Sun VirtualBox – Free, Powerful Virtualization

[PAGETITLE=Introduction][Top Ad] This past summer, I posted a primer to consumer virtualization with the promise of following-up with in-depth looks at the various hypervisors available on the consumer side. It's taken me a while, I admit, but we're kicking things off with a look at Sun's VirtualBox, one of the few absolutely free solutions out there. While there's an open source edition available (lacks mostly enterprise features), we're taking a look at the primary edition which most people will be interested in downloading. For those not familiar with virtualization, I recommend you check out our primer linked to above. I'll explain the basics here, but that article has a much more intricate look at things, and can better inform you about what a virtual machine is, and how it works. Simply put though, virtualization is the art of running an operating system inside of another operating system. As an example, you could be running Windows 7 as your primary operating system (host), and then Ubuntu 9.10 as the secondary (guest), running right inside your native OS. In the primer, I tackled a lot of the reasons why someone would want to do this, but one of the more common is that your native OS may not run a piece of software you want it to. Or, you may simply want to test out a new Linux distribution before committing to a true install. Then there are development reasons. Imagine being able to test out your software or Web app in a variety of operating systems without ever rebooting your computer. That's the power of virtualization. The software used to power these virtual machines are called hypervisors, and where free (as in beer) solutions are concerned, the two most popular options are Sun's VirtualBox and also VMware's Player. Each has its own pros and cons, but for the most part, both offer easy installs of VMs and even easier-to-understand operation. I'll be using VMware's Player to a greater degree over the next few weeks, and will be publishing an article on it as well. Sun's VirtualBox. VirtualBox has been a common option for virtualization for quite a while, but it wasn't owned by Sun until early last year. It acquired the original company, Innotek, and soon split the one version in two, with the second being the OSE (Open Source Edition), which lacks in some functionality, but includes the full source code. For all intents and purposes, the most common option for VirtualBox will be the main edition, but if you are keen on using only open source software, then the OSE is for you. On the about page for VirtualBox, some of the highlighted features include a modular design, XML-based VM descriptions, Guest Additions, Shared Folders, Virtual USB Controllers, Remote Desktop Protocol and USB over RDP. There are of course far, far more features than just this, but all of these are good to focus on, and we will touch on most of them throughout this article. What makes a hypervisor truly useful it its operating system support, and VirtualBox is certainly not lacking anywhere there. Unlike some solutions, like Microsoft's Virtual PC, which supports only its own operating systems, VirtualBox supports Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris as the host (native, primary OS), and many, many versions of Windows, Linux, Solaris and others as guests. To see whether or not your preferred guest OS will work, you can check out the Guest OSes page which will tell you all you need to know. Because I use Linux as my primary OS, most of my testing and many screenshots here reflect that. Because all versions of VirtualBox offer the same functionality and locations of options from OS to OS, you'll be able to easily find anything from my screenshots in your own install of the program. Some features that VirtualBox offers is only available to select guest OSes, but that will also be the same from version to version. If you've never had the benefit of using a hypervisor in the past, then VirtualBox is going to surprise you at the ease-of-use and operation. To download the program, just head on over to the official downloads page and choose the appropriate version. Note that if you are using a Linux host, then chances are good that VirtualBox will be available in your distro's respository. Not all repositories will have the brand-new 3.1 version, however, so you may want to manually download the program if that's the case. As a whole, VirtualBox is a simple-looking application. On the main screen, as seen above, there's a VM list to the left, and detailed information on the respective VM you've clicked on to the right. There's nothing much complicated here, and if you were judging the application simply by this screen, you'd likely imagine it's not too powerful, but what an understatement that would be. In this screenshot, I already have a couple of guest OSes installed, but let's go through the process together of installing Windows 7 as a guest inside of Windows 7 as a host. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Installing a Virtual Machine] After clicking the "New" button on the main screen, a dialog box will pop up, and you're ready to go. After pushing "Next" for the first time, you'll be able to type in the name of your VM. I usually name mine by exactly what it is, but you don't have to. "Julie's Windows XP" and "Development Windows" are two examples that would work. This screen is also where you will need to choose which OS you'll be installing from that drop-down. If you plan to install an OS not listed, you could just choose other and hope the best. For Linux distributions not listed, there are appropriate "Other" options found here. The next slew of screens have to do with the amount of RAM you wish to allocate to that given VM, and also virtual hard drive space. For RAM, 512MB - 1024MB is usually fine for testing out most OSes, but if you actually plan to use the guest OS like a regular OS, you'd want to allocate more RAM if possible. Just be sure to leave enough RAM for your native OS, as dedicating too much can cause slow-down for both. For most virtual machines, a real hard disk is not used, so a virtual one must be created. Like the RAM choice, you'll want to choose just as much as you think you will need. If you are simply testing out an OS for fun, then dedicating too much isn't going to make much sense (don't worry, it doesn't have to take as much space as you selected on your HDD until you actually fill it up). It is important to note, though, that if you do plan on using the guest OS a fair amount, to not choose too little of a figure, as it's not so simple to increase the virtual disk size later on. After proceeding through the virtual disk creation, you'll quickly reach a screen that asks you to choose between a dynamic and fixed-size disk. If you choose dynamic, the real size on your disk will not increase until the VM itself requires it, as I mentioned above. Fixed-sized means that a file will be created immediately on your hard drive of the density you specified. If you plan on making a lot of VM's, the fixed-size option might be the better choice as you won't accidentally exceed your hard drive's total free space while using a VM. Like the name of your VM, the name of the disk doesn't much matter, but for the sake of ease, it's better to leave it at default. Don't skip past this screen too fast, though, because it's here where you will need to decide where the virtual disk goes, or rather, on which hard drive. Why does this matter? Because if you have more than one real hard drive installed, with the OS on one, and regular data on the other, you're likely to see better performance if the VM is located on the non-OS drive. If you only have one hard drive, the default option is fine. At this point, the virtual machine "setup" process is done, and you have two options. You can either accept all of the pre-configured options that VirtualBox assigned the machine, or do what I recommend and click once on the VM in the list, and then "Settings" up top. Because a hypervisor is essentially a PC within your PC, the virtual machine will see it, not your real PC. So in here, you can set up some specific options, from networking to audio to display settings. If you plan on using 3D in your VM, then the first stop I recommend is "Display". Here, you can choose the amount of video memory you want to dedicate to the VM, and I highly recommend sliding the bar to its highest point (128MB) if your card is 256MB or higher. Certain features might not be usable without increased video RAM, and VirtualBox will tell you if that's the case with an orange error in the box field below. New to version 3.1 is 2D video acceleration, which works only with Windows guests. Be sure that "Enable 3D Acceleration" is checked before leaving this screen. The next menu item is "Storage", and this is where you can either create a new virtual hard disk for use inside of the VM, and also mount an ISO to the CD-ROM if you want. If you want to install the OS with the original disc, then just pop it in and do nothing here. But for ISO usage, you can select the appropriate file through the CD/DVD Device drop-down. If you don't need Floppy support, you can remove it here. If you have an elaborate networking situation, you might also want to go to the "Network" section and configure the needed options. For most people, nothing will have to be altered, but if there is one, it might be the "Attached to:". If you are unsure of the options here, leave the default as is, and alter it after the OS is installed if need be. Should you choose to, you could refresh the MAC address or change the adapter type. One of the last menus you might want to check out is "USB". Here, you can enable the controller, and add "Filters", which essentially enable full support for the device in the VM. Do not add a filter for the primary mouse on the machine, as that will cause issues later. If you have a secondary mouse connected to the machine, you could add a filter for that. You could also...

Sun VirtualBox – Free, Powerful Virtualization

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Rob Williams