VirtualBox

Installation

Reference instructions can be found here.

Installation using repository

• For VirtualBox 3.2.x:
• Add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list (here for Ubuntu Lucid):

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid non-free

• Add the Oracle public key for apt-secure, then install

  wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install virtualbox-3.2
  

• For VirtualBox 3.1.x:
• Add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list (here for Ubuntu Karmic):

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian karmic non-free

• Add the Sun public key for apt-secure, then install

  wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install virtualbox-3.1
  

The group vboxusers is created during installation.

• Users of the VirtualBox must be member of that group. New users can be added with

sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username

• The daemon for the network interfaces will be assigned to that group.

Recompiling the vboxdrv kernel module

VirtualBox requires a kernel module vboxdrv.

• The default location of the module is given by setting KDIR=[fullpath] in file /etc/default/virtualbox.
• The kernel module can be compiled with

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

• Enable Dynamic Kernel Module Support to deal with Kernel Upgrade

Launch VirtualBox as another user

• Limitation! It seems that only one user can access PulseAudio (see [1]). This means that when launching VirtualBox as another user (other than root), it will not be possible to play sounds in the host anymore.
• Create user vbox (disabled, uid 7000, group vboxusers + groups cdrom, audio, video, plugdev, fuse, netdev). This user will store VirtualBox settings and disks, access bluetooth...
• If user vbox needs to access a partition directly (e.g. because using a raw drive), give RW access on the selected partition. For instance, to give RW access to partition /dev/sda2, create a new udev rule in file /etc/udev/rules.d/99-custom.rules:

# Rules to change the ownership of /dev/sda2 to user "vbox" (vbox will boot /dev/sda2 in VirtualBox + follow least privilege principle)
# reference: http://www.reactivated.net/writing_udev_rules.html#ownership
KERNEL=="sda2", SUBSYSTEM=="block", OWNER="vbox"

• Allow users to launch VirtualBox through user vbox. Add to /etc/sudoers:

ALL	ALL=NOPASSWD: /bin/su vbox -c /usr/bin/VirtualBox

• Helper function to add to e.g. ~/.bashrc :

function winbox() {
	#First allow user vbox to connect to X11
	xhost +SI:localuser:vbox
	sudo su vbox -c /usr/bin/VirtualBox&
}

Creating a New Virtual Machine

• To boot a Virtual Machine directly from a physical disk partitions, see section Advanced storage configuration in Ch. 9 Advanced topics.

Booting Existing Windows XP from Physical Partition

Reference: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Migrate_Windows

Host Setup

• Dell Latitude E6500 (with virtualization instructions)
• VirtualBox 3.2.0, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx
• Base Memory 1536 MB, 2 cpus, VT-x/AMD-V enabled, Nested Paging enabled
• Video memory 48 MB, 2 monitors, 3D accel enabled, 2D accel enabled
• Audio host driver PulseAudio, controller ICH AC97
• Network PCnet-FAST III, bridged, eth0

Guest Setup

• Windows XP SP3

Let's say the Windows partition is on partition /dev/sda2.

• First, as described in [2], delete agp440.sys (or rename) from C:\Windows\system32\drivers. This driver will conflict with the virtual video card installed by VirtualBox and will make it crash.
• Next, create the raw disk as a vmdk volume. Update the MBR code to remove GRUB. Repeat this every time the partitions change:

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=opensource.mbr bs=512 count=1
sudo apt-get install mbr                                 # For command "install-mbr"
sudo install-mbr -i n -p D -t 0 opensource.mbr
sudo VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename nxl67002-sda2-mbr.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sda -partitions 2 -relative -mbr opensource.mbr

• Boot the virtual machine with the raw disk above. When Windows is launched, install the VirtualBox guest additions.

This is done! When booting Windows natively, the VirtualBox guest additions will detect that VirtualBox is not running and will disable itself.

Some related posts:

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic21511.html

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19847

http://forum.driverpacks.net/viewtopic.php?id=3865

Benchmarks

Settings:

• Dell Latitude E6500, 4GB RAM.
• VirtualBox 3.1.6.
• System: 1536 MB RAM, IO APIC, 2 CPU with PAE/NX, VT-x + Nested Paging.
• Video: 32 MB Video + 2D accel
• Storage: PIIX4 ctrl, raw vmdk image /dev/sda
• Audio: PulseAudio + ICH AC97
• Network: Bridged Adapter

task	U9.04-32	U9.04-32	U9.04-32	U9.10-32	U9.10-32	U9.10-32	U9.10-64	U9.10-64	U9.10-64	U9.04-32	U9.04-32	Native	Native	Native
grub →hw profile	2.86 s	2.82 s	2.77 s	2.76 s	2.68 s	2.84 s	2.50 s	2.51 s	2.61 s	3.22 s	2.73 s	1.62 s	1.57 s	1.41 s
... →login screen	23.49 s	23.46 s	21.56 s	42.07 s	43.48 s	40.28 s	48.63 s	52.00 s	56.07 s	33.15 s	24.06 s	29.52 s	24.89 s	25.16 s
... →pwd typed	17.69 s	12.94 s	12.62 s	9.83 s	9.69 s	8.56 s	15.41 s	9.85 s	9.31 s	9.68 s	8.75 s	9.88 s	8.42 s	8.99 s
... →communicator	8.83 s	7.73 s	8.45 s	32.51 s	29.97 s	36.57 s	38.50 s	33.53 s	34.44 s	20.48 s	8.24 s	9.47 s	7.20 s	6.81 s

U9.04-32: Base Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty i386 Live running on USB, 2.6.28-11-generic.
U9.10-32: Base Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic i386 Live running on USB
U9.10-64: Base Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic AMD64 running from HDD, 2.6.31-20-generic
Native: Running Windows directly, no emulation

Conclusions:

• Ubuntu 9.04 + VirtualBox 3.1.6 → FAST !!!
• Ubuntu 9.10 + VirtualBox 3.1.6 → SLOW !!!

External references:

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=769883

Interesting post about step-by-step configuration to run an existing Windows XP installation.

• Two posts about disabling IO APIC:[3] and [4]. But apparently this doesn't really fix anything (also the poster has a old cpu, etc).

Bugtracker

• Enhancement - #6854 - Allow hot-plug addition / removal of screens (monitors) in guest OS