Oracle VM VirtualBox®

1.1. Why is virtualization useful?

1.2. Some terminology

1.3. Features overview

1.4. Supported host operating systems

1.5. Installing VirtualBox and extension packs

1.6. Starting VirtualBox

1.7. Creating your first virtual machine

1.8. Running your virtual machine

1.8.1. Starting a new VM for the first time
1.8.2. Capturing and releasing keyboard and mouse
1.8.3. Typing special characters
1.8.4. Changing removable media
1.8.5. Resizing the machine's window
1.8.6. Saving the state of the machine

1.9. Using VM groups

1.10. Snapshots

1.10.1. Taking, restoring and deleting snapshots
1.10.2. Snapshot contents

1.11. Virtual machine configuration

1.12. Removing virtual machines

1.13. Cloning virtual machines

1.14. Importing and exporting virtual machines

1.15. Global Settings

1.16. Alternative front-ends

2.1. Installing on Windows hosts

2.1.1. Prerequisites
2.1.2. Performing the installation
2.1.3. Uninstallation
2.1.4. Unattended installation
2.1.5. Public properties

2.2. Installing on Mac OS X hosts

2.2.1. Performing the installation
2.2.2. Uninstallation
2.2.3. Unattended installation

2.3. Installing on Linux hosts

2.3.1. Prerequisites
2.3.2. The VirtualBox driver modules
2.3.3. Performing the installation
2.3.4. The vboxusers group
2.3.5. Starting VirtualBox on Linux

2.4. Installing on Solaris hosts

2.4.1. Performing the installation
2.4.2. The vboxuser group
2.4.3. Starting VirtualBox on Solaris
2.4.4. Uninstallation
2.4.5. Unattended installation
2.4.6. Configuring a zone for running VirtualBox

3.1. Supported guest operating systems

3.1.1. Mac OS X guests
3.1.2. 64-bit guests

3.2. Unattended guest installation

3.3. Emulated hardware

3.4. General settings

3.4.1. "Basic" tab
3.4.2. "Advanced" tab
3.4.3. "Description" tab

3.5. System settings

3.5.1. "Motherboard" tab
3.5.2. "Processor" tab
3.5.3. "Acceleration" tab

3.6. Display settings

3.7. Storage settings

3.8. Audio settings

3.9. Network settings

3.10. Serial ports

3.11. USB support

3.11.1. USB settings
3.11.2. Implementation notes for Windows and Linux hosts

3.12. Shared folders

3.13. User Interface

3.14. Alternative firmware (EFI)

3.14.1. Video modes in EFI
3.14.2. Specifying boot arguments

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Installing and Maintaining Guest Additions

4.2.1. Guest Additions for Windows
4.2.2. Guest Additions for Linux
4.2.3. Guest Additions for Solaris
4.2.4. Guest Additions for OS/2

4.3. Shared folders

4.3.1. Manual mounting
4.3.2. Automatic mounting

4.4. Drag and Drop

4.4.1. Supported formats
4.4.2. Known limitations

4.5. Hardware-accelerated graphics

4.5.1. Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)
4.5.2. Hardware 2D video acceleration for Windows guests

4.6. Seamless windows

4.7. Guest properties

4.8. Guest control

4.9. Memory overcommitment

4.9.1. Memory ballooning
4.9.2. Page Fusion

5.1. Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, SAS, USB MSD, NVMe
5.2. Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD)
5.3. The Virtual Media Manager
5.4. Special image write modes
5.5. Differencing images
5.6. Cloning disk images
5.7. Host I/O caching
5.8. Limiting bandwidth for disk images
5.9. CD/DVD support
5.10. iSCSI servers

6.1. Virtual networking hardware

6.2. Introduction to networking modes

6.3. Network Address Translation (NAT)

6.3.1. Configuring port forwarding with NAT
6.3.2. PXE booting with NAT
6.3.3. NAT limitations

6.4. Network Address Translation Service

6.5. Bridged networking

6.6. Internal networking

6.7. Host-only networking

6.8. UDP Tunnel networking

6.9. VDE networking

6.10. Limiting bandwidth for network I/O

6.11. Improving network performance

7.1. Remote display (VRDP support)

7.1.1. Common third-party RDP viewers
7.1.2. VBoxHeadless, the remote desktop server
7.1.3. Step by step: creating a virtual machine on a headless server
7.1.4. Remote USB
7.1.5. RDP authentication
7.1.6. RDP encryption
7.1.7. Multiple connections to the VRDP server
7.1.8. Multiple remote monitors
7.1.9. VRDP video redirection
7.1.10. VRDP customization

7.2. Teleporting

8.1. Introduction

8.2. Commands overview

8.3. General options

8.4. VBoxManage list

8.5. VBoxManage showvminfo

8.6. VBoxManage registervm / unregistervm

8.7. VBoxManage createvm

8.8. VBoxManage modifyvm

8.8.1. General settings
8.8.2. Networking settings
8.8.3. Miscellaneous settings
8.8.4. Video Capture settings
8.8.5. Remote machine settings
8.8.6. Teleporting settings
8.8.7. Debugging settings
8.8.8. USB card reader settings
8.8.9. Auto starting VMs during host system boot

8.9. VBoxManage clonevm

8.10. VBoxManage import

8.11. VBoxManage export

8.12. VBoxManage startvm

8.13. VBoxManage controlvm

8.14. VBoxManage discardstate

8.15. VBoxManage adoptstate

8.16. VBoxManage snapshot

8.17. VBoxManage closemedium

8.18. VBoxManage storageattach

8.19. VBoxManage storagectl

8.20. VBoxManage bandwidthctl

8.21. VBoxManage showmediuminfo

8.22. VBoxManage createmedium

8.23. VBoxManage modifymedium

8.24. VBoxManage clonemedium

8.25. VBoxManage mediumproperty

8.26. VBoxManage encryptmedium

8.27. VBoxManage checkmediumpwd

8.28. VBoxManage convertfromraw

8.29. VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata

8.30. VBoxManage setproperty

8.31. VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove

8.32. VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove

8.33. VBoxManage guestproperty

8.34. VBoxManage guestcontrol

8.35. VBoxManage metrics

8.36. VBoxManage natnetwork

8.37. VBoxManage hostonlyif

8.38. VBoxManage dhcpserver

8.39. VBoxManage usbdevsource

8.40. VBoxManage debugvm

8.41. VBoxManage extpack

8.42. VBoxManage unattended

9.1. VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer

9.1.1. Introduction
9.1.2. Secure labeling with VBoxSDL
9.1.3. Releasing modifiers with VBoxSDL on Linux

9.2. Automated guest logons

9.2.1. Automated Windows guest logons
9.2.2. Automated Linux/Unix guest logons

9.3. Advanced configuration for Windows guests

9.3.1. Automated Windows system preparation

9.4. Advanced configuration for Linux and Solaris guests

9.4.1. Manual setup of selected guest services on Linux
9.4.2. Guest graphics and mouse driver setup in depth

9.5. CPU hot-plugging

9.6. PCI passthrough

9.7. Webcam passthrough

9.7.1. Using a host webcam in the guest
9.7.2. Windows hosts
9.7.3. Mac OS X hosts
9.7.4. Linux and Solaris hosts

9.8. Advanced display configuration

9.8.1. Custom VESA resolutions
9.8.2. Configuring the maximum resolution of guests when using the graphical frontend

9.9. Advanced storage configuration

9.9.1. Using a raw host hard disk from a guest
9.9.2. Configuring the hard disk vendor product data (VPD)
9.9.3. Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking

9.10. Legacy commands for using serial ports

9.11. Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine

9.11.1. Configuring the address of a NAT network interface
9.11.2. Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network interface
9.11.3. Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT
9.11.4. Binding NAT sockets to a specific interface
9.11.5. Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode
9.11.6. Using the host's resolver as a DNS proxy in NAT mode
9.11.7. Configuring aliasing of the NAT engine

9.12. Configuring the BIOS DMI information

9.13. Configuring the custom ACPI table

9.14. Fine-tuning timers and time synchronization

9.14.1. Configuring the guest time stamp counter (TSC) to reflect guest execution
9.14.2. Accelerate or slow down the guest clock
9.14.3. Tuning the Guest Additions time synchronization parameters
9.14.4. Disabling the Guest Additions time synchronization

9.15. Installing the alternate bridged networking driver on Solaris 11 hosts

9.16. VirtualBox VNIC templates for VLANs on Solaris 11 hosts

9.17. Configuring multiple host-only network interfaces on Solaris hosts

9.18. Configuring the VirtualBox CoreDumper on Solaris hosts

9.19. VirtualBox and Solaris kernel zones

9.20. Locking down the VirtualBox GUI

9.20.1. Customizing the VM manager
9.20.2. VM selector customization
9.20.3. Configure VM selector menu entries
9.20.4. Configure VM window menu entries
9.20.5. Configure VM window status bar entries
9.20.6. Configure VM window visual modes
9.20.7. Host Key customization
9.20.8. Action when terminating the VM
9.20.9. Default action when terminating the VM
9.20.10. Action for handling a Guru Meditation
9.20.11. Configuring automatic mouse capturing
9.20.12. Configuring automatic mouse capturing
9.20.13. Requesting legacy full-screen mode

9.21. Starting the VirtualBox web service automatically

9.21.1. Linux: starting the webservice via init
9.21.2. Solaris: starting the web service via SMF
9.21.3. Mac OS X: starting the webservice via launchd

9.22. VirtualBox Watchdog

9.22.1. Memory ballooning control
9.22.2. Host isolation detection
9.22.3. More information
9.22.4. Linux: starting the watchdog service via init
9.22.5. Solaris: starting the watchdog service via SMF

9.23. Other extension packs

9.24. Starting virtual machines during system boot

9.24.1. Linux: starting the autostart service via init
9.24.2. Solaris: starting the autostart service via SMF
9.24.3. Mac OS X: starting the autostart service via launchd

9.25. VirtualBox expert storage management

9.26. Handling of host power management events

9.27. Experimental support for passing through SSE4.1 / SSE4.2 instructions

9.28. Support for keyboard indicators synchronization

9.29. Capturing USB traffic for selected devices

9.30. Configuring the heartbeat service

9.31. Encryption of disk images

9.31.1. Limitations
9.31.2. Encrypting disk images
9.31.3. Starting a VM with encrypted images
9.31.4. Decrypting encrypted images

9.32. Paravirtualized debugging

9.32.1. Hyper-V debug options

9.33. PC speaker passthrough

9.34. Accessing USB devices exposed over the network with USB/IP

9.34.1. Setting up USB/IP support on a Linux system
9.34.2. Security considerations

9.35. VISO file format / RTIsoMaker

10.1. Where VirtualBox stores its files

10.1.1. Machines created by VirtualBox version 4.0 or later
10.1.2. Machines created by VirtualBox versions before 4.0
10.1.3. Global configuration data
10.1.4. Summary of 4.0 configuration changes
10.1.5. VirtualBox XML files

10.2. VirtualBox executables and components

10.3. Hardware vs. software virtualization

10.4. Paravirtualization providers

10.5. Details about software virtualization

10.6. Details about hardware virtualization

10.7. Nested paging and VPIDs

12.1. Procedures and tools

12.1.1. Categorizing and isolating problems
12.1.2. Collecting debugging information
12.1.3. The built-in VM debugger
12.1.4. VM core format

12.2. General

12.2.1. Guest shows IDE/SATA errors for file-based images on slow host file system
12.2.2. Responding to guest IDE/SATA flush requests
12.2.3. Performance variation with frequency boosting
12.2.4. Frequency scaling effect on CPU usage
12.2.5. Inaccurate Windows CPU usage reporting
12.2.6. Poor performance caused by host power management
12.2.7. GUI: 2D Video Acceleration option is grayed out

12.3. Windows guests

12.3.1. No USB 3.0 support in Windows 7 guests
12.3.2. Windows bluescreens after changing VM configuration
12.3.3. Windows 0x101 bluescreens with SMP enabled (IPI timeout)
12.3.4. Windows 2000 installation failures
12.3.5. How to record bluescreen information from Windows guests
12.3.6. PCnet driver failure in 32-bit Windows Server 2003 guests
12.3.7. No networking in Windows Vista guests
12.3.8. Windows guests may cause a high CPU load
12.3.9. Long delays when accessing shared folders
12.3.10. USB tablet coordinates wrong in Windows 98 guests
12.3.11. Windows guests are removed from an Active Directory domain after restoring a snapshot
12.3.12. Restoring d3d8.dll and d3d9.dll
12.3.13. Windows 3.x limited to 64 MB RAM

12.4. Linux and X11 guests

12.4.1. Linux guests may cause a high CPU load
12.4.2. AMD Barcelona CPUs
12.4.3. Buggy Linux 2.6 kernel versions
12.4.4. Shared clipboard, auto-resizing and seamless desktop in X11 guests

12.5. Solaris guests

12.5.1. Older Solaris 10 releases crash in 64-bit mode
12.5.2. Certain Solaris 10 releases may take long to boot with SMP
12.5.3. Solaris 8 5/01 and earlier may crash on startup

12.6. FreeBSD guests

12.6.1. FreeBSD 10.0 may hang with xHCI

12.7. Windows hosts

12.7.1. VBoxSVC out-of-process COM server issues
12.7.2. CD/DVD changes not recognized
12.7.3. Sluggish response when using Microsoft RDP client
12.7.4. Running an iSCSI initiator and target on a single system
12.7.5. Bridged networking adapters missing
12.7.6. Host-only networking adapters cannot be created

12.8. Linux hosts

12.8.1. Linux kernel module refuses to load
12.8.2. Linux host CD/DVD drive not found
12.8.3. Linux host CD/DVD drive not found (older distributions)
12.8.4. Linux host floppy not found
12.8.5. Strange guest IDE error messages when writing to CD/DVD
12.8.6. VBoxSVC IPC issues
12.8.7. USB not working
12.8.8. PAX/grsec kernels
12.8.9. Linux kernel vmalloc pool exhausted

12.9. Solaris hosts

12.9.1. Cannot start VM, not enough contiguous memory
12.9.2. VM aborts with out of memory errors on Solaris 10 hosts

13.1. General Security Principles

13.2. Secure Installation and Configuration

13.2.1. Installation Overview
13.2.2. Post Installation Configuration

13.3. Security Features

13.3.1. The Security Model
13.3.2. Secure Configuration of Virtual Machines
13.3.3. Configuring and Using Authentication
13.3.4. Potentially insecure operations
13.3.5. Encryption

14.1. Experimental Features
14.2. Known Issues

15.1. Version 5.2.4 (2017-12-19)
15.2. Version 5.2.2 (2017-11-22)
15.3. Version 5.2.0 (2017-10-17)
15.4. Version 5.1.30 (2017-10-16)
15.5. Version 5.1.28 (2017-09-13)
15.6. Version 5.1.30 (2017-10-16)
15.7. Version 5.1.28 (2017-09-13)
15.8. Version 5.1.26 (2017-07-27)
15.9. Version 5.1.24 (2017-07-18)
15.10. Version 5.1.22 (2017-04-28)
15.11. Version 5.1.20 (2017-04-18)
15.12. Version 5.1.18 (2017-03-15)
15.13. Version 5.1.16 (2017-03-08)
15.14. Version 5.1.14 (2017-01-16)
15.15. Version 5.1.12 (2016-12-20)
15.16. Version 5.1.10 (2016-11-21)
15.17. Version 5.1.8 (2016-10-18)
15.18. Version 5.1.6 (2016-09-12)
15.19. Version 5.1.4 (2016-08-16)
15.20. Version 5.1.2 (2016-07-21)
15.21. Version 5.1.0 (2016-07-12)
15.22. Version 5.0.24 (2016-06-28)
15.23. Version 5.0.22 (2016-06-16)
15.24. Version 5.0.20 (2016-04-28)
15.25. Version 5.0.18 (2016-04-18)
15.26. Version 5.0.16 (2016-03-04)
15.27. Version 5.0.14 (2016-01-19)
15.28. Version 5.0.12 (2015-12-18)
15.29. Version 5.0.10 (2015-11-10)
15.30. Version 5.0.8 (2015-10-20)
15.31. Version 5.0.6 (2015-10-02)
15.32. Version 5.0.4 (2015-09-08)
15.33. Version 5.0.2 (2015-08-13)
15.34. Version 5.0.0 (2015-07-09)
15.35. Version 4.3.28 (2015-05-13)
15.36. Version 4.3.26 (2015-03-16)
15.37. Version 4.3.24 (2015-03-02)
15.38. Version 4.3.22 (2015-02-12)
15.39. Version 4.3.20 (2014-11-21)
15.40. Version 4.3.18 (2014-10-10)
15.41. Version 4.3.16 (2014-09-09)
15.42. Version 4.3.14 (2014-07-15)
15.43. Version 4.3.12 (2014-05-16)
15.44. Version 4.3.10 (2014-03-26)
15.45. Version 4.3.8 (2014-02-25)
15.46. Version 4.3.6 (2013-12-18)
15.47. Version 4.3.4 (2013-11-29)
15.48. Version 4.3.2 (2013-11-01)
15.49. Version 4.3.0 (2013-10-15)
15.50. Older Change log details

A.1. Materials

A.2. Licenses

A.2.1. GNU General Public License (GPL)
A.2.2. GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
A.2.3. Mozilla Public License (MPL)
A.2.4. MIT License
A.2.5. X Consortium License (X11)
A.2.6. zlib license
A.2.7. OpenSSL license
A.2.8. Slirp license
A.2.9. liblzf license
A.2.10. libpng license
A.2.11. lwIP license
A.2.12. libxml license
A.2.13. libxslt licenses
A.2.14. gSOAP Public License Version 1.3a
A.2.15. Chromium licenses
A.2.16. curl license
A.2.17. libgd license
A.2.18. BSD license from Intel
A.2.19. libjpeg License
A.2.20. x86 SIMD extension for IJG JPEG library license
A.2.21. FreeBSD license
A.2.22. NetBSD license
A.2.23. PCRE license
A.2.24. libffi license
A.2.25. FLTK license
A.2.26. Expat license
A.2.27. Fontconfig license
A.2.28. Freetype license
A.2.29. VPX License
A.2.30. Opus License

Oracle VM VirtualBox

Oracle VM VirtualBox^®

User Manual

Oracle Corporation

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