Windows installation
(bug #5101)
• iSCSI: fixed authentication (bug #4031)
• Host-only/bridged networking: fixed excessive host kernel warnings under cer-
tain circumstances (Linux hosts only; 3.2.0 regression; bug #6872)
• NAT: fixed potential memory leaks
• NAT: increased the size of the memory pool for 16K Jumbo frames (performance
tweak)

• NAT: allow to link/unlink the network cable even if the VM is currently paused
• E1000: disconnect cable was not properly handled if the NIC was not yet initial-
ized by the guest
• OVF: export performance optimization

• OVF: upgraded OS type definitions to CIM 2.25.0 so that Windows 7 and other
OSes are now tagged correctly on export
• Settings: the setting for disabling the host I/O cache was sometimes not properly
saved

• Settings: save machine state into XML correctly even when snapshot folder has
been changed to a non-default location (bug #5656)
• USB: allow the guest to disable an EHCI port
• USB: find a valid language ID before querying strings (bug #7034)

• POSIX hosts: fixed several memory leaks (3.2.0 regression)

• Solaris hosts: fixed VDI access problem under certain circumstances (IDE/SATA;
3.2.0 regression)
• Solaris hosts: fixed VM fails to start on 32-bit hosts (3.2.0 regression; bug
#6899)
• Windows hosts (32-bit): increase guest RAM limit if the host kernel allows for
more virtual address space
• Linux Additions: re-read a directory after a file was removed (bug #5251)

216
 14 Change log

• Linux Additions: install the DRI driver in the right location on ArchLinux guests
(bug #6937)
• X11 Additions: fixed spurious mouse movement events (bug #4260)

• Solaris Additions: fixed guest control execution

• Windows Additions: automatic logon on Windows Vista/Windows 7 is now able
to handle renamed and principal user accounts; added various bugfixes
• Windows Additions: improved command line parsing of the installer

• Windows Additions: fixed driver verifier bugcheck in VBoxMouse (bug #6453)

• 3D support: fixed OpenGL support for 32bit apps under 64bit Windows guests

14.3 Version 3.2.4 (2010-06-07)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• GUI: fixed superfluous resize-event on powering-on VM for X11 (improvement

for the 3.2.2 fix)

• GUI: fixed keyboard capturing bug under metacity (bug #6727)

• Host-only/bridged networking: fixed guest-to-guest communication over wire-
less (3.2.0 regression; bug #6855)
• Storage: fixed a potential guest disk corruption with growing images (3.2.0 re-
gression)
• Page Fusion: fixed shared module detection for Win64 guests
• 3D support: allow use of CR_SYSTEM_GL_PATH again (bug #6864)
• 3D support: fixed a host assertion for some multi-threaded guest applications
(bug #5236)
• 3D support: fixed host crashes with nVIDIA drivers on WDDM startup
• OVF: fixed import of OVFs with a VM description (annotation) (3.2.2 regression;
bug #6914)

• VRDP: fixed issues with secondary monitors (bug #6759)

217
 14 Change log

14.4 Version 3.2.2 (2010-06-02)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed rare invalid guest state guru meditation (VT-x only)

• VMM: fixed poor performance with nested paging and unrestricted guest execu-
tion (VT-x only; bug #6716)
• VMM: fixed occasional guru meditation during Windows 7 bootup (bug #6728)
• GUI: keep the status for remote control in sync with the actual state

• GUI: don’t exit after a successful refresh of an invalid VM configuration

• GUI: fixed keyboard capturing bug under metacity (bug #6727)
• GUI: fixed crash during VM termination if a modal dialog is open

• GUI: default controllers names of New VM Wizard are synchronized with VM

settings
• GUI: fixed superfluous resize-event on powering-on VM for X11
• GUI: fixed regression - missed USB item’s tool-tip of USB devices menu

• GUI: Activate VM window on mouse-hovering for multi-monitor VMs

• VBoxSDL/Linux hosts: automated keyboard type detection (bug #5764)
• SATA: fixed crash during VM suspend under rare circumstances
• SATA: fixed crash during VM reset after a snapshot was taken

• Storage: fixed sporadic hang of SMP guests using SATA or LSI Logic SCSI and
asynchronous I/O
• Virtio-net: fix for guests with more than about 4GB RAM (bug #6784)
• Page Fusion: fixed VBoxService crash with enabled Page Fusion on Win64 guests

• Page Fusion: added kernel module sharing

• HGCM: fixed memory leak which showed up if the Guest Additions were access-
ing a non-existing HGCM service
• Teleportation: several fixes

• Floppy: don’t disable the host I/O cache by default

• USB: fixed 3.1 regression with certain devices (e.g. iPhone); Windows host only

218
 14 Change log

• Serial: updated the guest device emulation to 16550A and reduced the proba-
bility for lossing bytes during transmission (bug #1548)
• NAT: re-fetch the name server parameters from the host on guest DHCP requests
to handle host network switches more gracefully (bug #3847)
• NAT: fixed parsing of IPv4 addresses in CIDR notation (bug #6797)
• NAT: limit the number of name servers passed to the guest to four (non-Windows
hosts only; bug #4098)

• NAT: fixed DNS transaction id mismatch (bug #6833)

• VDE: fixed changing the attachment during runtime
• Bridged Networking: fixed memory leak in the Bridged Networking driver for
Windows hosts (bug #6824)

• Windows Additions: fix for NT4 guests (bug #6748)

• Windows Additions: re-introduced system preparation feature
• Linux guests: enable PAE for RedHat guests by default

• Linux guests: fix support for disabling mouse integration (bug #6714)
• Webservice: fixed a rare crash when calling IGuest methods from the webservice.
• OVF: fixed wrong hard disk UUIDs on export (bug #6802)
• OVF: fixed 3.2.0 regression importing legacy OVF 0.9 files

• 3D support: fixed OpenGL support for 64bit apps on windows guests

• 3D support: fixed various host crashes (bugs #2954, #5713, #6443)

14.5 Version 3.2.0 (2010-05-18)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Following the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation, the prod-

uct is now called “Oracle VM VirtualBox” and all references were changed with-
out impacting compatibility

• Experimental support for Mac OS X Server guests (see chapter 3.1.1, Mac OS X
Server guests, page 48)
• Memory ballooning to dynamically in- or decrease the amount of RAM used by
a VM (64-bit hosts only) (see chapter 4.8, Memory ballooning, page 84)

219
 14 Change log

• Page Fusion automatically de-duplicates RAM when running similar VMs thereby
increasing capacity. Currently supported for Windows guests on 64-bit hosts (see
chapter 4.9, Page Fusion, page 85)
• CPU hot-plugging for Linux (hot-add and hot-remove) and certain Windows
guests (hot-add only) (see chapter 9.5, CPU hot-plugging, page 167)
• New Hypervisor features: with both VT-x/AMD-V on 64-bit hosts, using large
pages can improve performance (see chapter 10.5, Nested paging and VPIDs, page
190); also, on VT-x, unrestricted guest execution is now supported (if nested
paging is enabled with VT-x, real mode and protected mode without paging code
runs faster, which mainly speeds up guest OS booting)
• Support for deleting snapshots while the VM is running
• Support for multi-monitor guest setups in the GUI for Windows guests (see chap-
ter 3.5, Display settings, page 55)
• USB tablet/keyboard emulation for improved user experience if no Guest Addi-
tions are available (see chapter 3.4.1, “Motherboard” tab, page 52)
• LsiLogic SAS controller emulation (see chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE,
SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, page 87)
• RDP video acceleration (see chapter 7.1.9, VRDP video redirection, page 119)
• NAT engine configuration via API and VBoxManage
• Use of host I/O cache is now configurable (see chapter 5.7, Disk images and I/O
caching, page 98)
• Guest Additions: added support for executing guest applications from the host
system (replaces the automatic system preparation feature; see chapter 4.7,
Guest control, page 83)
• OVF: enhanced OVF support with custom namespace to preserve settings that
are not part of the base OVF standard

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed Windows 2000 guest crash when configured with a large amount of
RAM (bug #5800)
• Linux/Solaris guests: PAM module for automatic logons added
• GUI: guess the OS type from the OS name when creating a new VM
• GUI: added VM setting for passing the time in UTC instead of passing the local
host time to the guest (bug #1310)
• GUI: fixed seamless mode on secondary monitors (bugs #1322 and #1669)

220
 14 Change log

• GUI: offer to download the user manual in the OSE version (bug #6442)
• GUI: allow to set an empty host key to disallow any host key combination (bug
#684)
• GUI: allow to restrict the possible actions when shutting down the VM from the
GUI
• Main: allow to start a VM even if a virtual DVD or floppy medium is not accessible
• Settings: be more robust when saving the XML settings files
• Mac OS X: rewrite of the CoreAudio driver and added support for audio input
(bug #5869)
• Mac OS X: external VRDP authentication module support (bug #3106)
• Mac OS X: moved the realtime dock preview settings to the VM settings (no
global option anymore). Use the dock menu to configure it
• Mac OS X: added the VM menu to the dock menu
• 3D support: fixed corrupted surface rendering (bug #5695)
• 3D support: fixed VM crashes when using ARB_IMAGING (bug #6014)
• 3D support: fixed assertion when guest applications uses several windows with
single OpenGL context (bug #4598)
• 3D support: added GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object support
• 3D support: added OpenGL 2.1 support
• 3D support: fixed Final frame of Compiz animation not updated to the screen
(Mac OS X only) (bug #4653)
• 3D support: fixed blank screen after loading snapshot of VM with enabled Com-
piz
• Added support for Virtual Distributed Ethernet (VDE) (Linux hosts only; see chap-
ter 6.2, Introduction to networking modes, page 104)
• Added support for virtual high precision event timer (HPET)
• OVF: fixed mapping between two IDE channels in OVF and the one IDE controller
in VirtualBox
• OVF: fix VMDK format string identifiers and sort XML elements from rasd:
namespace alphabetically as prescribed by standard
• VBoxShell: interactive Python shell extended to be fully functional TUI for
VirtualBox

221
 14 Change log

• Linux Additions: support Fedora 13 (bug #6370)

• VBoxManage: fixed overly strict checks when creating a raw partition VMDK
(bugs #688, #4438)

14.6 Version 3.1.8 (2010-05-10)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed crash with the OpenSUSE 11.3 milestone kernel during early boot
(software virtualization only)
• VMM: fixed invalid state during teleportation
• VMM: fixed OS/2 guest crash with nested paging enabled

• VMM: fixed massive display performance loss (AMD-V with nested paging only)
• GUI: fixed off-by-one bug when passing absolute mouse coordinates to the guest
(3.1.6 regression)
• GUI: show the real version of the Guest Additions, not the interface version

• GUI: when adding a DVD or floppy slot in the VM mass storage settings dialog,
don’t attach a random medium but just leave the slot empty
• GUI: added --seamless and --fullscreen command line switches (bug
#4220)

• GUI: fixed a SEGFAULT under rare circumstances

• 2D Video acceleration: fixed display issues when working with non 32-bit modes
(bugs #6094 & #6208)
• LsiLogic: fixed detection of hard disks attached to port 0 when using the drivers
from LSI
• ATA: fixed sporadic crash with Linux guests when having a hard disk and DVD
drive on the same channel (bug #6079)
• Network: allow to start a VM even if not all network adapters are attached

• Network: promiscuous mode support for e1000 and paravirtualized adapters

(bug #6519)
• NAT: fixed ICMP latency (non-Windows hosts only; bug #6427)
• SCSI: fixed guest crashes under certain circumstances when booting from SCSI
devices

222
 14 Change log

• VBoxManage: fixed several bugs in cloning of images (one of them is bug

#6408)
• VBoxManage: fixed modifyvm –natnet default

• Solaris Hosts: fixed a kernel panic when bridged networking might fail to initial-
ize
• Solaris Hosts: fixed priority tagged VLAN packets in bridged networking
• Shared folders: fixed issue with copying read-only files (Linux guests only; bug
#4890)
• Shared folders: renamed the guest kernel module from vboxvfs to vboxsf to
make it load on demand by the Linux kernel. Fixes mounting from /etc/fstab
in Ubuntu 10.04

• Shared folders: fixed setuid file permissions (Solaris guests only)

• Shared folders: fixed deleting directories recursively (Solaris guests only; bug
#6513)
• Guest Additions: support seamless and dynamic resizing on certain older X11
guests (bug #5840)

• Solaris Additions: fixed OpenGL library dependencies (bug #6435)

• Keyboard/Mouse emulation: fixed handling of simultaneous mouse/keyboard
events under certain circumstances (bug #5375)
• Mouse emulation: never switch straight back from Explorer to IntelliMouse
mode as it confuses the FreeBSD mouse driver (bug #6488)
• SDK: fixed memory leak in IDisplay::takeScreenShotSlow() (bug #6549)
• 3D support: fixed Final frame of Compiz animation not updated to the screen
(Mac OS X only) (bug #4653)

• VRDP: allow to bind to localhost only on Mac OS X (bug #5227)

• Linux hosts: add host USB support for Ubuntu 10.04 and other hosts without the
hal daemon or usbfs (bug #6343)
• webservice: more structs and array fixes in PHP bindings

• Windows hosts: make the bridged networking driver notify dll be correctly un-
registred on uninstall (bug #5780)

223
 14 Change log

14.7 Version 3.1.6 (2010-03-25)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• Linux hosts: fixed timing issue on hosts with Linux kernels 2.6.31 or later with
certain CPUs (asynchronous timer mode; bug #6250)
• Linux hosts: properly handle host suspend/resume events on Linux kernels
2.6.30 or later (bug #5562)
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed VBoxSVC crash while enumerating the host network in-
terfaces under certain circumstances
• Snapshots: fixed image corruption after snapshot merge under certain circum-
stances (bug #6023)
• Snapshots: fixed crash with VBoxHeadless / OSE

• VMM: fixed reference counting guru meditation (bug #4940)

• VMM: improved guest SMP stability
• VMM: fixed VT-x hardware debug issues (bugs #477 & #5792)
• VMM: fixed PGMDynMapHCPage guru meditation (Mac OS X; VT-x only; bug
#6095)
• VMM: fixed pgmPoolTrackFlushGCPhysPTInt guru meditations (Mac OS X; VT-x
only; bugs #6095 & #6125)
• VMM: fixed host crash when running PAE guests in VT-X mode (Mac OS X only;
bug #5771)

• GUI: fix displaying of error message (bug #4345)

• GUI: fix inability to enter seamless mode (bugs #6185, #6188)
• 3D support: fixed assertion and flickering when guest application uses several
windows with a single OpenGL context (bug #4598)

• 3D support: fixed host crashes when using GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array and

array element calls (bug #6165)
• 3D support: fixed runtime linker errors with OpenGL guest libs (bug #5297)

• 3D support: fixed OpenGL extension viewer crash on startup (bug #4962)

• NAT: fixed a 3.1.4 regression on Windows hosts where graceful connection ter-
mination was broken (bug #6237)
• NAT: alternative network setting was not stored persistent (bug #6176)

224
 14 Change log

• NAT: fixed memory corruption during ICMP traffic under certain circumstances
• Network: allow to switch the host interface or the internal network while a VM
is running (bug #5781)

• VHD: fix for images with a block size different than 2MB
• USB: fixed filtered device attach regression (bug #6251)
• USB: fixed crash in OHCI under rare circumstances (bug #3571)

• VRDP: fixed hang under rare circumstances when attaching USB devices
• ACPI: prevent guest freezes when accessing /proc/acpi for determining the state
of the host battery and the AC adapter (Linux hosts only; bug #2836)
• PulseAudio: fixed guest freezes under certain conditions (3.1.4 regression; bug
#6224)

• BIOS: increased space for DMI strings

• BIOS: fixed interrupt routing problem for certain configurations (I/O-APIC en-
abled, ACPI not used; bug #6098)
• iSCSI: be more robust when handling the INQUIRY response

• iSCSI: be more robust when handling sense data

• BusLogic: fixed FreeBSD guests
• webservice: vboxwebsrv is now multithreaded

• webservice: fixed handling of structs and arrays in PHP bindings

• Solaris Installer: fixed netmask to stay persistent across reboots for Host-only
interface (bug #4590)
• Linux installer: removed external dependency to libpng12.so (bug #6243)

• Solaris Additions: fixed superfluous kernel logging (bug #6181)

• Linux Additions: fixed hang when starting the X server in Fedora12 guests and
in guests with Linux 2.6.33 or later (bug #6198)
• Linux Additions: support Mandriva speedboot runlevel (bug #5484)

• Linux Additions: fixed SELinux security context of mount.vboxsf (bug #6362)

• Linux Additions: support Ubuntu 10.04 (bug #5737)
• Web service: update PHP bindings to fix problems with enums and collections

225
 14 Change log

14.8 Version 3.1.4 (2010-02-12)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: SMP stability fixes

• VMM: fixed guru meditation in certain rare cases (bug #5968)

• VMM: activate NXE for PAE enabled guests (VT-x and AMD-V on 32 bits hosts
only; bug #3578)
• VMM: added workaround for broken BIOSes that make VirtualBox think AMD-V
is in use (for details see bug #5639)
• VMM: fixed rare host reboot when restoring a saved state (bug #3945)
• VMM: fixed incompatibility with 2.6.32 Linux kernels (software virtualization
only; bug #6100)

• VMM: turn on nested paging by default for new VMs (if available; VT-x and
AMD-V only)
• VMM: turn on VPID by default for new VMs (if available; VT-x only)
• VMM: perform strict CPUID compatibility checks when teleporting; to get the
old behavior set “VBoxInternal/CPUM/StrictCpuIdChecks” to 0
• VMM: fixed VM crash with certain 16 bits Windows applications (software virtu-
alization only; bug #5399)
• Snapshots: fixed a 3.1 regression that broke deletion of snapshots when a ma-
chine had immutable or writethrough storage attached (bug #5727)

• Saved state: fixed VERR_SSM_LOADED_TOO_MUCH error when loading Dis-

playScreenshot(bug #6162)
• VBoxManage: add restorecurrent operation to snapshots command
• VBoxManage: fixed broken snapshot lookup by name (bug #6070

• GUI: fixed the broken “Reload” button that reloads the machine XML when a
machine is inaccessible
• GUI: fixed guest fullscreen mode after reboot (bug #5372)

• GUI: handle Ctrl+Break properly on X11 hosts (bug #6122)

• GUI: fixed status LEDs for storage devices
• GUI: workaround for disabling the seamless mode on KDE hosts (KWin bug)

226
 14 Change log

• 3D support: fixed SELinux warning saying VBoxOGL.so requires text relocation

(bug #5690)
• 3D support: fixed Corrupted surface rendering (bug #5695)
• 3D support: free textures on guest application termination (bug #5206)
• 3D support: fixed ubigraph_server crashes (bug #4674)
• 3D support: fixes for 64-bit Solaris guests
• Seamless: disable seamless mode when guest changes screen resolution (bug
#5655)
• NAT: fixed high CPU load under certain circumstances (Windows hosts only; bug
#5787)
• NAT: fixed handling of the broadcast flag in DHCP requests
• NAT: fixed rare crash due to an assertion in the ICMP code (bug #3217)
• Virtio-net: don’t crash when ports accessed beyond the valid range (bug #5923)
• LsiLogic: fix for Windows 7 guests
• ATA: fix for guru meditation when installing Solaris 8 guests (bug #5972)
• VHD: fixed an incompatibility with Virtual PC (bug #5990)
• VHD: update the footer backup after setting a new UUID (bug #5004)
• Host DVD: really fixed loading “passthrough” setting from configuration file (bug
#5681)
• Shared folders: fixed resolving of symlink target on Linux (3.1.2 regression)
• VRDP: fixed VERR_NET_ADDRESS_IN_USE error when restarting a VM (3.1 re-
gression; bug #5902)
• VRDP: fixed crash on Mac OS X when 3D is enabled (3.1 regression)
• PulseAudio: fixed recording (bug #4302)
• USB: fixed a shutdown blue screen (Windows hosts only; bug #5885)
• BIOS: fixed attribute during text scroll (bug #3407)
• OVF: fix strange error messages on disk import errors
• OVF: do not require write access to the .ovf file during import (3.1 regression;
bug #5762)
• iSCSI: fix taking snapshots of a running VM (bug #5849)

227
 14 Change log

• Solaris hosts: several USB fixes (including support for Apple iPod; bug #5873)
• Solaris installer: fixed USB module removal and Solaris 10 “id” binary incom-
patibility

• Guest Additions: fixed wrong guest time adjustment if the guest clock is ahead
(3.1 regression; non-Windows guests only)
• Linux Additions: fixed shared folders for Linux 2.6.32 guests (bug #5891)
• Linux Additions: make the mouse driver work on Debian 5.0.3 guests again
(3.1.2 regression, bug #5832)
• Windows Additions: fixed malfunctioning VBoxService that broke time-sync
(bug #5872)
• Windows Additions: fixed uninstallation issues on 64-bit guests

• Windows Additions: fixed some sysprep execution issues

• X.Org Additions: never reject the saved video mode as invalid (bug #5731)
• XFree86 Additions: accept video mode hints for the initial mode again

14.9 Version 3.1.2 (2009-12-17)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed SMP stability regression

• USB: fixed USB related host crashes on 64 bits Windows hosts (bug #5237)
• Main: wrong default HWVirtExExclusive value for new VMs (bug #5664)
• Main: DVD passthrough setting was lost (bug #5681)

• VBoxManage: iSCSI disks do not support adding a comment (bug #4460)

• VBoxManage: added missing –cpus and –memory options to OVF –import
• GUI: fixed VBox URL in update dialog for German and Dutch languages
• GUI: NLS updates

• OVF: fixed export of non standard storage controller names (bug #5643)
• Solaris hosts: several USB fixes (including support for Apple iPhone)
• Mac OS X hosts: several fixes for the 3D support

228
 14 Change log

• Mac OS X hosts: re-enabled CMD+Key combinations, even if the Host-Key isn’t

CMD (bug #5684)
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed to fast scrolling if the mouse wheel is used inside the guest
(bug #5672)
• Mac OS X hosts: dock & menubar don’t disappear in fullscreen when the VM is
not running on the primary display (bug #1762)
• Mac OS X hosts: added an option for enabling “Auto show Dock & Menubar in
fullscreen” (bug #5636)
• Windows host installer: fixed starting VBox with wrong privileges right after
installation (bug #4162)
• Host interface and host-only networking: prevent driver from unloading while a
VM is still active (Windows host only)

• Host-only networking: fixed host-only interface creation (Windows host only)

(bug #5708)
• Virtio-net: don’t crash without an attached network
• Virtio-net: fixed the issue with intermittent network in VM with several virtual
CPU cores.
• NAT: fixed port-forwarding regressions (bug #5666)
• NAT: fixed crash under certain conditions (bug #5427)
• NAT: fixed resolving of names containing a slash or underscore when using the
host resolver DNS proxy (bug #5698)
• ATA: fixed sporadic crash when resuming after a VM was forcefully paused (e.g.
due to iSCSI target being unavailable)
• SATA: fixed raw vmdk disks (bug #5724)

• Linux guests: increased the default memory for Redhat and Fedora guests
• Linux Guest Additions: fixed installation on RHEL 3.9 guests and on some 64bit
guests
• Linux Guest Additions: prevent SELinux warnings concerning text relocations in
VBoxOGL.so (bug #5690)
• X11 guests: fixed mouse support for some Xorg 1.4 guests (openSUSE 11.0)
• X11 guests: fixed xorg.conf modification for some older Xorg releases (open-
SUSE 11.1)

229
 14 Change log

• Windows guests: fixed some VBoxService shutdown issues

• Windows guests: fixed VBoxVideo spinlock issues on NT4

• Windows Guest Additions: fixed uninstallation issues of NT4

• Shared folders: fixed resolving of symlink target (bug #5631)
• 2D Video acceleration: delay loading of OpenGL dlls for Windows hosts to avoid
GUI crashes on misconfigured systems

• 2D Video acceleration: fixed issues with video picture not displayed on playback

14.10 Version 3.1.0 (2009-11-30)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Teleportation (aka live migration); migrate a live VM session from one host to
another (see chapter 7.2, Teleporting, page 119)
• VM states can now be restored from arbitrary snapshots instead of only the last
one, and new snapshots can be taken from other snapshots as well (“branched
snapshots”; see chapter 1.8, Snapshots, page 26)
• 2D video acceleration for Windows guests; use the host video hardware for over-
lay stretching and color conversion (see chapter 4.5.2, Hardware 2D video accel-
eration for Windows guests, page 81)

• More flexible storage attachments: CD/DVD drives can be attached to arbitrary

storage controllers, and there can be more than one such drive (chapter 5, Virtual
storage, page 87)
• The network attachment type can be changed while a VM is running
• Complete rewrite of experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts making use
of the latest USB enhancements in Solaris Nevada 124 and higher
• Significant performance improvements for PAE and AMD64 guests (VT-x and
AMD-V only; normal (non-nested) paging)
• Experimental support for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface; see chapter 3.12,
Alternative firmware (EFI), page 62)
• Support for paravirtualized network adapters (virtio-net; see chapter 6.1, Virtual
networking hardware, page 103)

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: guest SMP fixes for certain rare cases

230
 14 Change log

• GUI: snapshots include a screenshot

• GUI: locked storage media can be unmounted by force

• GUI: the log window grabbed all key events from other GUI windows (bug
#5291)
• GUI: allow to disable USB filters (bug #5426)
• GUI: improved memory slider in the VM settings

• 3D support: major performance improvement in VBO processing

• 3D support: added GL_EXT_framebuffer_object, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
support
• 3D support: fixed crashes in FarCry, SecondLife, Call of Duty, Unreal Tourna-
ment, Eve Online (bugs #2801, #2791)

• 3D support: fixed graphics corruption in World of Warcraft (bug #2816)

• 3D support: fixed Final frame of Compiz animation not updated to the screen
(bug #4653)
• 3D support: fixed incorrect rendering of non ARGB textures under compiz

• iSCSI: support iSCSI targets with more than 2TiB capacity

• VRDP: fixed occasional VRDP server crash (bug #5424)
• Network: fixed the E1000 emulation for QNX (and probably other) guests (bug
#3206)

• NAT: added host resolver DNS proxy (see chapter 9.10.6, Using the host’s resolver
as a DNS proxy in NAT mode, page 177)
• VMDK: fixed incorrectly rejected big images split into 2G pieces (bug #5523,
#2787)

• VMDK: fixed compatibility issue with fixed or raw disk VMDK files (bug #2723)
• VHD: fixed incompatibility with Hyper-V
• Support for Parallels version 2 disk image (HDD) files; see chapter 5.2, Disk
image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD), page 90

• OVF: create manifest files on export and verify the content of an optional mani-
fest file on import
• OVF: fixed memory setting during import (bug #4188)
• Mouse device: now five buttons are passed to the guest (bug #3773)

231
 14 Change log

• VBoxHeadless: fixed loss of saved state when VM fails to start

• VBoxSDL: fixed crash during shutdown (Windows hosts only)

• X11 based hosts: allow the user to specify their own scan code layout (bug
#2302)
• Mac OS X hosts: don’t auto show the menu and dock in fullscreen (bug #4866)
• Mac OS X hosts (64 bit): don’t interpret mouse wheel events as left click (bug
#5049)

• Mac OS X hosts: fixed a VM abort during shutdown under certain conditions

• Solaris hosts: combined the kernel interface package into the VirtualBox main
package
• Solaris hosts: support for OpenSolaris Boomer architecture (with OSS audio
backend).
• Shared folders: VBOXSVR is visible in Network folder (Windows guests, bug
#4842)
• Shared folders: performance improvements (Windows guests, bug #1728)

• Windows, Linux and Solaris Additions: added balloon tip notifier if VirtualBox
host version was updated and Additions are out of date
• Solaris guests: fixed keyboard emulation (bug #1589)
• Solaris Additions: fixed as_pagelock() failed errors affecting guest properties
(bug #5337)
• Windows Additions: added automatic logon support for Windows Vista and Win-
dows 7
• Windows Additions: improved file version lookup for guest OS information

• Windows Additions: fixed runtime OS detection on Windows 7 for session infor-

mation
• Windows Additions: fixed crash in seamless mode (contributed by Huihong Luo)
• Linux Additions: added support for uninstalling the Linux Guest Additions (bug
#4039)

• Linux guest shared folders: allow mounting a shared folder if a file of the same
name as the folder exists in the current directory (bug #928)
• SDK: added object-oriented web service bindings for PHP5

232
 14 Change log

14.11 Version 3.0.12 (2009-11-10)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: reduced IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT/2000/XP/2003

guests; requires 64 bits support (VT-x only; bug #4392)
• VMM: fixed double timer interrupt delivery on old Linux kernels using IO-APIC
(caused guest time to run at double speed; bug #3135)
• VMM: re-initizalize VT-x and AMD-V after host suspend or hibernate; some
BIOSes forget this (Windows hosts only; bug #5421)
• VMM: fixed loading of saved state when RAM preallocation is enabled
• BIOS: ignore unknown shutdown codes instead of causing a guru meditation
(bug #5389)

• GUI: never start a VM on a single click into the selector window (bug #2676)
• Serial: reduce the probability of lost bytes if the host end is connected to a raw
file
• VMDK: fixed handling of split image variants and fix a 3.0.10 regression (bug
#5355)

• VRDP: fixed occasional VRDP server crash

• Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, some guests were
able to send / receive packets (E1000; bug #5366)
• Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, the PCNet card
received some spurious packets which might confuse the guest (bug #4496)
• Shared folders: fixed changing case of file names (bug #2520)
• Windows Additions: fixed crash in seamless mode (contributed by Huihong Luo)
• Linux Additions: fixed writing to files opened in O_APPEND mode (bug #3805)

• Solaris Additions: fixed regression in Guest Additions driver which among other
things caused lost guest property updates and periodic error messages being
written to the system log

233
 14 Change log

14.12 Version 3.0.10 (2009-10-29)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: guest SMP stability fixes

• VMM: fixed guru meditation with nested paging and SMP guests (bug #5222)
• VMM: changed VT-x/AMD-V usage to detect other active hypervisors; necessary
for e.g. Windows 7 XP compatibility mode (Windows & Mac OS X hosts only;
bug #4239)
• VMM: guru meditation during SCO OpenServer installation and reboot (VT-x
only; bug #5164)
• VMM: fixed accessed bit handling in certain cases (bug #5248)
• VMM: fixed VPID flushing (VT-x only)
• VMM: fixed broken nested paging for 64 bits guests on 32 bits hosts (AMD-V
only; bug #5285)
• VMM: fixed loading of old saved states/snapshots (bug #3984)
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed memory leaks (bug #5084)
• Mac OS X hosts (Snow Leopard): fixed redraw problem in a dual screen setup
(bug #4942)
• Windows hosts: installer updates for Windows 7
• Solaris hosts: out of memory handled incorrectly (bug #5241)
• Solaris hosts: the previous fix for #5077 broke the DVD host support on Solaris
10 (VBox 3.0.8 regression)
• Linux hosts: fixed module compilation against Linux 2.6.32rc4 and later
• Guest Additions: fixed possible guest OS kernel memory exhaustion
• Guest Additions: fixed stability issues with SMP guests
• Windows Additions: fixed color depth issue with low resolution hosts, netbooks,
etc. (bug #4935)
• Windows Additions: fixed NO_MORE_FILES error when saving to shared folders
(bug #4106)
• Windows Additions: fixed subdirectory creation on shared folders (bug #4299)
• Linux Additions: sendfile() returned -EOVERFLOW when executed on a shared
folder (bug #2921)

234
 14 Change log

• Linux Additions: fixed incorrect disk usage value (non-Windows hosts only)
• Linux installer: register the module sources at DKMS even if the package pro-
vides proper modules for the current running kernel

• 3D support: removed invalid OpenGL assertion (bug #5158)

• Network: fixed the Am79C973 PCNet emulation for QNX (and probably other)
guests (bug #3206)
• VMDK: fix handling of split image variants

• VHD: do not delay updating the footer when expanding the image to prevent
image inconsistency
• USB: stability fix for some USB 2.0 devices
• GUI: added a search index to the .chm help file

• GUI/Windows hosts: fixed CapsLock handling on French keyboards (bug

#2025)
• Shared clipboard/X11 hosts: fixed a crash when clipboard initialisation failed
(bug #4987)

14.13 Version 3.0.8 (2009-10-02)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed 64 bits guest on 32 bits host regression in 3.0.6 (VT-x only; bug
#4947)
• VMM: fixed a recompiler triple fault guru meditation (VT-x & AMD-V only; bug
#5058)

• VMM: fixed hang after guest state restore (AMD-V, 32 bits Windows guest and
IO-APIC enabled only; bug #5059)
• VMM: fixed paging issue with OS/2 guests
• VMM: fixed guru meditation in rare cases (2.0 regression; software virtualization
only)

• VMM: fixed release assertion during state restore when using the Sound Blaster
16 emulation (bug #5042)
• Security: fixed vulnerability that allowed to execute commands with root privi-
leges

235
 14 Change log

• Linux hosts: fixed runtime assertion in semaphore implementation which was

triggered under certain conditions (bug #616)
• Linux hosts: change the default USB access mode on certain distributions (bugs
#3394 and #4291)
• Linux hosts: on hardened Gentoo, the VBoxSVC daemon crashed by opening the
VM network settings (bug #3732)
• Linux hosts, Solaris hosts: pass the XAUTHORITY variable along the DISPLAY
variable when starting a VM from VBoxManage or from the VM selector (bug
#5063)
• Linux hosts: use sysfs to enumerate host drives if hal is not available
• Solaris hosts: fixed a bug which would hang the host sporadically as interrupts
were not re-enabled every time

• Solaris hosts: fixed a kernel panic with bridged and host-only networking (bug
#4775)
• Solaris hosts: fixed incorrectly persistent CD/DVD-ROMs when changing them
(bug #5077)

• X11-based hosts: support additional function keys on Sun keyboards (bug

#4907)
• Mac OS X hosts (Snow Leopard): fixed problem starting headless VMs without a
graphical session (bug #5002)

• Mac OS X hosts: fixed problem listing host-only adapter names with trailing
garbage (attached VMs won’t start)
• Windows Additions: now work with Vista 64-bit Home editions (bug #3865)
• Windows Additions: fixed screen corruption with ZoomText Magnifier

• Windows Additions: fixed NPGetUniversalName failure (bug #4853)

• Windows Additions: fixed Windows NT regression (bug #4946)
• Windows Additions: fixed VBoxService not running if no Shared Folders are
installed

• Linux Additions: implemented ftrunctate (bug #4771)

• VRDP: start VM even if configured VRDP port is in use
• Networking: the PCnet network device stopped receiving under rare conditions
(bug #4870)

236
 14 Change log

• VBoxManage: implemented controlvm vrdpport command

• iSCSI: fixed issue with NetApp targets (bug #5072)

• SCSI: add support for virtual disks larger than 2TB

• USB: fixed potential crash when unplugging USB2 devices (bug #5089)
• NAT: IPSEC did not properly work with Linux guests (bug #4801)

14.14 Version 3.0.6 (2009-09-09)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003
guests (AMD-V only; bug #4392)
• VMM: fixed a Guru meditation under certain circumstances when enabling a
disabled device (bug #4510)
• VMM: fixed a Guru meditation when booting certain Arch Linux guests (software
virtualization only; bug #2149)

• VMM: fixed hangs with 64 bits Solaris & OpenSolaris guests (bug #2258)
• VMM: fixed decreasing rdtsc values (AMD-V & VT-x only; bug #2869)
• VMM: small Solaris/OpenSolaris performance improvements (VT-x only)

• VMM: cpuid change to correct reported virtual CPU id in Linux

• VMM: NetBSD 5.0.1 CD hangs during boot (VT-x only; bug #3947)
• Solaris hosts: worked around an issue that caused the host to hang (bug #4486)
• Solaris hosts: fixed a rare host system deadlock when using bridged networking

• Solaris hosts: fixed a potential host system deadlock when CPUs were onlined or
offlined
• Solaris hosts installer: added missing dependency for UTF-8 package (bug
#4899)

• Linux hosts: don’t crash on Linux PAE kernels < 2.6.11 (in particular
RHEL/CentOS 4); disable VT-x on Linux kernels < 2.6.13 (bug #1842)
• Linux/Solaris hosts: correctly detect keyboards with fewer keys than usual (bug
#4799)

• Mac OS X hosts: prevent password dialogs in 32 bits Snow Leopard

237
 14 Change log

• Python WS: fixed issue with certain enumerations constants having wrong values
in Python webservices bindings
• Python API: several threading and platform issues fixed

• Python shell: added exportVM command

• Python shell: various improvements and bugfixes
• Python shell: corrected detection of home directory in remote case

• OVF: fixed XML comment handling that could lead to parser errors
• Main: fixed a rare parsing problem with port numbers of USB device filters in
machine settings XML
• Main: restrict guest RAM size to 1.5 GB (32 bits Windows hosts only)

• Main: fixed possible hang during guest reboot (bug #3792)

• GUI: fixed rare crash when removing the last disk from the media manager (bug
#4795)
• VBoxManage: fixed guestproperty for Mac OS X hosts (bug #3806)

• VBoxManage: fixed setting guest properties with –flags or -flags

• Webservice: fixed a severe memory leak, at least on platforms using XPCOM
• Serial: fixed host mode (Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X hosts; bug #4672)
• VRDP: Remote USB Protocol version 3

• SATA: fixed hangs and BSODs introduced with 3.0.4 (bugs #4695, #4739,
#4710)
• SATA: fixed a bug which prevented Windows 7 from detecting more than one
hard disk

• SATA/SCSI: fixed rare random guest crashes and hangs

• SCSI: fixed problem with Fedora 11 refusing to boot after kernel update
• iSCSI: fix logging out when the target has dropped the connection, fix negotia-
tion of parameters, fix command resend when the connection was dropped, fix
processing SCSI status for targets which do not use phase collapse
• BIOS: fixed a bug that caused the OS/2 boot manager to fail (2.1.0 regression,
bug #3911)
• PulseAudio: don’t hang during VM termination if the connection to the server
was unexpectedly terminated (bug #3100)

238
 14 Change log

• Mouse: fixed weird mouse behaviour with SMP (Solaris) guests (bug #4538)
• HostOnly Network: fixed failure in CreateHostOnlyNetworkInterface() on Linux
(no GUID)

• HostOnly Network: fixed wrong DHCP server startup while hostonly interface
bringup on Linux
• HostOnly Network: fixed incorrect factory and default MAC address on Solaris
• HostOnly Network: fixed the problem with listing host-only interfaces on Mac
OS X when all physical interfaces are down (bugs #4698, #4790)
• DHCP: fixed a bug in the DHCP server where it allocated one IP address less than
the configured range
• E1000: fixed receiving of multicast packets

• E1000: fixed up/down link notification after resuming a VM

• NAT: fixed ethernet address corruptions (bug #4839)
• NAT: fixed hangs, dropped packets and retransmission problems (bug #4343)

• Bridged Network: fixed packet queue issue which might cause DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE
BSOD for Windows hosts (bug #4821)
• Windows Additions: fixed a bug in VBoxGINA which prevented selecting the
right domain when logging in the first time
• Windows host installer: should now also work on unicode systems (like Korean,
bug #3707)
• Windows host installer: check for sufficient disk space
• Shared clipboard: do not send zero-terminated text to X11 guests and hosts (bug
#4712)

• Shared clipboard: use a less CPU intensive way of checking for new data on X11
guests and hosts (bug #4092)
• Guest Additions: do not hide the host mouse cursor when restoring a saved state
(bug #4700)

• Windows guests: fixed issues with the display of the mouse cursor image (bugs
#2603, #2660 and #4817)
• SUSE 11 guests: fixed Guest Additions installation (bug #4506)
• Guest Additions: support Fedora 12 Alpha guests (bugs #4731, #4733 and
#4734)

239
 14 Change log

14.15 Version 3.0.4 (2009-08-04)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: 64 bits guest stability fixes (AMD-V only; bugs #3923 & #3666)

• VMM: SMP stability fixes (AMD-V only)

• VMM: SMP performance improvement (esp. for Solaris guests)
• VMM: eliminated several bugs which could lead to a host reboot

• VMM: fixed OS/2 ACP2 boot floppy hang (VT-x only)

• VMM: small performance improvement for OpenSolaris guests (AMD-V only)
• VMM: fixed CentOS/Xen reboot (software virtualization only; bug #4509)
• SATA: fixed hangs / BSOD during Windows XP installation (bug #4342)

• SATA: mark the ports as non hotpluggable (bug #3920)

• 3D support: fix deadlocks and context/window tracking for multithreaded ap-
plications (bug #3922)
• 3D support: fix memory leaks when terminating OpenGL guest applications

• 3D support: fix crash in Call of Duty

• NAT: using two or more NAT adapters in one VM was broken (3.0.0 regression)
• NAT: fixed network communication corruptions (bugs #4499, #4540, #4591,
#4604)

• NAT: fixed passive ftp access to host server (bug #4427)

• iSCSI: fixed cloning to/from iSCSI disks
• GUI: fixed path separator handling for the OVF export on Windows (bug #4354)

• GUI: the mini toolbar was only shown on the first host display (bug #4654)
• GUI: added a VM option to display the mini toolbar on top
• GUI: don’t crash when adding plus configuring host-only network interfaces
• Shared Folders: fixed selection of a drive root directory as a shared folder host
path in VirtualBox (Windows host only)
• USB: fixed a bug that may have rendered USB device filter settings inactive (3.0.2
regression, bug #4668)

240
 14 Change log

• Guest Additions: report the Guest Additions version to the guest properties (bug
#3415)
• Mac OS X hosts: fix creation of VMDK files giving raw partition access (bug
#1461)
• Mac OS X hosts: improved support for Snow Leopard
• Linux hosts: fixed problems leading to wrong colors or transparency in host
windows with some graphics drivers (bug #3095)

• Linux hosts: hardware detection fallbacks if the hal service fails to find any DVD
drives.
• Linux and Solaris hosts: Work around color handling problems in Qt (bug
#4353)

• Solaris hosts: fixed memory leaks in host-only networking

• Solaris Installer: fixed incorrect netmask for Host-only interface (bug #4590)
• Solaris Installer: added package dependency for Python and Python-devel (bug
#4570)

• X11 guests: prevent windows from being skipped in seamless mode KDE guests
(bugs #1681 and #3574)
• X11 guests: fixed screen corruption in X11 guests when large amounts of video
RAM were allocated (bug #4430)
• X11 guests: some fixes when switching between host and guest-drawn mouse
pointers.
• X11 guests: fixed an issue which caused seamless mode to stop working as it
should (the main issue listed in bug #2238).

14.16 Version 3.0.2 (2009-07-10)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed network regressions (guest hangs during network IO) (bug #4343)

• VMM: guest SMP performance improvements

• VMM: fixed hangs and poor performance with Kaspersky Internet Security (VT-
x/AMD-V only; bug #1778)
• VMM: fixed crashes when executing certain Linux guests (software virtualization
only; bugs #2696 & #3868)

241
 14 Change log

• ACPI: fixed Windows 2000 kernel hangs with IO-APIC enabled (bug #4348)
• APIC: fixed high idle load for certain Linux guests (3.0 regression)
• BIOS: properly handle Ctrl-Alt-Del in real mode
• iSCSI: fixed configuration parsing (bug #4236)
• OVF: fix potential confusion when exporting networks
• OVF: compatibility fix (bug #4452)
• OVF: accept ovf:/disk/ specifiers with a single slash in addition to ovf://disk/
(bug #4452)
• NAT: fixed crashes under certain circumstances (bug #4330)
• 3D support: fixed dynamic linking on Solaris/OpenSolaris guests (bug #4399)
• 3D support: fixed incorrect context/window tracking for multithreaded apps
• Shared Folders: fixed loading from saved state (bug #1595)
• Shared Folders: host file permissions set to 0400 with Windows guest (bug
#4381)
• X11 host and guest clipboard: fixed a number of issues, including bug #4380
and #4344
• X11 Additions: fixed some issues with seamless windows in X11 guests (bug
#3727)
• Windows Additions: added VBoxServiceNT for NT4 guests (for time synchro-
nization and guest properties)
• Windows Additions: fixed version lookup
• Linux Installer: support Pardus Linux
• Linux hosts: workaround for buggy graphics drivers showing a black VM window
on recent distributions (bug #4335)
• Linux hosts: fixed typo in kernel module startup script (bug #4388)
• Solaris hosts: several installer fixes
• Solaris host: fixed a preemption issue causing VMs to never start on Solaris 10
(bug #4328).
• Solaris guest: fixed mouse integration for OpenSolaris 2009.06 (bug #4365)
• Windows hosts: fixed high CPU usage after resuming the host (bug #2978)
• Fixed a settings file conversion bug which sometimes caused hardware accelera-
tion to be enabled for virtual machines that had no explicit configuration in the
XML.

242
 14 Change log

14.17 Version 3.0.0 (2009-06-30)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Guest SMP with up to 32 virtual CPUs (VT-x and AMD-V only; see chapter 3.4.2,
“Processor” tab, page 54)
• Windows guests: ability to use Direct3D 8/9 applications / games (experimental;
see chapter 4.5.1, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9), page
79)

• Support for OpenGL 2.0 for Windows, Linux and Solaris guests

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• Solaris hosts: allow suspend/resume on the host when a VM is running (bug

#3826)

• Solaris hosts: loosen the restriction for contiguous physical memory under cer-
tain conditions
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed guest PAE
• Linux hosts: kernel module compile fixes for 2.6.31 (bug #4264)

• VMM: fixed occasional guru meditation when loading a saved state (VT-x only)
• VMM: eliminated IO-APIC overhead with 32 bits guests (VT-x only, some Intel
CPUs don’t support this feature (most do); bug #638)
• VMM: fixed 64 bits CentOS guest hangs during early boot (AMD-V only; bug
#3927)
• VMM: performance improvements for certain PAE guests (e.g. Linux 2.6.29+
kernels)
• VMM: some Windows guests detected a completely wrong CPU frequency (bug
#2227)

• VMM: fixed hanging and unkillable VM processes (bug #4040)

• VMM: fixed random infrequent guest crashes due XMM state corruption (Win64
hosts only)
• VMM: performance improvements for network I/O (VT-x/AMD-V only)

• GUI: added mini toolbar for fullscreen and seamless mode (Thanks to Huihong
Luo)
• GUI: redesigned settings dialogs

243
 14 Change log

• GUI: allow to create/remove more than one host-only network adapters (non
Windows hosts)
• GUI: display estimated time for long running operations (e.g. OVF im-
port/export)
• GUI: fixed rare hangs when open the OVF import/export wizards (bug #4157)
• 3D support: fixed VM crashes for client applications using incorrect OpenGL
states
• 3D support: fixed memory corruption when querying for supported texture com-
pression formats
• 3D support: fixed incorrect rendering of glDrawRangeElements
• 3D support: fixed memory leak when using VBOs
• 3D support: fixed glew library detection
• 3D support: fixed random textures corruption
• VRDP: support Windows 7 RDP client
• Networking: fixed another problem with TX checksum offloading with Linux
kernels up to version 2.6.18
• NAT: fixed “open ports on virtual router 10.0.2.2 - 513, 514” (forum)
• NAT: allow to configure socket and internal parameters
• NAT: allow to bind sockets to specific interface
• PXE boot: significant performance increase (VT-x/AMD-V only)
• VHD: properly write empty sectors when cloning of VHD images (bug #4080)
• VHD: fixed crash when discarding snapshots of a VHD image
• VHD: fixed access beyond the block bitmap which could lead to arbitrary crashes
• VBoxManage: fixed incorrect partition table processing when creating VMDK
files giving raw partition access (bug #3510)
• VBoxManage: support cloning to existing image file
• OVF: several OVF 1.0 compatibility fixes
• OVF: fixed exporting of disk images when multiple virtual machines are exported
at once
• Virtual mouse device: eliminated micro-movements of the virtual mouse which
were confusing some applications (bug #3782)

244
 14 Change log

• Shared Folders: sometimes a file was created using the wrong permissions (2.2.0
regression; bug #3785)
• Shared Folders: allow to change file attributes from Linux guests and use the
correct file mode when creating files
• Shared Folders: some content was incorrectly written under certain conditions
(bug #1187)
• Shared Folders: fixed incorrect file timestamps, when using Windows guest on a
Linux host (bug #3404)
• X11 clipboard: fix duplicate end of lines (bug #4270)
• X11 guests: a number of shared clipboard fixes
• Linux guests: Guest Additions support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11

• Linux guests: new daemon vboxadd-service to handle time synchronization and

guest property lookup
• Linux guests: implemented guest properties (OS info, logged in users, basic
network information)

• Windows host installer: VirtualBox Python API can now be installed automati-
cally (requires Python and Win32 Extensions installed)
• USB: Support for high-speed isochronous endpoints has been added. In addition,
read-ahead buffering is performed for input endpoints (currently Linux hosts
only). This should allow additional devices to work, notably webcams (bug
#242).
• USB: fixed error handling for some USB dongles
• Web service: fixed inability to handle NULL pointers for object arguments, which
are valid values for a lot of APIs, in both the raw and the object-oriented web
service.

• Web service: object-oriented bindings for JAX-WS did not exhibit interface inher-
itance correctly, fixed
• Web service: added support for IDisplay and IGuest interfaces, which were pre-
viously unavailable

• Registration dialog uses Sun Online accounts now

245
 14 Change log

14.18 Version 2.2.4 (2009-05-29)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• Windows Installer: fixed a potential hang during installation

• Windows Installer: fixed several problems (bug #3892)
• Solaris hosts: make it work with Solaris build 114 or later (bug #3981)
• Solaris hosts: fixed a bug serial port character handling found during loopback
(bug #3120)
• Linux hosts: adapted vboxdrv.sh to the latest changes in VBoxManage list
runningvms (bug #4034)

• Windows hosts: fixed a crash caused by host-only/bridged networking

• Mac OS X hosts: fixed access to host DVD with passthrough disabled (bug
#4077)
• Guest Additions: fixed problems with KDE 4 not recognizing mouse clicks
• Windows Additions: fixed incorrect 8-bit guest color depth in Windows 7 guests
• GUI: warn if VT-x/AMD-V could not be enabled for guests that require this setting
(bug #4055)
• VMM: fixed occasional crash due to insufficient memory
• VMM: fixed hanging 64 bits Solaris guests
• VMM: restore from a saved state occasionally failed (bugs #3984 and #2742)
• Clipboard: fixed a deadlock while shutting down the shared clipboard on X11
hosts (bug #4020)
• OVF: fixed potential hang during import
• OVF: fixed potential crashes during import/export on Win64 hosts
• VBoxManage modifyhd --compact: fixed bug which could lead to crashes and
image corruption (bug #3864)
• VBoxManage metrics collect: now flushes the output stream
• VHD: made VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid work for .vhd files
(bug #3443)
• VHD: some .vhd files could not be cloned (bug #4080)
• NAT: improvement of TCP connection establishment (bug #2987)

246
 14 Change log

• NAT: fixed order of DNS servers in DHCP lease (bug #4091)

• NAT: fixed DHCP lease for multiple name servers (bug #3692)

• NAT: fixed a potential segfault if the host lost its connectivity (bug #3964)
• Shared Folders: deny access to parent directories on Windows hosts (bug
#4090)
• Shared Folders: make rm/rmdir work with Solaris guests on Windows hosts

• Networking: fixed the problem with blocked receiving thread when a broadcast
packet arrives too early to be handled by uninitialized e1000 adapter
• Networking: fixed the problem that caused host freezes/crashes when using
bridged mode with host’s interface having RX checksum offloading on (bug
#3926 and related). Fixes problems with TX offloading as well (bug #3870)

• PXE boot: Added support for PRO/1000 MT Server adapter

• Python bindings: fixed keyword conflict
• SCSI: fixed occasional crashes on Win64

• Serial: allow to redirect the serial port to a raw file (bug #1023)
• VRDP: fixed a rare incorrect screen update
• VMDK: fixed creating snapshots

14.19 Version 2.2.2 (2009-04-27)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• Host and guest clipboard: fixed a number of issues affecting hosts and guests
running the X window system

• Guest Additions: make sure the virtual mouse autodetection works on first re-
boot after installing the Additions on X.Org server 1.5 and later
• Guest Additions: properly report process identity number of running services

• Guest Additions: clean up properly if the X Window server terminates

• Linux Additions: fixed installation path for OpenGL libraries in some 64-bit
guests (bug #3693)
• Solaris Additions: fixed installation to work when X.Org is not installed on the
guest

247
 14 Change log

• Solaris Additions: fixed a bug that could panic the guest when unmounting a
busy shared folder
• Windows Additions: fixed mouse pointer integration of some Windows guests
(2.2.0 regression, bug #3734)
• Windows Additions: fixed installation on Windows Server 2008 Core (bug
#2628)
• Main: do not try to use older versions of D-Bus (Linux hosts only, bug #3732)

• VMM: fixed out-of-memory conditions on Windows hosts (bug #3657)

• VMM: fixed occasional hangs when attaching USB devices during VM startup
(2.2.0 regression; bugs #3787)
• VMM: fixed guru meditation related to memory management (software virtual-
ization only)
• Virtual disks: fix possible data corruption when writing to diff images, incorrect
detection of redundant writes
• GUI: reworked network settings dialog

• GUI: properly show the detailed settings dialog of NAT networks (bug #3702)
• GUI: HostKey could not be changed (2.2.0 regression, bug #3689)
• GUI: fixed memory textfield size (Windows hosts only; bug #3679)
• GUI: fixed crash when selecting a shared folder path (Windows hosts only; bugs
#3694, #3751, #3756)
• VBoxManage modifyhd --compact: implemented again for VDI files, and now
supports relative paths (bug #2180, #2833)
• VBoxManage snapshot discard: made it work again (2.1.0 regression; bug
#3714)

• NAT: on some Windows hosts, the guest didn’t receive a DHCP lease (bug #3655)
• NAT: fixed release assertion during poll() (bug #3667)
• Networking: fixed a deadlock caused by the PCnet network device emulation
(2.2.0 regression, bug #3676)

• Clipboard: fixed random crashes (X11 hosts only, bug #3723)

• Shared Folders: fixed incorrect permissions for Solaris guests
• Shared Folders: fixed wrong file sizes with Solaris guests

248
 14 Change log

• CBindings: fixed possible memory leak while releasing the IVirtualBox and ISes-
sion Objects
• Solaris hosts: fixed host-only network interface incompatibility with nwam/dhcpagent
(bug #3754)
• Windows installer: fixed several install and uninstall issues (bugs #3659,
#3686, #1730, #3711, #3373, #3382, #3701, #3685, #3710)
• Mac OS X hosts: preliminary support for Snow Leopard

14.20 Version 2.2.0 (2009-04-08)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• OVF (Open Virtualization Format) appliance import and export (see chapter
1.11, Importing and exporting virtual machines, page 30)
• Host-only networking mode (see chapter 6.6, Host-only networking, page 110)
• Hypervisor optimizations with significant performance gains for high context
switching rates
• Raised the memory limit for VMs on 64-bit hosts to 16GB
• VT-x/AMD-V are enabled by default for newly created virtual machines
• USB (OHCI & EHCI) is enabled by default for newly created virtual machines
(Qt GUI only)
• Experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts
• Shared Folders for Solaris and OpenSolaris guests
• OpenGL 3D acceleration for Linux and Solaris guests (see chapter 4.5.1, Hard-
ware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9), page 79)
• Added C API in addition to C++, Java, Python and Web Services

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: FreeBSD guest related fix for V86 flags (bug #2342)

• VMM: fixed guru meditation when booting an AsteriskNow Linux VM (bug

#2342)
• VMM: fixed PGMPOOLKIND_FREE guru meditation (bugs #3356, #3431)
• VMM: fixed Windows XP boot hang (guest PAE + nested paging only)

249
 14 Change log

• VMM: allow mixing of VT-x/AMD-V and software virtualization

• VMM: fixed extremely slow safe mode booting in e.g. Windows 2008 (VT-
x/AMD-V only)

• VMM: significant speedup of certain GRUB boot loaders (e.g. Solaris) (VT-
x/AMD-V only)
• VMM: real-mode IOPL fix for DOS guests (VT-x only)
• VMM: fixed VT-x detection with certain BIOSes that enable VT-x, but don’t set
the lock bit in MSR_IA32_FEATURE_CONTROL
• VMM: fixed hibernation issues on Windows XP hosts (VT-x only; bug #1794)
• VMM: properly emulate RDMSR from the TSC MSR, should fix some NetBSD
guests

• VMM: emulate RDPMC; fixes Windows guests crashes when using the Kaspersky
virus scanner (bug #1778)
• NAT: fixed truncated downloads (FTP) (bug #3257)
• NAT: blocked UDP packets caused a crash (bug #3426)

• NAT: allow to configure the next server and the boot file via VBoxManage (bug
#2759)
• IDE: fixed hard disk upgrade from XML-1.2 settings (bug #1518)
• Hard disk: support more VMDK file variants (including fixed-size ESX server
images)
• Hard disks: refuse to start the VM if a disk image is not writable
• USB: further reduced host CPU utilization for OHCI and EHCI; the “VBoxInternal/Devices/usb-
ohci/0/Config/FrameRate” CFG key is no longer necessary and no longer sup-
ported

• USB: fixed BSOD on the host with certain USB devices (Windows hosts only; bug
#1654)
• E1000: properly handle cable disconnects (bug #3421)

• VRDP: fixed hangs when VRDP server is enabled or disabled in runtime

• Shared Folders: respect umask settings on Linux, OSX and Solaris hosts when
creating files
• X11 guests: prevented setting the locale in vboxmouse, as this caused problems
with Turkish locales (bug #3563)

250
 14 Change log

• X11 guests: show the guest mouse pointer at the right position if the virtual
desktop is larger than the guest resolution (bug #2306)
• Linux Additions: fixed typo when detecting Xorg 1.6 (bug #3555)

• Solaris guests: added xpg4/xcu4 dependency to the Guest Additions installer

(bug #3524)
• Windows guests: bind the VBoxMouse.sys filter driver to the correct guest point-
ing device (bug #1324)

• Windows hosts: fixed BSOD when starting a VM with enabled host interface
(bug #3414)
• Linux hosts: do proper reference counting to prevent unloading the vboxnetflt
module as long as this code is in use (bug #3104)

• Linux hosts: do not leave zombies of VBoxSysInfo.sh (bug #3586)

• Linux installers: fixes for Slackware, Arch Linux and Linux from Scratch systems
• Windows installers: combined installer executable which contains both (32- and
64-bit) architectures

• VBoxManage: less cryptic command-line error messages

• VBoxManage list vms commands now default to compact format
• VBoxManage controlvm dvdattach did not work if the image was attached
before

• VBoxManage: allow creation of all supported disk image variants

• VBoxManage showvminfo: don’t spam the release log if the Guest Additions
don’t support statistics information (bug #3457)
• VBoxManage: big command line processing cleanup, the legacy single-dash op-
tions are deprecated and will be removed in the next major release, so switch to
the new options now
• Hard disks: improved immutable disk support to auto-reset diff file at VM startup
(related to bug #2772)
• GUI: enable the audio adapter by default for new VMs

• GUI: warn if VT-x/AMD-V is not operational when starting a 64-bit guest

• GUI: deactivate 64-bit guest support when the host CPU does not support VT-
x/AMD-V
• GUI: removed floppy icon from the status bar

251
 14 Change log

• GUI: show build revision in about dialog

• GUI: fixed sticky status bar text

• GUI: improved error dialogs

• GUI: fail with an appropriate error message when trying to boot a read-only disk
image (bug #1745)
• GUI/Mac OS X: fixed disabled close button

• GUI/Windows: re-enabled support for copy and paste (Windows hosts 2.0 re-
gression; bug #2065)
• 3D support: added OpenGL select/feedback support (bug #2920)
• 3D support: close OpenGL subsystem for terminated guest applications (bug
#3243)

• 3D support: fixed VM hangs when starting guests with 3D acceleration enabled

(bug #3437)
• PXE: fixed boot hangs when hardware virtualization is used (bug #2536)

• LsiLogic: fixed problems with Solaris guests

• Main API: close machine settings XML file when unregistering machine (bug
#3548)

14.21 Version 2.1.4 (2009-02-16)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• Windows hosts: fixed host crashes/hangs on certain 32 bits Windows systems

when running Linux guests (bugs #1606, #2269, #2763)

• Windows hosts: fixed network component BSOD issue (bugs #3168, #2916)
• Windows hosts: fixed installation issues (bugs #2517, #1730, #3130)
• Linux hosts: fixed occasional kernel oopses (bug #2556)

• Linux hosts: fixed module dependency for shipped modules (bug #3115)
• Linux hosts: moved the udev rules for USB forward so that they don’t override
existing system rules (bug #3143)
• Linux hosts: fixed the issue with guest not being able to communicate with each
other when attached via TAP interfaces (bug #3215)

252
 14 Change log

• Linux hosts: give up probing for USB gracefully if DBus or hal are not available
(bug #3136)
• Linux hosts: fixed warnings in installer when SELinux was disabled (bug #3098)

• Linux hosts: VirtualBox sometimes failed to start if it had been started using
sudo previously (bug #3270)
• Solaris hosts: fixed high CPU load while running many guests in parallel
• Solaris hosts: fixed inability to start more than 128 VMs

• VMM: fixed performance regression for Windows guests (bug #3172)

• VMM: ignore CPU stepping when restoring a saved state/snapshot
• REM: fixed inability to use gdb to debug programs in Linux guests with software
virtualization (bug #3245)

• GUI: fixed dead key handling on Solaris hosts (bug #3256)

• GUI: in the shutdown dialog, disable the action send the shutdown signal if the
guest is currently not using ACPI
• GUI: suppress additional key release events sent by X11 hosts when keys are
auto-repeated (bug #1296)
• API: restore case insensitive OS type name lookup (bug #3087)
• VBoxHeadless: really don’t start X11 services (clipboard service, 3D acceleration;
Solaris & Darwin hosts only; bug #3199)

• NAT: fixed occasional crashes when the guest is doing traceroute (non-Windows
hosts; bug #3200)
• NAT: fixed crashes under high load (bug #3110)
• NAT: fixed truncated downloads (Windows hosts only, bug #3257)

• NAT: don’t intercept TFTP packages with a destination address different from the
builtin TFTP server (bug #3112)
• USB: several fixes for USB passthrough on Linux hosts
• USB: reduced host CPU utilization if EHCI is active

• VRDP: fixed VRDP server black screen after a client reconnect (bug #1989)
• VRDP: modified rdesktop client (rdesktop-vrdp) now uses NumLock state syn-
chronization (bug #3253)
• LsiLogic: make FreeBSD guests work (bug #3174)

253
 14 Change log

• ATA: fixed deadlock when pausing VM due to problems with the virtual disk (e.g.
disk full, iSCSI target unavailable)
• iSCSI: fixed possible crash when pausing the VM

• 3D support: added missing GL_MAX_TEXTURE_COORDS_ARB (bug #3246)

• Windows Additions: fixed ERROR (e0000101) error during installation (bug
#1923)
• Windows Additions: fixed Windows Explorer hang when browsing shared folders
with 64 bit guests (bug #2225)
• Windows Additions: fixed guest screen distortions during a video mode change
• Windows Additions: fixed the Network drive not connected message for mapped
shared folders drives after the guest startup (bug #3157)

• Linux Additions: fixed occasional file corruption when writing files in O_APPEND
mode to a shared folder (bug #2844)
• Linux Additions: the mouse driver was not properly set up on X.Org release
candidates (bug #3212)

• Linux Additions: fixed installer to work with openSUSE 11.1 (bug #3213)
• Linux Additions: disable dynamic resizing if the X server is configured for fixed
resolutions
• Linux/Solaris Additions: handle virtual resolutions properly which are larger
than the actual guest resolution (bug #3096)

14.22 Version 2.1.2 (2009-01-21)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• USB: Linux host support fixes (bug #3136)

• VMM: fixed guru meditation for PAE guests on non-PAE hosts (AMD-V)
• VMM: fixed guru meditation on Mac OS X hosts when using VT-x

• VMM: allow running up to 1023 VMs on 64-bit hosts (used to be 127)

• VMM: several FreeBSD guest related fixes (bugs #2342, #2341, #2761)
• VMM: fixed guru meditation when installing Suse Enterprise Server 10U2 (VT-x
only; bug #3039)

254
 14 Change log

• VMM: fixed guru meditation when booting Novell Netware 4.11 (VT-x only; bug
#2898)
• VMM: fixed VERR_ADDRESS_TOO_BIG error on some Mac OS X systems when
starting a VM
• VMM: clear MSR_K6_EFER_SVME after probing for AMD-V (bug #3058)
• VMM: fixed guru meditation during Windows 7 boot with more than 2 GB guest
RAM (VT-x, nested paging only)
• VMM: fixed hang during OS/2 MCP2 boot (AMD-V and VT-x only)
• VMM: fixed loop during OpenBSD 4.0 boot (VT-x only)
• VMM: fixed random crashes related to FPU/XMM with 64 bits guests on 32 bits
hosts
• VMM: fixed occasional XMM state corruption with 64 bits guests
• GUI: raised the RAM limit for new VMs to 75% of the host memory
• GUI: added Windows 7 as operating system type
• VBoxSDL: fixed -fixed fixedmode parameter (bug #3067)
• Clipboard: stability fixes (Linux and Solaris hosts only, bug #2675 and #3003)
• 3D support: fixed VM crashes for certain guest applications (bugs #2781,
#2797, #2972, #3089)
• LsiLogic: improved support for Windows guests (still experimental)
• VGA: fixed a 2.1.0 regression where guest screen resize events were not properly
handled (bug #2783)
• VGA: significant performance improvements when using VT-x/AMD-V on Mac
OS X hosts
• VGA: better handling for VRAM offset changes (fixes GRUB2 and Dos DOOM
display issues)
• VGA: custom VESA modes with invalid widths are now rounded up to correct
ones (bug #2895)
• IDE: fixed ATAPI passthrough support (Linux hosts only; bug #2795)
• Networking: fixed kernel panics due to NULL pointer dereference in Linux ker-
nels < 2.6.20 (Linux hosts only; bug #2827)
• Networking: fixed intermittent BSODs when using the new host interface (Win-
dows hosts only; bugs #2832, #2937, #2929)

255
 14 Change log

• Networking: fixed several issues with displaying hostif NICs in the GUI (Win-
dows hosts only; bugs 2814, #2842)
• Networking: fixed the issue with displaying hostif NICs without assigned IP ad-
dresses (Linux hosts only; bug #2780)
• Networking: fixed the issue with sent packets coming back to internal network
when using hostif (Linux hosts only; bug #3056).
• NAT: fixed port forwarding (Windows hosts only; bug #2808)

• NAT: fixed booting from the builtin TFTP server (bug #1959)
• NAT: fixed occasional crashes (bug #2709)
• SATA: vendor product data (VPD) is now configurable
• SATA: raw disk partitions were not recognized (2.1.0 regression, Windows host
only, bug #2778)
• SATA: fixed timeouts in the guest when using raw VMDK files (Linux host only,
bug #2796)
• SATA: huge speed up during certain I/O operations like formatting a drive

• SATA/IDE: fixed possible crash/errors during VM shutdown

• VRDP: fixed loading of libpam.so.1 from the host (Solaris hosts only)
• VRDP: fixed RDP client disconnects

• VRDP: fixed VRDP server misbehavior after a broken client connection

• VBoxManage showvminfo: fixed assertion for running VMs (bug #2773)
• VBoxManage convertfromraw: added parameter checking and made it default
to creating VDI files; fixed and documented format parameter (bug #2776)

• VBoxManage clonehd: fixed garbled output image when creating VDI files (bug
#2813)
• VBoxManage guestproperty: fixed property enumeration (incorrect parame-
ters/exception)
• VHD: fixed error when attaching certain container files (bug #2768)

• Solaris hosts: added support for serial ports (bug #1849)

• Solaris hosts: fix for Japanese keyboards (bug #2847)
• Solaris hosts: 32-bit and 64-bit versions now available as a single, unified pack-
age

256
 14 Change log

• Linux hosts: don’t depend on libcap1 anymore (bug #2859)

• Linux hosts: kernel module compile fixes for 2.6.29-rc1

• Linux hosts: don’t drop any capability if the VM was started by root (2.1.0 re-
gression)
• Mac OS X hosts: save the state of running or paused VMs when the host ma-
chine’s battery reaches critical level
• Mac OS X hosts: improved window resizing of the VM window

• Mac OS X hosts: added GUI option to disable the dock icon realtime preview in
the GUI to decrease the host CPU load when the guest is doing 3D
• Mac OS X hosts: polished realtime preview dock icon
• Windows Additions: fixed guest property and logging OS type detection for Win-
dows 2008 and Windows 7 Beta
• Windows Additions: added support for Windows 7 Beta (bugs #2995, #3015)
• Windows Additions: fixed Windows 2000 guest freeze when accessing files on
shared folders (bug #2764)

• Windows Additions: fixed CTRL-ALT-DEL handling when using VBoxGINA

• Windows Additions Installer: added /extract switch to only extract (not install)
the files to a directory (can be specified with /D=path)
• Linux installer and Additions: added support for the Linux From Scratch distri-
bution (bug #1587) and recent Gentoo versions (bug #2938)
• Additions: added experimental support for X.Org Server 1.6 RC on Linux guests
• Linux Additions: fixed bug which prevented to properly set fmode on mapped
shared folders (bug #1776)

• Linux Additions: fixed appending of files on shared folders (bug #1612)

• Linux Additions: ignore noauto option when mounting a shared folder (bug
#2498)
• Linux Additions: fixed a driver issue preventing X11 from compiling keymaps
(bug #2793 and #2905)
• X11 Additions: workaround in the mouse driver for a server crash when the
driver is loaded manually (bug #2397)

257
 14 Change log

14.23 Version 2.1.0 (2008-12-17)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Support for hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V) on Mac OS X hosts

• Support for 64-bit guests on 32-bit host operating systems (experimental; see
chapter 3.1.2, 64-bit guests, page 49)
• Added support for Intel Nehalem virtualization enhancements (EPT and VPID;
see chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page 185)

• Experimental 3D acceleration via OpenGL (see chapter 4.5.1, Hardware 3D ac-

celeration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9), page 79)
• Experimental LsiLogic and BusLogic SCSI controllers (see chapter 5.1, Hard disk
controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, page 87)

• Full VMDK/VHD support including snapshots (see chapter 5.2, Disk image files
(VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD), page 90)
• New NAT engine with significantly better performance, reliability and ICMP echo
(ping) support (bugs #1046, #2438, #2223, #1247)
• New Host Interface Networking implementations for Windows and Linux hosts
with easier setup (replaces TUN/TAP on Linux and manual bridging on Win-
dows)

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: significant performance improvements for VT-x (real mode execution)

• VMM: support for hardware breakpoints (VT-x and AMD-V only; bug #477)
• VMM: VGA performance improvements for VT-x and AMD-V
• VMM: Solaris and OpenSolaris guest performance improvements for AMD-V
(Barcelona family CPUs only)

• VMM: fixed guru meditation while running the Dr. Web virus scanner (software
virtualization only; bug #1439)
• VMM: deactivate VT-x and AMD-V when the host machine goes into suspend
mode; reactivate when the host machine resumes (Windows, Mac OS X & Linux
hosts; bug #1660)
• VMM: fixed guest hangs when restoring VT-x or AMD-V saved states/snapshots
• VMM: fixed guru meditation when executing a one byte debug instruction (VT-x
only; bug #2617)

258
 14 Change log

• VMM: fixed guru meditation for PAE guests on non-PAE hosts (VT-x)
• VMM: disallow mixing of software and hardware virtualization execution in gen-
eral (bug #2404)

• VMM: fixed black screen when booting OS/2 1.x (AMD-V only)
• GUI: pause running VMs when the host machine goes into suspend mode (Win-
dows & Mac OS X hosts)
• GUI: resume previously paused VMs when the host machine resumes after sus-
pend (Windows & Mac OS X hosts)
• GUI: save the state of running or paused VMs when the host machine’s battery
reaches critical level (Windows hosts)
• GUI: properly restore the position of the selector window when running on the
compiz window manager
• GUI: properly restore the VM in seamless mode (2.0 regression)
• GUI: warn user about non optimal memory settings
• GUI: structure operating system list according to family and version for improved
usability
• GUI: predefined settings for QNX guests
• IDE: improved ATAPI passthrough support
• Networking: added support for up to 8 Ethernet adapters per VM

• Networking: fixed issue where a VM could lose connectivity after a reboot

• iSCSI: allow snapshot/diff creation using local VDI file
• iSCSI: improved interoperability with iSCSI targets

• Graphics: fixed handling of a guest video memory which is not a power of two
(bug #2724)
• VBoxManage: fixed bug which prevented setting up the serial port for direct
device access
• VBoxManage: added support for VMDK and VHD image creation

• VBoxManage: added support for image conversion (VDI/VMDK/VHD/RAW)

• Solaris hosts: added IPv6 support between host and guest when using host in-
terface networking
• Mac OS X hosts: added ACPI host power status reporting

259
 14 Change log

• API: redesigned storage model with better generalization

• API: allow attaching a hard disk to more than one VM at a time

• API: added methods to return network configuration information of the host

system
• Shared Folders: performance and stability fixes for Windows guests (Microsoft
Office Applications)

14.24 Version 2.0.8 (2009-03-10)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed guest hangs when restoring VT-x or AMD-V saved states/snapshots

• VMM: fixed memory allocation issues which can cause VM start failures with
VERR_PGM_MAPPING_CONFLICT error
• VMM: fixed host crashes/hangs on certain 32 bits Windows systems when run-
ning Linux guests (bugs #1606, #2269, #2763)

• XPCOM/Main: fixed synchronization bug caused by SYSV semaphore key colli-

sions
• ATA: fixed deadlock when pausing VM due to problems with the virtual disk (e.g.
disk full, iSCSI target unavailable)

• iSCSI: fixed possible crash when pausing the VM

• iSCSI: fix PDU validity checking and detect final PDU reliably
• VBoxHeadless: really don’t start X11 services (clipboard service, 3D acceleration;
Solaris & Darwin hosts only; bug #3199)

• Networking: fixed issue where a VM could lose connectivity after a reboot

• Linux hosts: fixed occasional kernel oopses (bug #2556)
• Solaris hosts: fixed high CPU load while running many guests in parallel
• Solaris hosts: fixed inability to start more than 128 VMs

• Solaris/Web services: fixed SMF script to set home directory correctly

• Linux Additions: fixed occasional file corruption when writing files in O_APPEND
mode to a shared folder (bug #2844)

260
 14 Change log

14.25 Version 2.0.6 (2008-11-21)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed Guru meditation when running 64 bits Windows guests (bug #2220)

• VMM: fixed Solaris 10U6 boot hangs (VT-x and AMD-V) bug #2565)
• VMM: fixed Solaris 10U6 reboot hangs (AMD-V only; bug #2565)
• GUI: the host key was sometimes not properly displayed (Windows hosts only,
bug #1996)

• GUI: the keyboard focus was lost after minimizing and restoring the VM window
via the Windows taskbar (bugs #784)
• VBoxManage: properly show SATA disks when showing the VM information (bug
#2624)

• SATA: fixed access if the buffer size is not sector-aligned (bug #2024)
• SATA: improved performance
• SATA: fixed snapshot function with ports>1 (bug #2510)

• E1000: fixed crash under rare circumstances

• USB: fixed support for iPhone and Nokia devices (Linux host: bugs #470 &
#491)
• Windows host installer: added proper handling of open VirtualBox applications
when updating the installation

• Windows host installer: fixed default installation directory on 64-bit on new

installations (bug #2501)
• Linux/Solaris/Darwin hosts: verify permissions in /tmp/vbox-$USER-ipc
• Linux hosts: fixed assertion on high network load (AMD64 hosts, fix for Linux
distributions with glibc 2.6 and newer (bug #616)
• Linux hosts: don’t crash during shutdown with serial ports connected to a host
device
• Solaris hosts: fixed incompatibility between IPSEC and host interface networking

• Solaris hosts: fixed a rare race condition while powering off VMs with host in-
terface networking
• Solaris hosts: fixed VBoxSDL on Solaris 10 by shipping the required SDL library
(bug #2475)

261
 14 Change log

• Windows Additions: fixed logged in users reporting via guest properties when
using native RDP connections
• Windows Additions: fixed Vista crashes when accessing shared folders under
certain circumstances (bug #2461)
• Windows Additions: fixed shared folders access with MS-Office (bug #2591)
• Linux Additions: fixed compilation of vboxvfs.ko for 64-bit guests (bug #2550)
• SDK: added JAX-WS port caching to speedup connections

14.26 Version 2.0.4 (2008-10-24)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: better error reporting for VT-x failures

• VMM: don’t overflow the release log with PATM messages (bug #1775)
• VMM: fixed save state restore in real mode (software virtualization only)

• GUI: work around a Qt bug on Mac OS X (bug #2321)

• GUI: properly install the Qt4 accessible plugin (bug #629)
• SATA: error message when starting a VM with a VMDK connected to a SATA port
(bug #2182)

• SATA: fixed Guru mediation when booting OpenSolaris/64; most likely applies
to other guests as well (bug #2292)
• Network: don’t crash when changing the adapter link state if no host driver is
attached (bug #2333)
• VHD: fixed bug which prevents booting from VHD images bigger than 4GB (bug
#2085)
• VRDP: fixed a repaint problem when the guest resolution was not equal to the
client resolution
• Clipboard: don’t crash when host service initialization takes longer than ex-
pected (Linux hosts only; bug #2001)
• Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe crash (bug #2212)
• Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe memory leak due to a Windows WMI memory
leak (Vista only) (bug #2242)

• Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe delays GUI startup

262
 14 Change log

• Linux hosts: handle jiffies counter overflow (VM stuck after 300 seconds of host
uptime; bug #2247)
• Solaris hosts: fixed host or guest side networking going stale while using host
interface networking (bug #2474)
• Solaris hosts: added support for using unplumbed network interfaces and Cross-
bow Virtual Network Interfaces (VNICs) with host interface networking
• Solaris hosts: reworked threading model improves performance for host inter-
face networking
• Windows Additions: fixed crash when accessing deep directory structures in a
shared folder
• Windows Additions: improved shared folder name resolving (bug #1728)

• Windows Additions: fixed Windows 2000 shutdown crash (bug #2254)

• Windows Additions: fixed error code for MoveFile() if the target exists (bug
#2350)
• Linux Additions: fixed seek() for files bigger than 2GB (bug #2379)

• Linux Additions: support Ubuntu 8.10

• Linux Additions: clipboard fixes (bug #2015)
• Web services: improved documentation and fixed example (bug #1642)

14.27 Version 2.0.2 (2008-09-12)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed inability to run more than one VM in parallel (AMD-V on CPUs with
erratum 170 only; bug #2167)
• VMM: VT-x stability fixes (bug #2179 and others)
• VMM: fixed Linux 2.6.26+ kernel crashes (used by Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha, Fedora
10 Alpha; bug #1875)

• VMM: fixed 64 bits Linux 2.6.26 kernel crashes (Debian)

• VMM: fixed Vista (32 bits) guest crash during boot when PAE and NX are enabled
(applied to 64 bits hosts with VT-x enabled only)
• VMM: fixed OS/2 guest crashes during boot (AMD-V; bug #2132)

263
 14 Change log

• GUI: fixed crash when trying to release an inaccessible image in the virtual disk
manager
• GUI: fixed invalid error message for a changed snapshot path even if that path
wasn’t changed (bug #2064)
• GUI: fixed crash when creating a new hard disk image (bug #2060)
• GUI: fixed crash when adding a hard disk in the VM settings (bug #2081)
• GUI: fixed a bug where VirtualBox isn’t working with the new QGtkStyle plugin
(bug #2066)
• GUI: fixed VM close dialog in seamless mode (Mac OS X hosts only; bug #2067)
• GUI: fixed standard menu entries for NLS versions (Mac OS X hosts only)
• GUI: disable the VT-x/AMD-V setting when it’s not supported by the CPU (or on
Mac OS X hosts)
• VBoxManage: fixed crash during internalcommands createrawvmdk (bug
#2184)
• VBoxManage: fixed output of snapshot showvminfo (bug #698)

• Guest properties: added information about guest network interfaces (Windows

guests only)
• Shared Folders: fixed regression that caused Windows guest crashes
• API: fixed number of installed CPUs (Solaris hosts only)

• VRDP: allow a client to reconnect to an existing session on the VRDP server

by dropping the existing connection (configurable and disabled by default; only
relevant when multiconnection mode is disabled)
• VRDP: fixed an image repaint problem

• Linux hosts: fixed bug in vboxdrv.ko that could corrupt kernel memory and panic
the kernel (bug #2078)
• Linux hosts: compile fixes for kernel module on Linux 2.6.27
• Mac OS X hosts: added Python support

• Additions: fixed a possible hang in HGCM communication after a VM reboot

• Windows Additions: added support for Windows XP 64 bits (bug #2117)
• Linux Additions: deactivate dynamic resizing on Linux guests with buggy X
servers

264
 14 Change log

• Linux Additions: support Ubuntu 8.10 guests and Fedora 9 guests (dynamic
resizing disabled for the latter)
• Linux Additions: added installer check for the system architecture

• Linux Additions: fixed Xorg modules path for some Linux distributions (bug
#2128)
• VMDK: be more liberal with ambiguous parts of the format specification and
accept more format variants (bug #2062)

• VHD: fixed a bug in the VHD backend which resulted in reading the wrong data
(bug #2085)
• Solaris hosts: fixed kernel panic on certain machines when starting VMs with
host interface networking (bug #2183)

• Solaris hosts: fixed inability to access NFS shares on the host when host interface
networking was enabled
• Solaris hosts: installer now detects and reports when installing under the wrong
architecture
• Solaris hosts: fixed security hardening that prevented starting VMs from non-
global zones even as root (bug #1948)
• Solaris Additions: combined the 32 bit and 64 bit Additions installer into a single
package
• Mac OS X hosts: experimental support for attaching a real serial port to the guest

14.28 Version 2.0.0 (2008-09-04)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• 64 bits guest support (64 bits host only)

• New native Leopard user interface on Mac OS X hosts
• The GUI was converted from Qt3 to Qt4 with many visual improvements
• New-version notifier

• Guest property information interface

• Host Interface Networking on Mac OS X hosts
• New Host Interface Networking on Solaris hosts

• Support for Nested Paging on modern AMD CPUs (major performance gain)

265
 14 Change log

• Framework for collecting performance and resource usage data (metrics)

• Added SATA asynchronous IO (NCQ: Native Command Queuing) when accessing
raw disks/partitions (major performance gain)

• Clipboard integration for OS/2 Guests

• Created separate SDK component featuring a new Python programming interface
on Linux and Solaris hosts
• Support for VHD disk images

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: VT-x fixes

• AHCI: improved performance

• GUI: keyboard fixes

• Linux installer: properly uninstall the package even if unregistering the DKMS
module fails
• Linux Additions: the guest screen resolution is properly restored

• Network: added support for jumbo frames (> 1536 bytes)

• Shared Folders: fixed guest crash with Windows Media Player 11
• Mac OS X: Ctrl+Left mouse click doesn’t simulate a right mouse click in the guest
anymore. Use Hostkey+Left for a right mouse click emulation. (bug #1766)

In VirtualBox 3.2, changelog information for versions before 2.0 were removed in
order to save space. To access this information, please consult the user manual of
VirtualBox 3.1 or earlier.

266
15 Third-party materials and licenses
VirtualBox incorporates materials from several Open Source software projects. There-
fore the use of these materials by VirtualBox is governed by different Open Source
licenses. This document reproduces these licenses and provides a list of the materials
used and their respective licensing conditions. Section 1 contains a list of the materials
used. Section 2 reproduces the applicable Open Source licenses. For each material, a
reference to its license is provided.
The source code for the materials listed below as well as the rest of the VirtualBox
code which is released as open source are available at http://www.virtualbox.org,
both as tarballs for particular releases and as a live SVN repository.

15.1 Materials
• VirtualBox contains portions of QEMU which is governed by the licenses in chap-
ter 15.2.5, X Consortium License (X11), page 289 and chapter 15.2.2, GNU Lesser
General Public License (LGPL), page 274 and
(C) 2003-2005 Fabrice Bellard; Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Vassili Karpov (malc);
Copyright (c) 2004 Antony T Curtis; Copyright (C) 2003 Jocelyn Mayer
• VirtualBox contains code which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.5, X
Consortium License (X11), page 289 and
Copyright 2004 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• VirtualBox contains code of the BOCHS VGA BIOS which is governed by the
license in chapter 15.2.2, GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), page 274
and
Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 the LGPL VGABios developers Team.
• VirtualBox contains code of the BOCHS ROM BIOS which is governed by the
license in chapter 15.2.2, GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), page 274
and
Copyright (C) 2002 MandrakeSoft S.A.; Copyright (C) 2004 Fabrice Bellard;
Copyright (C) 2005 Struan Bartlett.
• VirtualBox contains the zlib library which is governed by the license in chapter
15.2.6, zlib license, page 289 and
Copyright (C) 1995-2003 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler.

267
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

• VirtualBox may contain OpenSSL which is governed by the license in chapter

15.2.7, OpenSSL license, page 290 and
Copyright (C) 1995-1998 Eric Young ([email protected]). This product in-
cludes software written by Tim Hudson ([email protected]).
• VirtualBox may contain NSPR and XPCOM which is governed by the license in
chapter 15.2.3, Mozilla Public License (MPL), page 282 and
Copyright (C) The Authors.
• VirtualBox contains Slirp which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.8,
Slirp license, page 291 and was written by Danny Gasparovski.
Copyright (C) 1995, 1996 All Rights Reserved.
• VirtualBox contains liblzf which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.9,
liblzf license, page 291 and
Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Marc Alexander Lehmann <[email protected]>
• VirtualBox may ship with a modified copy of rdesktop which is governed by the
license in chapter 15.2.1, GNU General Public License (GPL), page 270 and
Copyright (C) Matthew Chapman and others.
• VirtualBox may ship with a copy of kchmviewer which is governed by the license
in chapter 15.2.1, GNU General Public License (GPL), page 270 and
Copyright (C) George Yunaev and others.
• VirtualBox may contain Etherboot which is governed by the license in chapter
15.2.1, GNU General Public License (GPL), page 270 with the exception that ag-
gregating Etherboot with another work does not require the other work to be
released under the same license (see http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/
clinks.html). Etherboot is
Copyright (C) Etherboot team.
• VirtualBox contains code from Wine which is governed by the license in chapter
15.2.2, GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), page 274 and
Copyright 1993 Bob Amstadt, Copyright 1996 Albrecht Kleine, Copyright 1997
David Faure, Copyright 1998 Morten Welinder, Copyright 1998 Ulrich Weigand,
Copyright 1999 Ove Koven
• VirtualBox contains code from lwIP which is governed by the license in chapter
15.2.11, lwIP license, page 292 and
Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Swedish Institute of Computer Science.
• VirtualBox contains libxml which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.12,
libxml license, page 293 and
Copyright (C) 1998-2003 Daniel Veillard.

268
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

• VirtualBox contains libxslt which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.13,

libxslt licenses, page 293 and
Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Daniel Veillard and Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Thomas
Broyer, Charlie Bozeman and Daniel Veillard.
• VirtualBox contains code from the gSOAP XML web services tools, which are
licensed under the license in chapter 15.2.14, gSOAP Public License Version 1.3a,
page 294 and
Copyright (C) 2000-2007, Robert van Engelen, Genivia Inc., and others.

• VirtualBox ships with the application tunctl (shipped as VBoxTunctl) from the
User-mode Linux suite which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.1, GNU
General Public License (GPL), page 270 and
Copyright (C) 2002 Jeff Dike.

• VirtualBox contains code from Chromium, an OpenGL implementation, which is

goverened by the licenses in chapter 15.2.15, Chromium licenses, page 301 and
Copyright (C) Stanford University, The Regents of the University of California,
Red Hat, and others.
• VirtualBox contains libcurl which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.16,
curl license, page 303 and
Copyright (C) 1996-2009, Daniel Stenberg.
• VirtualBox contains dnsproxy which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.4,
MIT License, page 289 and
Copyright (c) 2003, 2004, 2005 Armin Wolfermann.

• VirtualBox may contain iniparser which is governed by the license in chapter

15.2.4, MIT License, page 289 and
Copyright (c) 2000-2008 by Nicolas Devillard.
• VirtualBox contains some code from libgd which is governed by the license in
chapter 15.2.17, libgd license, page 304 and
Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Pierre-Alain Joye
([email protected]).
• VirtualBox contains code from the EFI Development Kit II which is governed by
the license in chapter 15.2.18, BSD license from Intel, page 304 and
Copyright (c) 2004-2008, Intel Corporation.
• VirtualBox contains libjpeg which is governed by the license in chapter 15.2.19,
libjpeg License, page 305 and
Copyright (C) 1991-2010, Thomas G. Lane, Guido Vollbeding.

269
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

• VirtualBox may contain x86 SIMD extension for IJG JPEG library which is gov-
erned by the license in chapter 15.2.20, x86 SIMD extension for IJG JPEG library
license, page 306 and
Copyright 2009 Pierre Ossman <[email protected]> for Cendio AB; Copyright
2010 D. R. Commander; Copyright (C) 1999-2006, MIYASAKA Masaru.

15.2 Licenses
15.2.1 GNU General Public License (GPL)
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license docu-
ment, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share
and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee
your freedom to share and change free software–to make sure the software is free
for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation’s software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it.
(Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General
Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General
Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute
copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive
source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces
of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you
these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain
responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee,
you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that
they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so
they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer
you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the
software.
Also, for each author’s protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone
understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified
by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have
is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the
original authors’ reputations.

270
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to

avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent
licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it
clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DIS-
TRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed
by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General
Public License. The “Program”, below, refers to any such program or work, and a
“work based on the Program” means either the Program or any derivative work under
copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either
verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter,
translation is included without limitation in the term “modification”.) Each licensee is
addressed as “you”.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this
License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted,
and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based
on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether
that is true depends on what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you
receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish
on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact
all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give
any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your
option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus
forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or
work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these
conditions:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any change.
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part
contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole
at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you
must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way,
to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that
users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how
to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does
not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not
required to print an announcement.)

271
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections

of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered
independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do
not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when
you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the
Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose
permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every
part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to
work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the
distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the
Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribu-
tion medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2)
in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided
that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code,
which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third
party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution,
a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed
under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute cor-
responding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribu-
tion and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making mod-
ifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source
code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus
the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However,
as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that
is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components
(compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs,
unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from
a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the
same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as ex-
pressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense
or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under
this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under

272
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in
full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However,
nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative
works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore,
by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you
indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for
copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the
recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute
or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any
further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not
responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement
or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you
(whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of
this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any
other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program
at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of
the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely
from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular
circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole
is intended to apply in other circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other
property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole
purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contri-
butions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on
consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or
she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a conse-
quence of the rest of this License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries ei-
ther by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places
the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limi-
tation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if
written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the
General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit
to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

273
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a

version number of this License which applies to it and “any later version”, you have
the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later
version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify
a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the
Free Software Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose
distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For
software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free
Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be
guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free
software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
NO WARRANTY
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WAR-
RANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EX-
CEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR
OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE
PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU AS-
SUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO
IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY
MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LI-
ABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL
OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE
THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING
RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR
A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN
IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGES.
END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

15.2.2 GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)

GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2.1, February 1999
Copyright (C) 1991, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite
330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute ver-
batim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
[This is the first released version of the Lesser GPL. It also counts as the successor of
the GNU Library Public License, version 2, hence the version number 2.1.]
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and
change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public Licenses are intended to guarantee

274
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

your freedom to share and change free software–to make sure the software is free for
all its users.
This license, the Lesser General Public License, applies to some specially designated
software packages–typically libraries–of the Free Software Foundation and other au-
thors who decide to use it. You can use it too, but we suggest you first think carefully
about whether this license or the ordinary General Public License is the better strategy
to use in any particular case, based on the explanations below.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom of use, not price.
Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to
distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish); that you
receive source code or can get it if you want it; that you can change the software and
use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you are informed that you can do these
things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny
you these rights or to ask you to surrender these rights. These restrictions translate to
certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the library or if you modify
it.
For example, if you distribute copies of the library, whether gratis or for a fee, you
must give the recipients all the rights that we gave you. You must make sure that they,
too, receive or can get the source code. If you link other code with the library, you
must provide complete object files to the recipients, so that they can relink them with
the library after making changes to the library and recompiling it. And you must show
them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with a two-step method: (1) we copyright the library, and (2)
we offer you this license, which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or
modify the library.
To protect each distributor, we want to make it very clear that there is no warranty
for the free library. Also, if the library is modified by someone else and passed on,
the recipients should know that what they have is not the original version, so that the
original author’s reputation will not be affected by problems that might be introduced
by others.
Finally, software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of any free program.
We wish to make sure that a company cannot effectively restrict the users of a free
program by obtaining a restrictive license from a patent holder. Therefore, we insist
that any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be consistent with
the full freedom of use specified in this license.
Most GNU software, including some libraries, is covered by the ordinary GNU Gen-
eral Public License. This license, the GNU Lesser General Public License, applies to
certain designated libraries, and is quite different from the ordinary General Public Li-
cense. We use this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those libraries
into non-free programs.
When a program is linked with a library, whether statically or using a shared library,
the combination of the two is legally speaking a combined work, a derivative of the
original library. The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking

275
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom. The Lesser General Public
License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with the library.
We call this license the “Lesser” General Public License because it does Less to protect
the user’s freedom than the ordinary General Public License. It also provides other
free software developers Less of an advantage over competing non-free programs.
These disadvantages are the reason we use the ordinary General Public License for
many libraries. However, the Lesser license provides advantages in certain special
circumstances.
For example, on rare occasions, there may be a special need to encourage the widest
possible use of a certain library, so that it becomes a de-facto standard. To achieve this,
non-free programs must be allowed to use the library. A more frequent case is that a
free library does the same job as widely used non-free libraries. In this case, there
is little to gain by limiting the free library to free software only, so we use the Lesser
General Public License.
In other cases, permission to use a particular library in non-free programs enables a
greater number of people to use a large body of free software. For example, permission
to use the GNU C Library in non-free programs enables many more people to use the
whole GNU operating system, as well as its variant, the GNU/Linux operating system.
Although the Lesser General Public License is Less protective of the users’ freedom, it
does ensure that the user of a program that is linked with the Library has the freedom
and the wherewithal to run that program using a modified version of the Library.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
Pay close attention to the difference between a “work based on the library” and a “work
that uses the library”. The former contains code derived from the library, whereas the
latter must be combined with the library in order to run.
GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPY-
ING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License Agreement applies to any software library or other program which
contains a notice placed by the copyright holder or other authorized party saying it
may be distributed under the terms of this Lesser General Public License (also called
“this License”). Each licensee is addressed as “you”.
A “library” means a collection of software functions and/or data prepared so as to
be conveniently linked with application programs (which use some of those functions
and data) to form executables.
The “Library”, below, refers to any such software library or work which has been
distributed under these terms. A “work based on the Library” means either the Library
or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the
Library or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated
straightforwardly into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without
limitation in the term “modification”.)
“Source code” for a work means the preferred form of the work for making mod-
ifications to it. For a library, complete source code means all the source code for all
modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used
to control compilation and installation of the library.

276
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this
License; they are outside its scope. The act of running a program using the Library is
not restricted, and output from such a program is covered only if its contents constitute
a work based on the Library (independent of the use of the Library in a tool for writing
it). Whether that is true depends on what the Library does and what the program that
uses the Library does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library’s complete source
code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropri-
ately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty;
keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your
option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Library or any portion of it, thus
forming a work based on the Library, and copy and distribute such modifications or
work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these
conditions:
a) The modified work must itself be a software library.
b) You must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices stating that you
changed the files and the date of any change.
c) You must cause the whole of the work to be licensed at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License.
d) If a facility in the modified Library refers to a function or a table of data to be
supplied by an application program that uses the facility, other than as an argument
passed when the facility is invoked, then you must make a good faith effort to ensure
that, in the event an application does not supply such function or table, the facility still
operates, and performs whatever part of its purpose remains meaningful.
(For example, a function in a library to compute square roots has a purpose that
is entirely well-defined independent of the application. Therefore, Subsection 2d re-
quires that any application-supplied function or table used by this function must be
optional: if the application does not supply it, the square root function must still com-
pute square roots.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections
of that work are not derived from the Library, and can be reasonably considered in-
dependent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not
apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you dis-
tribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Library, the
distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for
other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless
of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to
work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the
distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Library.

277
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Library with the
Library (or with a work based on the Library) on a volume of a storage or distribution
medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License
instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do this, you must alter all the
notices that refer to this License, so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public
License, version 2, instead of to this License. (If a newer version than version 2 of the
ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared, then you can specify that version
instead if you wish.) Do not make any other change in these notices.
Once this change is made in a given copy, it is irreversible for that copy, so the
ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative
works made from that copy.
This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a
program that is not a library.
4. You may copy and distribute the Library (or a portion or derivative of it, under
Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above
provided that you accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on
a medium customarily used for software interchange.
If distribution of object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated
place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place
satisfies the requirement to distribute the source code, even though third parties are
not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
5. A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is de-
signed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is called a “work
that uses the Library”. Such a work, in isolation, is not a derivative work of the Library,
and therefore falls outside the scope of this License.
However, linking a “work that uses the Library” with the Library creates an exe-
cutable that is a derivative of the Library (because it contains portions of the Library),
rather than a “work that uses the library”. The executable is therefore covered by this
License. Section 6 states terms for distribution of such executables.
When a “work that uses the Library” uses material from a header file that is part of
the Library, the object code for the work may be a derivative work of the Library even
though the source code is not. Whether this is true is especially significant if the work
can be linked without the Library, or if the work is itself a library. The threshold for
this to be true is not precisely defined by law.
If such an object file uses only numerical parameters, data structure layouts and
accessors, and small macros and small inline functions (ten lines or less in length),
then the use of the object file is unrestricted, regardless of whether it is legally a
derivative work. (Executables containing this object code plus portions of the Library
will still fall under Section 6.) Otherwise, if the work is a derivative of the Library,
you may distribute the object code for the work under the terms of Section 6. Any
executables containing that work also fall under Section 6, whether or not they are
linked directly with the Library itself.

278
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

6. As an exception to the Sections above, you may also combine or link a “work
that uses the Library” with the Library to produce a work containing portions of the
Library, and distribute that work under terms of your choice, provided that the terms
permit modification of the work for the customer’s own use and reverse engineering
for debugging such modifications.
You must give prominent notice with each copy of the work that the Library is used
in it and that the Library and its use are covered by this License. You must supply
a copy of this License. If the work during execution displays copyright notices, you
must include the copyright notice for the Library among them, as well as a reference
directing the user to the copy of this License. Also, you must do one of these things:
a) Accompany the work with the complete corresponding machine-readable source
code for the Library including whatever changes were used in the work (which must
be distributed under Sections 1 and 2 above); and, if the work is an executable linked
with the Library, with the complete machine-readable “work that uses the Library”,
as object code and/or source code, so that the user can modify the Library and then
relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library. (It is under-
stood that the user who changes the contents of definitions files in the Library will not
necessarily be able to recompile the application to use the modified definitions.)
b) Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the Library. A suitable
mechanism is one that (1) uses at run time a copy of the library already present on
the user’s computer system, rather than copying library functions into the executable,
and (2) will operate properly with a modified version of the library, if the user installs
one, as long as the modified version is interface-compatible with the version that the
work was made with.
c) Accompany the work with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give
the same user the materials specified in Subsection 6a, above, for a charge no more
than the cost of performing this distribution.
d) If distribution of the work is made by offering access to copy from a designated
place, offer equivalent access to copy the above specified materials from the same
place.
e) Verify that the user has already received a copy of these materials or that you
have already sent this user a copy.
For an executable, the required form of the “work that uses the Library” must include
any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the executable from it. However,
as a special exception, the materials to be distributed need not include anything that
is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components
(compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs,
unless that component itself accompanies the executable.
It may happen that this requirement contradicts the license restrictions of other pro-
prietary libraries that do not normally accompany the operating system. Such a con-
tradiction means you cannot use both them and the Library together in an executable
that you distribute.
7. You may place library facilities that are a work based on the Library side-by-side
in a single library together with other library facilities not covered by this License,
and distribute such a combined library, provided that the separate distribution of the

279
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

work based on the Library and of the other library facilities is otherwise permitted,
and provided that you do these two things:
a) Accompany the combined library with a copy of the same work based on the
Library, uncombined with any other library facilities. This must be distributed under
the terms of the Sections above.
b) Give prominent notice with the combined library of the fact that part of it is a
work based on the Library, and explaining where to find the accompanying uncom-
bined form of the same work.
8. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, link with, or distribute the Library except
as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sub-
license, link with, or distribute the Library is void, and will automatically terminate
your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights,
from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.
9. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However,
nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Library or its derivative
works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. There-
fore, by modifying or distributing the Library (or any work based on the Library), you
indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for
copying, distributing or modifying the Library or works based on it.
10. Each time you redistribute the Library (or any work based on the Library), the
recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute,
link with or modify the Library subject to these terms and conditions. You may not
impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License.
11. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement
or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you
(whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of
this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any
other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Library
at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of
the Library by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the
only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from
distribution of the Library.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular
circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply, and the section as a
whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other
property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the
sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system which
is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contri-
butions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on
consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or

280
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a conse-
quence of the rest of this License.
12. If the distribution and/or use of the Library is restricted in certain countries
either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places
the Library under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation
excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries
not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written
in the body of this License.
13. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the
Lesser General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar
in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or
concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Library specifies a
version number of this License which applies to it and “any later version”, you have
the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later
version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Library does not specify
a license version number, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
Software Foundation.
14. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Library into other free programs whose
distribution conditions are incompatible with these, write to the author to ask for
permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write
to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision
will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our
free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
NO WARRANTY
15. BECAUSE THE LIBRARY IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WAR-
RANTY FOR THE LIBRARY, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EX-
CEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR
OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE LIBRARY “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE
LIBRARY IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE LIBRARY PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME
THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
16. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN
WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MOD-
IFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE LIBRARY AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO
YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CON-
SEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE
LIBRARY (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING REN-
DERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A
FAILURE OF THE LIBRARY TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER SOFTWARE), EVEN IF

281
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF

SUCH DAMAGES.
END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS

15.2.3 Mozilla Public License (MPL)

MOZILLA PUBLIC LICENSE Version 1.1
1. Definitions.
1.0.1. “Commercial Use” means distribution or otherwise making the Covered Code
available to a third party.
1.1. “Contributor” means each entity that creates or contributes to the creation of
Modifications.
1.2. “Contributor Version” means the combination of the Original Code, prior Mod-
ifications used by a Contributor, and the Modifications made by that particular Con-
tributor.
1.3. “Covered Code” means the Original Code or Modifications or the combination
of the Original Code and Modifications, in each case including portions thereof.
1.4. “Electronic Distribution Mechanism” means a mechanism generally accepted in
the software development community for the electronic transfer of data.
1.5. “Executable” means Covered Code in any form other than Source Code.
1.6. “Initial Developer” means the individual or entity identified as the Initial Devel-
oper in the Source Code notice required by Exhibit A.
1.7. “Larger Work” means a work which combines Covered Code or portions thereof
with code not governed by the terms of this License.
1.8. “License” means this document.
1.8.1. “Licensable” means having the right to grant, to the maximum extent possible,
whether at the time of the initial grant or subsequently acquired, any and all of the
rights conveyed herein.
1.9. “Modifications” means any addition to or deletion from the substance or struc-
ture of either the Original Code or any previous Modifications. When Covered Code is
released as a series of files, a Modification is:
A. Any addition to or deletion from the contents of a file containing Original Code
or previous Modifications.
B. Any new file that contains any part of the Original Code or previous Modifications.
1.10. “Original Code” means Source Code of computer software code which is de-
scribed in the Source Code notice required by Exhibit A as Original Code, and which,
at the time of its release under this License is not already Covered Code governed by
this License.
1.10.1. “Patent Claims” means any patent claim(s), now owned or hereafter ac-
quired, including without limitation, method, process, and apparatus claims, in any
patent Licensable by grantor.
1.11. “Source Code” means the preferred form of the Covered Code for making
modifications to it, including all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
definition files, scripts used to control compilation and installation of an Executable,

282
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

or source code differential comparisons against either the Original Code or another
well known, available Covered Code of the Contributor’s choice. The Source Code
can be in a compressed or archival form, provided the appropriate decompression or
de-archiving software is widely available for no charge.
1.12. “You” (or “Your”) means an individual or a legal entity exercising rights under,
and complying with all of the terms of, this License or a future version of this License
issued under Section 6.1. For legal entities, “You” includes any entity which controls,
is controlled by, or is under common control with You. For purposes of this definition,
“control” means (a) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management
of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (b) ownership of more than fifty
percent (50%) of the outstanding shares or beneficial ownership of such entity.
2. Source Code License.
2.1. The Initial Developer Grant. The Initial Developer hereby grants You a world-
wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license, subject to third party intellectual property
claims:
(a) under intellectual property rights (other than patent or trademark) Licensable by
Initial Developer to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute
the Original Code (or portions thereof) with or without Modifications, and/or as part
of a Larger Work; and
(b) under Patents Claims infringed by the making, using or selling of Original Code,
to make, have made, use, practice, sell, and offer for sale, and/or otherwise dispose of
the Original Code (or portions thereof).
(c) the licenses granted in this Section 2.1(a) and (b) are effective on the date Initial
Developer first distributes Original Code under the terms of this License.
(d) Notwithstanding Section 2.1(b) above, no patent license is granted: 1) for code
that You delete from the Original Code; 2) separate from the Original Code; or 3) for
infringements caused by: i) the modification of the Original Code or ii) the combina-
tion of the Original Code with other software or devices.
2.2. Contributor Grant. Subject to third party intellectual property claims, each
Contributor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license
(a) under intellectual property rights (other than patent or trademark) Licensable
by Contributor, to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute
the Modifications created by such Contributor (or portions thereof) either on an un-
modified basis, with other Modifications, as Covered Code and/or as part of a Larger
Work; and
(b) under Patent Claims infringed by the making, using, or selling of Modifications
made by that Contributor either alone and/or in combination with its Contributor
Version (or portions of such combination), to make, use, sell, offer for sale, have
made, and/or otherwise dispose of: 1) Modifications made by that Contributor (or
portions thereof); and 2) the combination of Modifications made by that Contributor
with its Contributor Version (or portions of such combination).
(c) the licenses granted in Sections 2.2(a) and 2.2(b) are effective on the date Con-
tributor first makes Commercial Use of the Covered Code.
(d) Notwithstanding Section 2.2(b) above, no patent license is granted: 1) for any
code that Contributor has deleted from the Contributor Version; 2) separate from the

283
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

Contributor Version; 3) for infringements caused by: i) third party modifications of

Contributor Version or ii) the combination of Modifications made by that Contributor
with other software (except as part of the Contributor Version) or other devices; or 4)
under Patent Claims infringed by Covered Code in the absence of Modifications made
by that Contributor.
3. Distribution Obligations.
3.1. Application of License. The Modifications which You create or to which You
contribute are governed by the terms of this License, including without limitation
Section 2.2. The Source Code version of Covered Code may be distributed only under
the terms of this License or a future version of this License released under Section
6.1, and You must include a copy of this License with every copy of the Source Code
You distribute. You may not offer or impose any terms on any Source Code version
that alters or restricts the applicable version of this License or the recipients’ rights
hereunder. However, You may include an additional document offering the additional
rights described in Section 3.5.
3.2. Availability of Source Code. Any Modification which You create or to which
You contribute must be made available in Source Code form under the terms of this
License either on the same media as an Executable version or via an accepted Elec-
tronic Distribution Mechanism to anyone to whom you made an Executable version
available; and if made available via Electronic Distribution Mechanism, must remain
available for at least twelve (12) months after the date it initially became available,
or at least six (6) months after a subsequent version of that particular Modification
has been made available to such recipients. You are responsible for ensuring that the
Source Code version remains available even if the Electronic Distribution Mechanism
is maintained by a third party.
3.3. Description of Modifications. You must cause all Covered Code to which You
contribute to contain a file documenting the changes You made to create that Covered
Code and the date of any change. You must include a prominent statement that the
Modification is derived, directly or indirectly, from Original Code provided by the Ini-
tial Developer and including the name of the Initial Developer in (a) the Source Code,
and (b) in any notice in an Executable version or related documentation in which You
describe the origin or ownership of the Covered Code.
3.4. Intellectual Property Matters
(a) Third Party Claims. If Contributor has knowledge that a license under a third
party’s intellectual property rights is required to exercise the rights granted by such
Contributor under Sections 2.1 or 2.2, Contributor must include a text file with the
Source Code distribution titled “LEGAL” which describes the claim and the party mak-
ing the claim in sufficient detail that a recipient will know whom to contact. If Contrib-
utor obtains such knowledge after the Modification is made available as described in
Section 3.2, Contributor shall promptly modify the LEGAL file in all copies Contribu-
tor makes available thereafter and shall take other steps (such as notifying appropriate
mailing lists or newsgroups) reasonably calculated to inform those who received the
Covered Code that new knowledge has been obtained.
(b) Contributor APIs. If Contributor’s Modifications include an application program-
ming interface and Contributor has knowledge of patent licenses which are reasonably

284
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

necessary to implement that API, Contributor must also include this information in the
LEGAL file.
3.5. Required Notices. You must duplicate the notice in Exhibit A in each file of the
Source Code. If it is not possible to put such notice in a particular Source Code file due
to its structure, then You must include such notice in a location (such as a relevant
directory) where a user would be likely to look for such a notice. If You created
one or more Modification(s) You may add your name as a Contributor to the notice
described in Exhibit A. You must also duplicate this License in any documentation for
the Source Code where You describe recipients’ rights or ownership rights relating to
Covered Code. You may choose to offer, and to charge a fee for, warranty, support,
indemnity or liability obligations to one or more recipients of Covered Code. However,
You may do so only on Your own behalf, and not on behalf of the Initial Developer or
any Contributor. You must make it absolutely clear than any such warranty, support,
indemnity or liability obligation is offered by You alone, and You hereby agree to
indemnify the Initial Developer and every Contributor for any liability incurred by the
Initial Developer or such Contributor as a result of warranty, support, indemnity or
liability terms You offer.
3.6. Distribution of Executable Versions. You may distribute Covered Code in Exe-
cutable form only if the requirements of Section 3.1-3.5 have been met for that Cov-
ered Code, and if You include a notice stating that the Source Code version of the
Covered Code is available under the terms of this License, including a description of
how and where You have fulfilled the obligations of Section 3.2. The notice must be
conspicuously included in any notice in an Executable version, related documentation
or collateral in which You describe recipients’ rights relating to the Covered Code. You
may distribute the Executable version of Covered Code or ownership rights under a
license of Your choice, which may contain terms different from this License, provided
that You are in compliance with the terms of this License and that the license for the
Executable version does not attempt to limit or alter the recipient’s rights in the Source
Code version from the rights set forth in this License. If You distribute the Executable
version under a different license You must make it absolutely clear that any terms
which differ from this License are offered by You alone, not by the Initial Developer
or any Contributor. You hereby agree to indemnify the Initial Developer and every
Contributor for any liability incurred by the Initial Developer or such Contributor as a
result of any such terms You offer.
3.7. Larger Works. You may create a Larger Work by combining Covered Code with
other code not governed by the terms of this License and distribute the Larger Work as
a single product. In such a case, You must make sure the requirements of this License
are fulfilled for the Covered Code.
4. Inability to Comply Due to Statute or Regulation.If it is impossible for You to
comply with any of the terms of this License with respect to some or all of the Covered
Code due to statute, judicial order, or regulation then You must: (a) comply with the
terms of this License to the maximum extent possible; and (b) describe the limitations
and the code they affect. Such description must be included in the LEGAL file described
in Section 3.4 and must be included with all distributions of the Source Code. Except

285
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

to the extent prohibited by statute or regulation, such description must be sufficiently

detailed for a recipient of ordinary skill to be able to understand it.
5. Application of this License. This License applies to code to which the Initial
Developer has attached the notice in Exhibit A and to related Covered Code.
6. Versions of the License.
6.1. New Versions. Netscape Communications Corporation (“Netscape”) may pub-
lish revised and/or new versions of the License from time to time. Each version will
be given a distinguishing version number.
6.2. Effect of New Versions. Once Covered Code has been published under a partic-
ular version of the License, You may always continue to use it under the terms of that
version. You may also choose to use such Covered Code under the terms of any subse-
quent version of the License published by Netscape. No one other than Netscape has
the right to modify the terms applicable to Covered Code created under this License.
6.3. Derivative Works. If You create or use a modified version of this License (which
you may only do in order to apply it to code which is not already Covered Code gov-
erned by this License), You must (a) rename Your license so that the phrases “Mozilla”,
“MOZILLAPL”, “MOZPL”, “Netscape”, “MPL”, “NPL” or any confusingly similar phrase
do not appear in your license (except to note that your license differs from this Li-
cense) and (b) otherwise make it clear that Your version of the license contains terms
which differ from the Mozilla Public License and Netscape Public License. (Filling in
the name of the Initial Developer, Original Code or Contributor in the notice described
in Exhibit A shall not of themselves be deemed to be modifications of this License.)
7. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY.
COVERED CODE IS PROVIDED UNDER THIS LICENSE ON AN “AS IS” BASIS, WITH-
OUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES THAT THE COVERED CODE IS FREE OF DE-
FECTS, MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGING.
THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE COVERED
CODE IS WITH YOU. SHOULD ANY COVERED CODE PROVE DEFECTIVE IN ANY
RESPECT, YOU (NOT THE INITIAL DEVELOPER OR ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTOR)
ASSUME THE COST OF ANY NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LI-
CENSE. NO USE OF ANY COVERED CODE IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT
UNDER THIS DISCLAIMER.
8. TERMINATION.
8.1. This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically if
You fail to comply with terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of
becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses to the Covered Code which are properly
granted shall survive any termination of this License. Provisions which, by their nature,
must remain in effect beyond the termination of this License shall survive.
8.2. If You initiate litigation by asserting a patent infringement claim (excluding
declaratory judgment actions) against Initial Developer or a Contributor (the Initial
Developer or Contributor against whom You file such action is referred to as “Partici-
pant”) alleging that:

286
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

(a) such Participant’s Contributor Version directly or indirectly infringes any patent,
then any and all rights granted by such Participant to You under Sections 2.1 and/or
2.2 of this License shall, upon 60 days notice from Participant terminate prospectively,
unless if within 60 days after receipt of notice You either: (i) agree in writing to pay
Participant a mutually agreeable reasonable royalty for Your past and future use of
Modifications made by such Participant, or (ii) withdraw Your litigation claim with re-
spect to the Contributor Version against such Participant. If within 60 days of notice, a
reasonable royalty and payment arrangement are not mutually agreed upon in writing
by the parties or the litigation claim is not withdrawn, the rights granted by Participant
to You under Sections 2.1 and/or 2.2 automatically terminate at the expiration of the
60 day notice period specified above.
(b) any software, hardware, or device, other than such Participant’s Contributor
Version, directly or indirectly infringes any patent, then any rights granted to You
by such Participant under Sections 2.1(b) and 2.2(b) are revoked effective as of the
date You first made, used, sold, distributed, or had made, Modifications made by that
Participant.
8.3. If You assert a patent infringement claim against Participant alleging that such
Participant’s Contributor Version directly or indirectly infringes any patent where such
claim is resolved (such as by license or settlement) prior to the initiation of patent in-
fringement litigation, then the reasonable value of the licenses granted by such Partic-
ipant under Sections 2.1 or 2.2 shall be taken into account in determining the amount
or value of any payment or license.
8.4. In the event of termination under Sections 8.1 or 8.2 above, all end user license
agreements (excluding distributors and resellers) which have been validly granted by
You or any distributor hereunder prior to termination shall survive termination.
9. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES AND UNDER NO LE-
GAL THEORY, WHETHER TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), CONTRACT, OR OTH-
ERWISE, SHALL YOU, THE INITIAL DEVELOPER, ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTOR, OR
ANY DISTRIBUTOR OF COVERED CODE, OR ANY SUPPLIER OF ANY OF SUCH PAR-
TIES, BE LIABLE TO ANY PERSON FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY CHARACTER INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITA-
TION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAIL-
URE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY AND ALL OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR
LOSSES, EVEN IF SUCH PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGES. THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL NOT APPLY TO LIA-
BILITY FOR DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY RESULTING FROM SUCH PARTY’S NEG-
LIGENCE TO THE EXTENT APPLICABLE LAW PROHIBITS SUCH LIMITATION. SOME
JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL
OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION MAY NOT
APPLY TO YOU.
10. U.S. GOVERNMENT END USERS. The Covered Code is a “commercial item,“ as
that term is defined in 48 C.F.R. 2.101 (Oct. 1995), consisting of “commercial com-
puter software” and “commercial computer software documentation,“ as such terms
are used in 48 C.F.R. 12.212 (Sept. 1995). Consistent with 48 C.F.R. 12.212 and 48

287
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

C.F.R. 227.7202-1 through 227.7202-4 (June 1995), all U.S. Government End Users
acquire Covered Code with only those rights set forth herein.
11. MISCELLANEOUS. This License represents the complete agreement concerning
subject matter hereof. If any provision of this License is held to be unenforceable, such
provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable. This
License shall be governed by California law provisions (except to the extent applicable
law, if any, provides otherwise), excluding its conflict-of-law provisions. With respect
to disputes in which at least one party is a citizen of, or an entity chartered or reg-
istered to do business in the United States of America, any litigation relating to this
License shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts of the Northern Dis-
trict of California, with venue lying in Santa Clara County, California, with the losing
party responsible for costs, including without limitation, court costs and reasonable
attorneys’ fees and expenses. The application of the United Nations Convention on
Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded. Any law or reg-
ulation which provides that the language of a contract shall be construed against the
drafter shall not apply to this License.
12. RESPONSIBILITY FOR CLAIMS. As between Initial Developer and the Contribu-
tors, each party is responsible for claims and damages arising, directly or indirectly, out
of its utilization of rights under this License and You agree to work with Initial Devel-
oper and Contributors to distribute such responsibility on an equitable basis. Nothing
herein is intended or shall be deemed to constitute any admission of liability.
13. MULTIPLE-LICENSED CODE. Initial Developer may designate portions of the
Covered Code as “Multiple-Licensed”. “Multiple-Licensed” means that the Initial De-
veloper permits you to utilize portions of the Covered Code under Your choice of the
NPL or the alternative licenses, if any, specified by the Initial Developer in the file
described in Exhibit A.
EXHIBIT A -Mozilla Public License.
“The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 (the
“License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may
obtain a copy of the License at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
Software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” basis, WITHOUT
WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific
language governing rights and limitations under the License.
The Original Code is ______________________________________.
The Initial Developer of the Original Code is ________________________. Portions
created by ______________________ are Copyright (C) ______ _______________________.
All Rights Reserved.
Contributor(s): ______________________________________.
Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of the _____
license (the “[___] License”), in which case the provisions of [______] License are
applicable instead of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this file
only under the terms of the [____] License and not to allow others to use your version
of this file under the MPL, indicate your decision by deleting the provisions above and
replace them with the notice and other provisions required by the [___] License. If

288
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

you do not delete the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of this file
under either the MPL or the [___] License.“
[NOTE: The text of this Exhibit A may differ slightly from the text of the notices in
the Source Code files of the Original Code. You should use the text of this Exhibit A
rather than the text found in the Original Code Source Code for Your Modifications.]

15.2.4 MIT License

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this
software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit per-
sons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies
or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EX-
PRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

15.2.5 X Consortium License (X11)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this
software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit per-
sons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies
or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EX-
PRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

15.2.6 zlib license

This software is provided ’as-is’, without any express or implied warranty. In no event
will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

289
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including com-
mercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following
restrictions:
1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that
you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledg-
ment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrep-
resented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
Jean-loup Gailly Mark Adler
[email protected] [email protected]

15.2.7 OpenSSL license

This package is an SSL implementation written by Eric Young ([email protected]).
The implementation was written so as to conform with Netscape’s SSL.
This library is free for commercial and non-commercial use as long as the following
conditions are adhered to. The following conditions apply to all code found in this
distribution, be it the RC4, RSA, lhash, DES, etc., code; not just the SSL code. The SSL
documentation included with this distribution is covered by the same copyright terms
except that the holder is Tim Hudson ([email protected]).
Copyright remains Eric Young’s, and as such any Copyright notices in the code are
not to be removed. If this package is used in a product, Eric Young should be given
attribution as the author of the parts of the library used. This can be in the form of a
textual message at program startup or in documentation (online or textual) provided
with the package.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the copyright notice, this list of condi-
tions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
materials provided with the distribution.
3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display
the following acknowledgement: “This product includes cryptographic software writ-
ten by Eric Young ([email protected])“ The word ’cryptographic’ can be left out if the
routines from the library being used are not cryptographic related :-).
4. If you include any Windows specific code (or a derivative thereof) from the apps
directory (application code) you must include an acknowledgement: “This product
includes software written by Tim Hudson ([email protected])“
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY ERIC YOUNG “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WAR-
RANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE

290
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUEN-

TIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTI-
TUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS IN-
TERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTH-
ERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
The licence and distribution terms for any publicly available version or derivative of
this code cannot be changed. i.e. this code cannot simply be copied and put under
another distribution licence [including the GNU Public Licence.]

15.2.8 Slirp license

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are
permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
materials provided with the distribution.
3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display
the following acknowledgment: This product includes software developed by Danny
Gasparovski.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WAR-
RANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
IN NO EVENT SHALL DANNY GASPAROVSKI OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE
GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUP-
TION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CON-
TRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

15.2.9 liblzf license

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are
permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
materials provided with the distribution.

291
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived
from this software without specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WAR-
RANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, IN-
DIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (IN-
CLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SER-
VICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOW-
EVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING
IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

15.2.10 libpng license

The PNG Reference Library is supplied “AS IS”. The Contributing Authors and Group
42, Inc. disclaim all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation,
the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The Contributing
Authors and Group 42, Inc. assume no liability for direct, indirect, incidental, spe-
cial, exemplary, or consequential damages, which may result from the use of the PNG
Reference Library, even if advised of the possibility of such damage.
Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify, and distribute this source code,
or portions hereof, for any purpose, without fee, subject to the following restrictions:
1. The origin of this source code must not be misrepresented.
2. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such and must not be misrepresented
as being the original source.
3. This Copyright notice may not be removed or altered from any source or altered
source distribution.
The Contributing Authors and Group 42, Inc. specifically permit, without fee, and
encourage the use of this source code as a component to supporting the PNG file format
in commercial products. If you use this source code in a product, acknowledgment is
not required but would be appreciated.

15.2.11 lwIP license

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are
permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
materials provided with the distribution.
3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products derived
from this software without specific prior written permission.

292
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WAR-
RANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, IN-
DIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (IN-
CLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SER-
VICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOW-
EVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING
IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

15.2.12 libxml license

Except where otherwise noted in the source code (e.g. the files hash.c, list.c and the
trio files, which are covered by a similar licence but with different Copyright notices)
all the files are:
Copyright (C) 1998-2003 Daniel Veillard. All Rights Reserved.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this
software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit per-
sons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies
or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EX-
PRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DANIEL VEILLARD BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES
OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHER-
WISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE
USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of Daniel Veillard shall not be used in
advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software
without prior written authorization from him.

15.2.13 libxslt licenses

Licence for libxslt except libexslt:
Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Daniel Veillard. All Rights Reserved.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this
software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit per-
sons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

293
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies
or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EX-
PRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DANIEL VEILLARD BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES
OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHER-
WISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE
USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of Daniel Veillard shall not be used in
advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software
without prior written authorization from him.
Licence for libexslt:
Copyright (C) 2001-2002 Thomas Broyer, Charlie Bozeman and Daniel Veillard. All
Rights Reserved.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this
software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit per-
sons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies
or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EX-
PRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHER-
WISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR
THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of the authors shall not be used in
advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software
without prior written authorization from him.

15.2.14 gSOAP Public License Version 1.3a

The gSOAP public license is derived from the Mozilla Public License (MPL1.1).
The sections that were deleted from the original MPL1.1 text are 1.0.1, 2.1.(c),(d),
2.2.(c),(d), 8.2.(b), 10, and 11. Section 3.8 was added. The modified sections are
2.1.(b), 2.2.(b), 3.2 (simplified), 3.5 (deleted the last sentence), and 3.6 (simplified).
1 DEFINITIONS
1.1. “Contributor” means each entity that creates or contributes to the creation of
Modifications.
1.2. “Contributor Version” means the combination of the Original Code, prior Mod-
ifications used by a Contributor, and the Modifications made by that particular Con-
tributor.

294
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

1.3. “Covered Code” means the Original Code, or Modifications or the combination
of the Original Code, and Modifications, in each case including portions thereof.
1.4. “Electronic Distribution Mechanism” means a mechanism generally accepted in
the software development community for the electronic transfer of data.
1.5. “Executable” means Covered Code in any form other than Source Code.
1.6. “Initial Developer” means the individual or entity identified as the Initial Devel-
oper in the Source Code notice required by Exhibit A.
1.7. “Larger Work” means a work which combines Covered Code or portions thereof
with code not governed by the terms of this License.
1.8. “License” means this document.
1.8.1. “Licensable” means having the right to grant, to the maximum extent possible,
whether at the time of the initial grant or subsequently acquired, any and all of the
rights conveyed herein.
1.9. “Modifications” means any addition to or deletion from the substance or struc-
ture of either the Original Code or any previous Modifications. When Covered Code is
released as a series of files, a Modification is:
A. Any addition to or deletion from the contents of a file containing Original Code
or previous Modifications.
B. Any new file that contains any part of the Original Code, or previous Modifica-
tions.
1.10. “Original Code” means Source Code of computer software code which is de-
scribed in the Source Code notice required by Exhibit A as Original Code, and which,
at the time of its release under this License is not already Covered Code governed by
this License.
1.10.1. “Patent Claims” means any patent claim(s), now owned or hereafter ac-
quired, including without limitation, method, process, and apparatus claims, in any
patent Licensable by grantor.
1.11. “Source Code” means the preferred form of the Covered Code for making
modifications to it, including all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
definition files, scripts used to control compilation and installation of an Executable,
or source code differential comparisons against either the Original Code or another
well known, available Covered Code of the Contributor’s choice. The Source Code
can be in a compressed or archival form, provided the appropriate decompression or
de-archiving software is widely available for no charge.
1.12. “You” (or “Your”) means an individual or a legal entity exercising rights under,
and complying with all of the terms of, this License or a future version of this License
issued under Section 6.1. For legal entities, “You” includes any entity which controls,
is controlled by, or is under common control with You. For purposes of this definition,
“control” means (a) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the direction or management
of such entity, whether by contract or otherwise, or (b) ownership of more than fifty
percent (50%) of the outstanding shares or beneficial ownership of such entity.
2 SOURCE CODE LICENSE.
2.1. The Initial Developer Grant.
The Initial Developer hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive
license, subject to third party intellectual property claims:

295
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

(a) under intellectual property rights (other than patent or trademark) Licensable by
Initial Developer to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute
the Original Code (or portions thereof) with or without Modifications, and/or as part
of a Larger Work; and
(b) under patents now or hereafter owned or controlled by Initial Developer, to
make, have made, use and sell (“offer to sell and import”) the Original Code, Modifi-
cations, or portions thereof, but solely to the extent that any such patent is reasonably
necessary to enable You to utilize, alone or in combination with other software, the
Original Code, Modifications, or any combination or portions thereof.
(c)
(d)
2.2. Contributor Grant.
Subject to third party intellectual property claims, each Contributor hereby grants
You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license
(a) under intellectual property rights (other than patent or trademark) Licensable
by Contributor, to use, reproduce, modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute
the Modifications created by such Contributor (or portions thereof) either on an un-
modified basis, with other Modifications, as Covered Code and/or as part of a Larger
Work; and
(b) under patents now or hereafter owned or controlled by Contributor, to make,
have made, use and sell (“offer to sell and import”) the Contributor Version (or por-
tions thereof), but solely to the extent that any such patent is reasonably necessary
to enable You to utilize, alone or in combination with other software, the Contributor
Version (or portions thereof).
(c)
(d)
3 DISTRIBUTION OBLIGATIONS.
3.1. Application of License.
The Modifications which You create or to which You contribute are governed by
the terms of this License, including without limitation Section 2.2. The Source Code
version of Covered Code may be distributed only under the terms of this License or a
future version of this License released under Section 6.1, and You must include a copy
of this License with every copy of the Source Code You distribute. You may not offer
or impose any terms on any Source Code version that alters or restricts the applicable
version of this License or the recipients’ rights hereunder. However, You may include
an additional document offering the additional rights described in Section 3.5.
3.2. Availability of Source Code.
Any Modification created by You will be provided to the Initial Developer in Source
Code form and are subject to the terms of the License. 3.3. Description of Modifica-
tions.
You must cause all Covered Code to which You contribute to contain a file document-
ing the changes You made to create that Covered Code and the date of any change. You
must include a prominent statement that the Modification is derived, directly or indi-
rectly, from Original Code provided by the Initial Developer and including the name
of the Initial Developer in (a) the Source Code, and (b) in any notice in an Executable

296
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

version or related documentation in which You describe the origin or ownership of the
Covered Code.
3.4. Intellectual Property Matters.
(a) Third Party Claims. If Contributor has knowledge that a license under a third
party’s intellectual property rights is required to exercise the rights granted by such
Contributor under Sections 2.1 or 2.2, Contributor must include a text file with the
Source Code distribution titled “LEGAL” which describes the claim and the party mak-
ing the claim in sufficient detail that a recipient will know whom to contact. If Contrib-
utor obtains such knowledge after the Modification is made available as described in
Section 3.2, Contributor shall promptly modify the LEGAL file in all copies Contribu-
tor makes available thereafter and shall take other steps (such as notifying appropriate
mailing lists or newsgroups) reasonably calculated to inform those who received the
Covered Code that new knowledge has been obtained.
(b) Contributor APIs. If Contributor’s Modifications include an application program-
ming interface and Contributor has knowledge of patent licenses which are reasonably
necessary to implement that API, Contributor must also include this information in the
LEGAL file.
(c) Representations. Contributor represents that, except as disclosed pursuant to
Section 3.4(a) above, Contributor believes that Contributor’s Modifications are Con-
tributor’s original creation(s) and/or Contributor has sufficient rights to grant the
rights conveyed by this License.
3.5. Required Notices. You must duplicate the notice in Exhibit A in each file of the
Source Code. If it is not possible to put such notice in a particular Source Code file
due to its structure, then You must include such notice in a location (such as a relevant
directory) where a user would be likely to look for such a notice. If You created one or
more Modification(s) You may add your name as a Contributor to the notice described
in Exhibit A. You must also duplicate this License in any documentation for the Source
Code where You describe recipients’ rights or ownership rights relating to Covered
Code. You may choose to offer, and to charge a fee for, warranty, support, indemnity
or liability obligations to one or more recipients of Covered Code. However, You may
do so only on Your own behalf, and not on behalf of the Initial Developer or any
Contributor.
3.6. Distribution of Executable Versions. You may distribute Covered Code in Exe-
cutable form only if the requirements of Section 3.1-3.5 have been met for that Cov-
ered Code. You may distribute the Executable version of Covered Code or ownership
rights under a license of Your choice, which may contain terms different from this
License, provided that You are in compliance with the terms of this License and that
the license for the Executable version does not attempt to limit or alter the recipient’s
rights in the Source Code version from the rights set forth in this License. If You dis-
tribute the Executable version under a different license You must make it absolutely
clear that any terms which differ from this License are offered by You alone, not by the
Initial Developer or any Contributor. If you distribute executable versions containing
Covered Code as part of a product, you must reproduce the notice in Exhibit B in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the product.

297
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

3.7. Larger Works. You may create a Larger Work by combining Covered Code with
other code not governed by the terms of this License and distribute the Larger Work as
a single product. In such a case, You must make sure the requirements of this License
are fulfilled for the Covered Code.
3.8. Restrictions. You may not remove any product identification, copyright, propri-
etary notices or labels from gSOAP.
4 INABILITY TO COMPLY DUE TO STATUTE OR REGULATION.
If it is impossible for You to comply with any of the terms of this License with respect
to some or all of the Covered Code due to statute, judicial order, or regulation then
You must: (a) comply with the terms of this License to the maximum extent possible;
and (b) describe the limitations and the code they affect. Such description must be
included in the LEGAL file described in Section 3.4 and must be included with all dis-
tributions of the Source Code. Except to the extent prohibited by statute or regulation,
such description must be sufficiently detailed for a recipient of ordinary skill to be able
to understand it.
5 APPLICATION OF THIS LICENSE.
This License applies to code to which the Initial Developer has attached the notice
in Exhibit A and to related Covered Code.
6 VERSIONS OF THE LICENSE.
6.1. New Versions.
Grantor may publish revised and/or new versions of the License from time to time.
Each version will be given a distinguishing version number.
6.2. Effect of New Versions.
Once Covered Code has been published under a particular version of the License,
You may always continue to use it under the terms of that version. You may also
choose to use such Covered Code under the terms of any subsequent version of the
License.
6.3. Derivative Works.
If You create or use a modified version of this License (which you may only do in
order to apply it to code which is not already Covered Code governed by this License),
You must (a) rename Your license so that the phrase “gSOAP” or any confusingly
similar phrase do not appear in your license (except to note that your license differs
from this License) and (b) otherwise make it clear that Your version of the license
contains terms which differ from the gSOAP Public License. (Filling in the name of
the Initial Developer, Original Code or Contributor in the notice described in Exhibit A
shall not of themselves be deemed to be modifications of this License.)
7 DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY.
COVERED CODE IS PROVIDED UNDER THIS LICENSE ON AN “AS IS” BASIS, WITH-
OUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, IN-
CLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABIL-
ITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NONINFRINGEMENT OF THIRD
PARTY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, AND ANY WARRANTY THAT MAY ARISE
BY REASON OF TRADE USAGE, CUSTOM, OR COURSE OF DEALING. WITHOUT
LIMITING THE FOREGOING, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE SOFTWARE IS PRO-
VIDED “AS IS” AND THAT THE AUTHORS DO NOT WARRANT THE SOFTWARE WILL

298
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

RUN UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE. LIMITED LIABILITY THE ENTIRE RISK AS

TO RESULTS AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS ASSUMED BY YOU. UN-
DER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, IN-
DIRECT, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND
OR NATURE WHATSOEVER, WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, WARRANTY, TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE, ARISING OUT OF
OR IN ANY WAY RELATED TO THE SOFTWARE, EVEN IF THE AUTHORS HAVE
BEEN ADVISED ON THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE OR IF SUCH DAMAGE
COULD HAVE BEEN REASONABLY FORESEEN, AND NOTWITHSTANDING ANY FAIL-
URE OF ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OF ANY EXCLUSIVE REMEDY PROVIDED. SUCH LIM-
ITATION ON DAMAGES INCLUDES, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS
OF GOODWILL, LOST PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA OR SOFTWARE, WORK STOPPAGE,
COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION OR IMPAIRMENT OF OTHER GOODS. IN
NO EVENT WILL THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR THE COSTS OF PROCUREMENT
OF SUBSTITUTE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THIS SOFT-
WARE IS NOT DESIGNED FOR USE IN ON-LINE EQUIPMENT IN HAZARDOUS EN-
VIRONMENTS SUCH AS OPERATION OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES, AIRCRAFT NAVIGA-
TION OR CONTROL, OR LIFE-CRITICAL APPLICATIONS. THE AUTHORS EXPRESSLY
DISCLAIM ANY LIABILITY RESULTING FROM USE OF THE SOFTWARE IN ANY SUCH
ON-LINE EQUIPMENT IN HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTS AND ACCEPTS NO LIABIL-
ITY IN RESPECT OF ANY ACTIONS OR CLAIMS BASED ON THE USE OF THE SOFT-
WARE IN ANY SUCH ON-LINE EQUIPMENT IN HAZARDOUS ENVIRONMENTS BY
YOU. FOR PURPOSES OF THIS PARAGRAPH, THE TERM “LIFE-CRITICAL APPLICA-
TION” MEANS AN APPLICATION IN WHICH THE FUNCTIONING OR MALFUNCTION-
ING OF THE SOFTWARE MAY RESULT DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY IN PHYSICAL IN-
JURY OR LOSS OF HUMAN LIFE. THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES
AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE. NO USE OF ANY COVERED CODE IS AU-
THORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT UNDER THIS DISCLAIMER.
8 TERMINATION.
8.1.
This License and the rights granted hereunder will terminate automatically if You fail
to comply with terms herein and fail to cure such breach within 30 days of becoming
aware of the breach. All sublicenses to the Covered Code which are properly granted
shall survive any termination of this License. Provisions which, by their nature, must
remain in effect beyond the termination of this License shall survive.
8.2.
8.3.
If You assert a patent infringement claim against Participant alleging that such Partic-
ipant’s Contributor Version directly or indirectly infringes any patent where such claim
is resolved (such as by license or settlement) prior to the initiation of patent infringe-
ment litigation, then the reasonable value of the licenses granted by such Participant
under Sections 2.1 or 2.2 shall be taken into account in determining the amount or
value of any payment or license.

299
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

8.4. In the event of termination under Sections 8.1 or 8.2 above, all end user license
agreements (excluding distributors and resellers) which have been validly granted by
You or any distributor hereunder prior to termination shall survive termination.
9 LIMITATION OF LIABILITY.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES AND UNDER NO LEGAL THEORY, WHETHER TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), CONTRACT, OR OTHERWISE, SHALL YOU, THE INI-
TIAL DEVELOPER, ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTOR, OR ANY DISTRIBUTOR OF COV-
ERED CODE, OR ANY SUPPLIER OF ANY OF SUCH PARTIES, BE LIABLE TO ANY
PERSON FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAM-
AGES OF ANY CHARACTER INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR
LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION,
OR ANY AND ALL OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES, EVEN IF SUCH
PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY FOR DEATH OR
PERSONAL INJURY RESULTING FROM SUCH PARTY’S NEGLIGENCE TO THE EX-
TENT APPLICABLE LAW PROHIBITS SUCH LIMITATION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO
NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUEN-
TIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
10 U.S. GOVERNMENT END USERS.
11 MISCELLANEOUS.
12 RESPONSIBILITY FOR CLAIMS.
As between Initial Developer and the Contributors, each party is responsible for
claims and damages arising, directly or indirectly, out of its utilization of rights under
this License and You agree to work with Initial Developer and Contributors to dis-
tribute such responsibility on an equitable basis. Nothing herein is intended or shall
be deemed to constitute any admission of liability.
EXHIBIT A.
“The contents of this file are subject to the gSOAP Public License Version 1.3 (the
“License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may
obtain a copy of the License at http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~engelen/soaplicense.
html. Software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” basis, WITH-
OUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
specific language governing rights and limitations under the License.
The Original Code of the gSOAP Software is: stdsoap.h, stdsoap2.h, stdsoap.c,
stdsoap2.c, stdsoap.cpp, stdsoap2.cpp, soapcpp2.h, soapcpp2.c, soapcpp2_lex.l,
soapcpp2_yacc.y, error2.h, error2.c, symbol2.c, init2.c, soapdoc2.html, and soap-
doc2.pdf, httpget.h, httpget.c, stl.h, stldeque.h, stllist.h, stlvector.h, stlset.h.
The Initial Developer of the Original Code is Robert A. van Engelen. Portions created
by Robert A. van Engelen are Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Robert A. van Engelen, Genivia
inc. All Rights Reserved.
Contributor(s): “________________________.“ [Note: The text of this Exhibit A may
differ slightly form the text of the notices in the Source Code files of the Original code.
You should use the text of this Exhibit A rather than the text found in the Original
Code Source Code for Your Modifications.]
EXHIBIT B.

300
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

“Part of the software embedded in this product is gSOAP software. Portions cre-
ated by gSOAP are Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Robert A. van Engelen, Genivia inc. All
Rights Reserved. THE SOFTWARE IN THIS PRODUCT WAS IN PART PROVIDED BY
GENIVIA INC AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CON-
SEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSI-
NESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE
OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE,
EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.“

15.2.15 Chromium licenses

15.2.15.1 Main license
Copyright (c) 2002, Stanford University All rights reserved.
Some portions of Chromium are copyrighted by individiual organizations. Please
see the files COPYRIGHT.LLNL and COPYRIGHT.REDHAT for more information.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
materials provided with the distribution.
• Neither the name of Stanford University nor the names of its contributors may be
used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific
prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBU-
TORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPY-
RIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCI-
DENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF
USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF
THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

301
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

15.2.15.2 COPYRIGHT.LLNL file

This Chromium distribution contains information and code which is covered under the
following notice:
Copyright (c) 2002, The Regents of the University of California. Produced at
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory For details, contact: Randall Frank
([email protected]). UCRL-CODE-2002-058 All rights reserved.
This file is part of Chromium. For details, see accompanying documentation.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
conditions and the disclaimer below.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list
of conditions and the disclaimer (as noted below) in the documentation and/or other
materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of the UC/LLNL nor the names of its contributors may be used to
endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written
permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBU-
TORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OR CON-
TRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EX-
EMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THE-
ORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (IN-
CLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
Additional BSD Notice
1. This notice is required to be provided under our contract with the U.S. De-
partment of Energy (DOE). This work was produced at the University of California,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-48 with
the DOE.
2. Neither the United States Government nor the University of California nor any
of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability
or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, ap-
paratus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe
privately-owned rights.
3. Also, reference herein to any specific commercial products, process, or services by
trade name, trademark, manufacturer or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or
imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government
or the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do

302
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or the University
of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

15.2.15.3 COPYRIGHT.REDHAT file

This Chromium distribution contains information and code which is covered under the
following notice:
Copyright 2001,2002 Red Hat Inc., Durham, North Carolina.
All Rights Reserved.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this
software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation on the rights to use, copy, modify,
merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to per-
mit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice (including the next para-
graph) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EX-
PRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL RED HAT AND/OR THEIR SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

15.2.16 curl license

COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSION NOTICE
Copyright (c) 1996 - 2009, Daniel Stenberg, [email protected].
All rights reserved.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose with
or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this
permission notice appear in all copies.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EX-
PRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MER-
CHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT
OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR
IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.
Except as contained in this notice, the name of a copyright holder shall not be used
in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software
without prior written authorization of the copyright holder.

303
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

15.2.17 libgd license

Portions copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory. Funded under Grant P41-RR02188 by the National Insti-
tutes of Health.
Portions copyright 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Boutell.Com, Inc.
Portions relating to GD2 format copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Philip Warner.
Portions relating to PNG copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Greg Roelofs.
Portions relating to gdttf.c copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 John Ellson (ell-
[email protected]).
Portions relating to gdft.c copyright 2001, 2002 John Ellson ([email protected]).
Portions copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Pierre-Alain
Joye ([email protected]).
Portions relating to JPEG and to color quantization copyright 2000, 2001, 2002,
Doug Becker and copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001,
2002, Thomas G. Lane. This software is based in part on the work of the Independent
JPEG Group. See the file README-JPEG.TXT for more information.
Portions relating to WBMP copyright 2000, 2001, 2002 Maurice Szmurlo and Johan
Van den Brande.
Permission has been granted to copy, distribute and modify gd in any context with-
out fee, including a commercial application, provided that this notice is present in
user-accessible supporting documentation.
This does not affect your ownership of the derived work itself, and the intent is to
assure proper credit for the authors of gd, not to interfere with your productive use of
gd. If you have questions, ask. “Derived works” includes all programs that utilize the
library. Credit must be given in user-accessible documentation.
This software is provided “AS IS.“ The copyright holders disclaim all warranties,
either express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of mer-
chantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to this code and accom-
panying documentation.
Although their code does not appear in gd, the authors wish to thank David Koblas,
David Rowley, and Hutchison Avenue Software Corporation for their prior contribu-
tions.

15.2.18 BSD license from Intel

All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of
conditions and the following disclaimer.
• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other
materials provided with the distribution.

304
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

• Neither the name of the Intel Corporation nor the names of its contributors may
be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without spe-
cific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBU-

TORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPY-
RIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCI-
DENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF
USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR
TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF
THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

15.2.19 libjpeg License

The authors make NO WARRANTY or representation, either express or implied, with
respect to this software, its quality, accuracy, merchantability, or fitness for a particular
purpose. This software is provided “AS IS”, and you, its user, assume the entire risk as
to its quality and accuracy.
This software is copyright (C) 1991-2010, Thomas G. Lane, Guido Vollbeding. All
Rights Reserved except as specified below.
Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software (or
portions thereof) for any purpose, without fee, subject to these conditions:
(1) If any part of the source code for this software is distributed, then this README
file must be included, with this copyright and no-warranty notice unaltered; and any
additions, deletions, or changes to the original files must be clearly indicated in ac-
companying documentation.
(2) If only executable code is distributed, then the accompanying documentation
must state that “this software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG
Group”.
(3) Permission for use of this software is granted only if the user accepts full re-
sponsibility for any undesirable consequences; the authors accept NO LIABILITY for
damages of any kind.
These conditions apply to any software derived from or based on the IJG code, not
just to the unmodified library. If you use our work, you ought to acknowledge us.
Permission is NOT granted for the use of any IJG author’s name or company name
in advertising or publicity relating to this software or products derived from it. This
software may be referred to only as “the Independent JPEG Group’s software”.
We specifically permit and encourage the use of this software as the basis of com-
mercial products, provided that all warranty or liability claims are assumed by the
product vendor.

305
 15 Third-party materials and licenses

ansi2knr.c is included in this distribution by permission of L. Peter Deutsch, sole

proprietor of its copyright holder, Aladdin Enterprises of Menlo Park, CA. ansi2knr.c
is NOT covered by the above copyright and conditions, but instead by the usual dis-
tribution terms of the Free Software Foundation; principally, that you must include
source code if you redistribute it. (See the file ansi2knr.c for full details.) However,
since ansi2knr.c is not needed as part of any program generated from the IJG code,
this does not limit you more than the foregoing paragraphs do.
The Unix configuration script “configure” was produced with GNU Autoconf. It is
copyright by the Free Software Foundation but is freely distributable. The same holds
for its supporting scripts (config.guess, config.sub, ltmain.sh). Another support script,
install-sh, is copyright by X Consortium but is also freely distributable.
The IJG distribution formerly included code to read and write GIF files. To avoid
entanglement with the Unisys LZW patent, GIF reading support has been removed
altogether, and the GIF writer has been simplified to produce “uncompressed GIFs”.
This technique does not use the LZW algorithm; the resulting GIF files are larger than
usual, but are readable by all standard GIF decoders.
We are required to state that
“The Graphics Interchange Format(c) is the Copyright property of CompuServe In-
corporated. GIF(sm) is a Service Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated.“

15.2.20 x86 SIMD extension for IJG JPEG library license

Copyright 2009 Pierre Ossman <[email protected]> for Cendio AB
Copyright 2010 D. R. Commander
Based on
x86 SIMD extension for IJG JPEG library - version 1.02
Copyright (C) 1999-2006, MIYASAKA Masaru.
This software is provided ’as-is’, without any express or implied warranty. In no
event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this
software.
Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including com-
mercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following
restrictions:
1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that
you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledg-
ment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrep-
resented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.

306
16 VirtualBox privacy policy
Policy version 4, Apr 22, 2010
This privacy policy sets out how Oracle Corporation (“Oracle”) treats personal in-
formation related to the virtualbox.org website and the VirtualBox application.
§ 1 virtualbox.org. The “virtualbox.org” website logs anonymous usage information
such as your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length
of visit and number of page views while you visit (collectively, “anonymous data”).
In addition, but only if you choose to register, the website’s bug tracking and forum
services store the data you choose to reveal upon registration, such as your user name
and contact information.
§ 2 Cookies. The virtualbox.org website, the bug tracker and the forum services use
cookies to identify and track the visiting web browser and, if you have registered, to
facilitate login. Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. While you can
still visit the website with cookies disabled, logging into the bug tracker and forum
services will most likely not work without them.
§ 3 VirtualBox registration process. The VirtualBox application may ask that
the user optinoally register with Oracle. in der If you choose to register, your
name, e-mail address, country and company will be submitted to Oracle and
stored together with the IP address of the submitter as well as product version
and platform being used. The standard Oracle Privacy Policies as posted on
http://www.oracle.com/html/privacy.html apply to this data.
§ 4 Update notifications. The VirtualBox application may contact Oracle to find out
whether a new version of VirtualBox has been released and notify the user if that is the
case. In the process, anonymous data such as your IP address and a non-identifying
counter, together with the product version and the platform being used, is sent so
that the server can find out whether an update is available. By default, this check is
performed once a day. You change this interval or disable these checks altogether in
the VirtualBox preferences.
§ 5 Usage of personal information. Oracle may use anonymous and personal data
collected by the means above for statistical purposes as well as to automatically inform
you about new notices related to your posts on the bug tracker and forum services, to
administer the website and to contact you due to technical issues. Oracle may also
inform you about new product releases related to VirtualBox.
In no event will personal data without your express consent be provided to any
third parties, unless Oracle may be required to do so by law or in connection with
legal proceedings.
§ 6 Updates. Oracle may update this privacy policy by posting a new version on
the virtualbox.org website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are
happy with any changes.

307
Glossary

A
ACPI Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, an industry specification for BIOS
and hardware extensions to configure PC hardware and perform power manage-
ment. Windows 2000 and higher as well as Linux 2.4 and higher support ACPI.
Windows can only enable or disable ACPI support at installation time.

AHCI Advanced Host Controller Interface, the interface that supports SATA devices
such as hard disks. See chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI),
SCSI, SAS, page 87.
AMD-V The hardware virtualization features built into modern AMD processors. See
chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page 185.

API Application Programming Interface.

APIC Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, a newer version of the original
PC PIC (programmable interrupt controller). Most modern CPUs contain an on-
chip APIC (“local APIC”). Many systems also contain an I/O APIC (input output
APIC) as a separate chip which provides more than 16 IRQs. Windows 2000
and higher use a different kernel if they detect an I/O APIC during installation.
Therefore an I/O APIC must not be removed after installation.
ATA Advanced Technology Attachment, an industry standard for hard disk inter-
faces (synonymous with IDE). See chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA
(AHCI), SCSI, SAS, page 87.

B
BIOS Basic Input/Output System, the firmware built into most personal computers
which is responsible of initializing the hardware after the computer has been
turned on and then booting an operating system. VirtualBox ships with its own
virtual BIOS that runs when a virtual machine is started.

308
 Glossary

C
COM Microsoft Component Object Model, a programming infrastructure for modular
software. COM allows applications to provide application programming inter-
faces which can be accessed from various other programming languages and
applications. VirtualBox makes use of COM both internally and externally to
provide a comprehensive API to 3rd party developers.

D
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. This allows a networking device in a
network to acquire its IP address (and other networking details) automatically,
in order to avoid having to configure all devices in a network with fixed IP ad-
dresses. VirtualBox has a built-in DHCP server that delivers an IP addresses to
a virtual machine when networking is configured to NAT; see chapter 6, Virtual
networking, page 103.
DKMS Dynamic Kernel Module Support. A framework that simplifies installing and
updating external kernel modules on Linux machines; see chapter 2.3.2, The
VirtualBox kernel module, page 37.

E
EFI Extensible Firmware Interface, a firmware built into computers which is designed
to replace the aging BIOS. Originally designed by Intel, most modern operating
systems can now boot on computers which have EFI instead of a BIOS built into
them; see chapter 3.12, Alternative firmware (EFI), page 62.

EHCI Enhanced Host Controller Interface, the interface that implements the USB 2.0
standard.

G
GUI Graphical User Interface. Commonly used as an antonym to a “command line
interface”, in the context of VirtualBox, we sometimes refer to the main graph-
ical VirtualBox program as the “GUI”, to differentiate it from the VBoxManage
interface.
GUID See UUID.

309
 Glossary

I
IDE Integrated Drive Electronics, an industry standard for hard disk interfaces. See
chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, page 87.
I/O APIC See APIC.
iSCSI Internet SCSI; see chapter 5.10, iSCSI servers, page 101.

M
MAC Media Access Control, a part of an Ethernet network card. A MAC address
is a 6-byte number which identifies a network card. It is typically written
in hexadecimal notation where the bytes are separated by colons, such as
00:17:3A:5E:CB:08.

N
NAT Network Address Translation. A technique to share networking interfaces by
which an interface modifies the source and/or target IP addresses of network
packets according to specific rules. Commonly employed by routers and fire-
walls to shield an internal network from the Internet, VirtualBox can use NAT
to easily share a host’s physical networking hardware with its virtual machines.
See chapter 6.3, Network Address Translation (NAT), page 105.

O
OVF Open Virtualization Format, a cross-platform industry standard to exchange vir-
tual appliances between virtualization products; see chapter 1.11, Importing and
exporting virtual machines, page 30.

P
PAE Physical Address Extension. This allows accessing more than 4 GB of RAM even
in 32-bit environments; see chapter 3.3.2, “Advanced” tab, page 51.
PIC See APIC.
PXE Preboot Execution Environment, an industry standard for booting PC systems
from remote network locations. It includes DHCP for IP configuration and TFTP
for file transfer. Using UNDI, a hardware independent driver stack for accessing
the network card from bootstrap code is available.

310
 Glossary

R
RDP Remote Desktop Protocol, a protocol developed by Microsoft as an extension
to the ITU T.128 and T.124 video conferencing protocol. With RDP, a PC sys-
tem can be controlled from a remote location using a network connection over
which data is transferred in both directions. Typically graphics updates and au-
dio are sent from the remote machine and keyboard and mouse input events are
sent from the client. VirtualBox contains an enhanced implementation of the
relevant standards called “VirtualBox RDP” (VRDP), which is largely compatible
with Microsoft’s RDP implementation. See chapter 7.1, Remote display (VRDP
support), page 112 for details.

S
SAS Serial Attached SCSI, an industry standard for hard disk interfaces. See chapter
5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, page 87.
SATA Serial ATA, an industry standard for hard disk interfaces. See chapter 5.1, Hard
disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, page 87.
SCSI Small Computer System Interface. An industry standard for data transfer be-
tween devices, especially for storage. See chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE,
SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, page 87.
SMP Symmetrical Multiprocessing, meaning that the resources of a computer are
shared between several processors. These can either be several processor chips
or, as is more common with modern hardware, multiple CPU cores in one pro-
cessor.

U
UUID A Universally Unique Identifier – often also called GUID (Globally Unique Iden-
tifier) – is a string of numbers and letters which can be computed dynamically
and is guaranteed to be unique. Generally, it is used as a global handle to iden-
tify entities. VirtualBox makes use of UUIDs to identify VMs, Virtual Disk Images
(VDI files) and other entities.

V
VM Virtual Machine – a virtual computer that VirtualBox allows you to run on top of
your actual hardware. See chapter 1.2, Some terminology, page 12 for details.
VRDP See RDP.

311
 Glossary

VT-x The hardware virtualization features built into modern Intel processors. See
chapter 10.2, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page 185.

X
XML The eXtensible Markup Language, a metastandard for all kinds of textual infor-
mation. XML only specifies how data in the document is organized generally and
does not prescribe how to semantically organize content.
XPCOM Mozilla Cross Platform Component Object Model, a programming infrastruc-
ture developed by the Mozilla browser project which is similar to Microsoft COM
and allows applications to provide a modular programming interface. VirtualBox
makes use of XPCOM on Linux both internally and externally to provide a com-
prehensive API to third-party developers.

312