https://dd-wrthompson.blogspot.be/: mai 2019

Welcome to Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Oracle VM 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 OS X,
Linux, or Oracle Solaris operating systems (OSes). Secondly, it
extends the capabilities of your existing computer so that it can
run multiple OSes, inside multiple virtual machines, at the same
time. As an example, you can run Windows and Linux on your Mac, run
Windows Server 2016 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.

Oracle VM 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 deployments and even Cloud
environments.

The following screenshot shows how Oracle VM VirtualBox, installed on an
Apple Mac OS X computer, is running Windows Server 2016 in a virtual
machine window.

Figure 1.1. Windows Server 2016 Virtual Machine, Displayed on a Mac OS X Host

In this User Manual, we will begin simply with a quick introduction
to virtualization and how to get your first virtual machine running
with the easy-to-use Oracle VM 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 Oracle VM VirtualBox.

You can find a summary of Oracle VM VirtualBox's capabilities in
Section 1.3, “Features Overview”. For existing Oracle VM VirtualBox
users who just want to find out what is new in this release, see the
Chapter 15, Change Log.

1.1. Why is Virtualization Useful?

The techniques and features that Oracle VM VirtualBox provides are
useful in the following scenarios:

Running multiple operating systems
simultaneously. Oracle VM VirtualBox enables you to run
more than one OS at a time. This way, you can run software
written for one OS on another, such as Windows software on
Linux or a Mac, without having to reboot to use it. Since you
can configure what kinds of virtual
hardware should be presented to each such OS, you can install
an old OS such as DOS or OS/2 even if your real computer's
hardware is no longer supported by that OS.
Easier software
installations. Software vendors can use virtual
machines to ship entire software configurations. For example,
installing a complete mail server solution on a real machine
can be a tedious task. With Oracle VM VirtualBox, such a complex
setup, often called an appliance, can be
packed into a virtual machine. Installing and running a mail
server becomes as easy as importing such an appliance into
Oracle VM VirtualBox.
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 Oracle VM 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, such as
prolems after installing software or infecting the guest with
a virus, you 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 forward 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. Most of the time, computers today only use
a fraction of their potential power and run with low average
system loads. A lot of hardware resources 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.

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). This is the OS of the physical computer on
which Oracle VM VirtualBox was installed. There are versions of
Oracle VM VirtualBox for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Oracle
Solaris hosts. See Section 1.4, “Supported Host Operating Systems”.

Most of the time, this manual discusses all Oracle VM VirtualBox
versions together. There may be platform-specific differences
which we will point out where appropriate.
Guest operating system (guest
OS). This is the OS that is running inside the
virtual machine. Theoretically, Oracle VM VirtualBox can run any x86
OS. such as DOS, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD, and 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 OSes. So while your favorite OS
may run as a guest, we officially support
and optimize for a select few, which include the most common
OSes.

See Section 3.1, “Supported Guest Operating Systems”.
Virtual machine (VM). This
is the special environment that Oracle VM VirtualBox creates for
your guest OS while it is running. In other words, you run
your guest OS in a VM. Normally, a VM
will be shown as a window on your computer's desktop, but
depending on which of the various frontends of Oracle VM VirtualBox
you use, it can be displayed in full screen mode or remotely
on another computer.

In a more abstract way, internally, Oracle VM VirtualBox thinks of a
VM as a set of parameters that determine its behavior. They
include hardware settings, such as: how much memory the VM
should have, what hard disks Oracle VM VirtualBox should virtualize
through which container files, what CDs are mounted. They also
include state information, such as: whether the VM is
currently running, saved, if the VM has snapshots. These
settings are mirrored in the VirtualBox Manager window, as
well as the VBoxManage command. See
Chapter 8, VBoxManage. In other words, a VM is also
what you can see in its
Settings dialog.
Guest Additions. This
refers to special software packages which are shipped with
Oracle VM VirtualBox but designed to be installed
inside a VM to improve performance of the
guest OS and to add extra features. See
Chapter 4, Guest Additions.

1.3. Features Overview

The following is a brief outline of Oracle VM VirtualBox's main
features:

Portability. Oracle VM VirtualBox
runs on a large number of 32-bit and 64-bit host OS. See
Section 1.4, “Supported Host Operating Systems”.

Oracle VM 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, Oracle VM VirtualBox
requires an existing OS to be installed. It can thus run
alongside existing applications on that host.

To a very large degree, Oracle VM VirtualBox is functionally
identical on all of the host platforms, and the same file and
image formats are used. This enables you to run virtual
machines created on one host on another host with a different
host OS. 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), an
industry standard created for this purpose. You can even
import OVFs that were created with a different virtualization
software. See Section 1.15, “Importing and Exporting Virtual Machines”.
No hardware virtualization
required. For many scenarios, Oracle VM 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 Oracle VM VirtualBox
even on older hardware where these features are not present.
See Section 10.3, “Hardware vs. Software Virtualization”.
Guest Additions: shared folders,
seamless windows, 3D virtualization. The
Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions are software packages which can
be installed inside of supported guest
systems to improve their performance and to provide additional
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. See
Chapter 4, Guest Additions.

In particular, Guest Additions provide for "shared folders",
which let you access files from the host system from within a
guest machine. See Section 4.3, “Shared Folders”.
Great hardware support. Among
others, Oracle VM VirtualBox supports the following:
- Guest multiprocessing
  (SMP). Oracle VM VirtualBox can present up to 32
  virtual CPUs to each virtual machine, irrespective of how
  many CPU cores are physically present on your host.
- USB device support.
  Oracle VM VirtualBox implements a virtual USB controller and
  enables 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. See Section 3.11.1, “USB Settings”.
- Hardware compatibility.
  Oracle VM VirtualBox virtualizes a vast array of virtual
  devices, among them many devices that are typically
  provided by other virtualization 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 machines
  into Oracle VM VirtualBox.
- Full ACPI support. The
  Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is fully
  supported by Oracle VM VirtualBox. This eases cloning of PC
  images from real machines or third-party virtual machines
  into Oracle VM VirtualBox. With its unique ACPI power
  status support, Oracle VM VirtualBox can even report
  to ACPI-aware guest OSes 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, for example in full screen modes.
- Multiscreen resolutions.
  Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual machines support screen resolutions
  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 enables you to connect a virtual
  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. See
  Section 5.10, “iSCSI Servers”.
- PXE Network boot. The
  integrated virtual network cards of Oracle VM VirtualBox fully
  support remote booting using the Preboot Execution
  Environment (PXE).
Multigeneration branched
snapshots. Oracle VM 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. See
Section 1.11, “Snapshots”. You can create and delete
snapshots while the virtual machine is running.
VM groups. Oracle VM VirtualBox
provides a groups feature that enables the user to organize
and control virtual machines collectively, as well as
individually. In addition to basic groups, it is also possible
for any VM to be in more than one group, and for groups to be
nested in a hierarchy. This means you can have groups of
groups. In general, the operations that can be performed on
groups are the same as those that can be applied to individual
VMs: Start, Pause, Reset, Close (Save state, Send Shutdown,
Poweroff), Discard Saved State, Show in File System, Sort.
Clean architecture and unprecedented
modularity. Oracle VM 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 in the
Oracle VM VirtualBox graphical user interface and then control that
machine from the command line, or even remotely. See
Section 1.17, “Alternative Front-Ends”.

Due to its modular architecture, Oracle VM VirtualBox can also
expose its full functionality and configurability through a
comprehensive software development kit
(SDK), which enables integration of Oracle VM VirtualBox
with other software systems. See
Chapter 11, Oracle VM VirtualBox Programming Interfaces.
Remote machine display. The
VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension (VRDE) enables
high-performance remote access to any running virtual machine.
This extension supports the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
originally built into Microsoft Windows, with special
additions for full client USB support.

The VRDE does not rely on the RDP server that is built into
Microsoft Windows. Instead, the VRDE is plugged directly into
the virtualization layer. As a result, it works with guest
OSes other than Windows, even in text mode, and does not
require application support in the virtual machine either. The
VRDE is described in detail in Section 7.1, “Remote Display (VRDP Support)”.

On top of this special capacity, Oracle VM VirtualBox offers you
more unique features:
- Extensible RDP
  authentication. Oracle VM VirtualBox already supports
  Winlogon on Windows and PAM on Linux for RDP
  authentication. In addition, it includes an easy-to-use
  SDK which enables you to create arbitrary interfaces for
  other methods of authentication. See
  Section 7.1.5, “RDP Authentication”.
- USB over RDP. Using RDP
  virtual channel support, Oracle VM VirtualBox also enables you
  to connect arbitrary USB devices locally to a virtual
  machine which is running remotely on a Oracle VM VirtualBox RDP
  server. See Section 7.1.4, “Remote USB”.

1.4. Supported Host Operating Systems

Currently, Oracle VM VirtualBox runs on the following host OSes:

Windows hosts (64-bit):
- Windows 7
- Windows 8
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 10 RTM (1507) build 10240
- Windows 10 November Update (1511) build 10586
- Windows 10 Anniversary Update (1607) build 14393
- Windows 10 Creators Update (1703) build 15063
- Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (1709) build 16299
- Windows 10 April 2018 Update (1803) build 17134
- Windows 10 October 2018 Update (1809) build 17763
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2019
Mac OS X hosts (64-bit):
- 10.12 (Sierra)
- 10.13 (High Sierra)
- 10.14 (Mojave)
Intel hardware is required. See also
Chapter 14, Known Limitations.
Linux hosts (64-bit).
Includes the following:
- Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS and 18.10
- Debian GNU/Linux 9 ("Stretch")
- Oracle Linux 6 and 7
- Redhat Enterprise Linux 6 and 7
- Fedora 28 and 29
- Gentoo Linux
- SUSE Linux Enterprise server 12 and 15
- openSUSE Leap 42.3 and 15.0
It should be possible to use Oracle VM VirtualBox on most systems
based on Linux kernel 2.6 or 3.x using either the
Oracle VM VirtualBox installer or by doing a manual installation.
See Section 2.3, “Installing on Linux Hosts”. However, the
formally tested and supported Linux distributions are those
for which we offer a dedicated package.

Note that Linux 2.4-based host OSes are no longer supported.
Oracle Solaris hosts (64-bit
only). The following versions are supported with
the restrictions listed in Chapter 14, Known Limitations:
- Oracle Solaris 11

Note that the above list is informal. Oracle support for customers
who have a support contract is limited to a subset of the listed
host OSes. Also, any feature which is marked as
experimental is not supported. Feedback and
suggestions about such features are welcome.

1.5. Host CPU Requirements

SSE2 is required, starting with Oracle VM VirtualBox version 5.2.10 and
version 5.1.24.

1.6. Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox and Extension Packs

Oracle VM VirtualBox comes in many different packages, and installation
depends on your host OS. If you have installed software before,
installation should be straightforward. On each host platform,
Oracle VM VirtualBox uses the installation method that is most common
and easy to use. If you run into trouble or have special
requirements, see Chapter 2, Installation Details for details
about the various installation methods.

Oracle VM VirtualBox is split into the following components:

Base package. The base
package consists of all open source components and is licensed
under the GNU General Public License V2.
Extension packs. Additional
extension packs can be downloaded which extend the
functionality of the Oracle VM VirtualBox base package. Currently,
Oracle provides a single extension pack, available from:
http://www.virtualbox.org.
The extension pack provides the following added functionality:
1. The virtual USB 2.0 (EHCI) device. See
  Section 3.11.1, “USB Settings”.
2. The virtual USB 3.0 (xHCI) device. See
  Section 3.11.1, “USB Settings”.
3. VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP) support. See
  Section 7.1, “Remote Display (VRDP Support)”.
4. Host webcam passthrough. See
  Section 9.6, “Webcam Passthrough”.
5. Intel PXE boot ROM.
6. Experimental support for PCI passthrough on Linux hosts.
  See Section 9.5, “PCI Passthrough”.
7. Disk image encryption with AES algorithm. See
  Section 9.30, “Encryption of Disk Images”.
Oracle VM VirtualBox extension packages have a
.vbox-extpack file name
extension. To install an extension, simply double-click on the
package file and a Network Operations
Manager window is shown to guide you through the
required steps.

To view the extension packs that are currently installed,
start the VirtualBox Manager, as shown in
Section 1.7, “Starting Oracle VM VirtualBox”. From the
File menu, select
Preferences. In the window
that displays, go to the
Extensions category. This
shows you the extensions which are currently installed, and
enables you to remove a package or add a new package.

Alternatively, you can use the VBoxManage
command line. See Section 8.43, “VBoxManage extpack”.

1.7. Starting Oracle VM VirtualBox

After installation, you can start Oracle VM VirtualBox as follows:

On a Windows host, in the
Programs menu, click on the
item in the VirtualBox group.
On Vista or Windows 7, you can also enter
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 Oracle Solaris host, depending on your desktop
environment, an Oracle VM VirtualBox item may have been placed in
either the System or System Tools group of your
Applications menu.
Alternatively, you can enter
VirtualBox in a terminal
window.

When you start Oracle VM VirtualBox for the first time, a window like
the following is displayed:

Figure 1.2. VirtualBox Manager Window, After Initial Startup

This window is called the VirtualBox
Manager. The left pane will later list all your virtual
machines. Since you have not yet created any virtual machines,
this list is empty. The Tools
button provides access to user tools, such as the Virtual Media
Manager.

The pane on the right displays the properties of the currently
selected virtual machine. Since you do not have any machines yet,
the pane displays a welcome message.

The buttons on the right pane are used to create and work with
VMs.

The following figure gives an idea of what Oracle VM VirtualBox might
look like after you have created some VMs.

Figure 1.3. VirtualBox Manager Window, After Creating Virtual Machines

1.8. Creating Your First Virtual Machine

Click New in the VirtualBox
Manager window. A wizard is shown, to guide you through setting up
a new virtual machine (VM).

Figure 1.4. Creating a New Virtual Machine: Name and Operating System

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

The Name of the VM will later
be shown in the machine list of the VirtualBox Manager window,
and it will be used for the VM's files on disk. Even though
any name can be used, bear in mind that if you create a few
VMs, you will appreciate if you have given your VMs rather
informative names."My VM" would thus be less useful than
"Windows XP SP2 with OpenOffice", for example.
The Machine Folder is the
location where VMs are stored on your computer. The default
folder location is shown.
For Operating System Type
select the OS that you want to install later. The supported
OSes are grouped. If you want to install something very
unusual that is not listed, select
Other. Depending on your
selection, Oracle VM VirtualBox will enable or disable certain VM
settings that your guest OS may require. This is particularly
important for 64-bit guests. See
Section 3.1.2, “64-bit Guests”. It is therefore
recommended to always set it to the correct value.
On the next page, select the Memory
(RAM) that Oracle VM VirtualBox should allocate every
time the virtual machine is started. The amount of memory
given here will be taken away from your host machine and
presented to the guest OS, which will report this size as the
virtual computer's installed RAM.

Caution
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 of
RAM to run properly, and Windows Vista will not install with
less than 512 MB. If you want to run graphics-intensive
applications in your VM, you may require even more RAM.

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. In any case, make sure you always have at least 256 to 512
MB of RAM left on your host OS. Otherwise you may cause your
host OS to excessively swap out memory to your hard disk,
effectively bringing your host system to a standstill.

As with the other settings, you can change this setting later,
after you have created the VM.
Next, you must specify a Virtual Hard
Disk for your VM.

There are many and potentially complicated ways in which
Oracle VM VirtualBox can provide hard disk space to a VM, see
Chapter 5, Virtual Storage, but the most common way is to use
a large image file on your "real" hard disk, whose contents
Oracle VM VirtualBox presents to your VM as if it were a complete
hard disk. This file represents an entire hard disk then, so
you can even copy it to another host and use it with another
Oracle VM VirtualBox installation.

The wizard displays the following window:

Figure 1.5. Creating a New Virtual Machine: Hard Disk

At this screen, you have the following options:
- To create a new, empty virtual hard disk, click the
  Create button.
- You can pick an existing disk image
  file.
  
  The drop-down list presented in the window lists all disk
  images which are currently remembered by Oracle VM VirtualBox.
  These disk images are currently attached to a virtual
  machine, or have been attached to a virtual machine.
  
  Alternatively, click on the small
  folder icon next to the
  drop-down list. In the displayed file dialog, you can
  click Add to select any
  disk image file on your host disk.
If you are using Oracle VM VirtualBox for the first time, you will
want to create a new disk image. Click the
Create button.

This displays another window, the Create
Virtual Hard Disk Wizard wizard. This wizard helps
you to create a new disk image file in the new virtual
machine's folder.

Oracle VM VirtualBox supports the following types of image files:
- A dynamically allocated
  file will only grow in size when the guest
  actually 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 allocated file.
For details about the differences, see
Section 5.2, “Disk Image Files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD)”.

To prevent your physical hard disk from running full,
Oracle VM VirtualBox limits the size of the image file. Still, it
needs to be large enough to hold the contents of your OS and
the applications you want to install. For a modern Windows or
Linux guest, you will probably need several gigabytes for any
serious use. The limit of the image file size can be changed
later, see Section 8.24, “VBoxManage modifymedium”.

Figure 1.6. Creating a New Virtual Machine: File Location and Size

After having selected or created your image file, click
Next to go to the next page.
Click Create, to create your
new virtual machine. The virtual machine is displayed in the
list on the left side of the VirtualBox Manager window, with
the name that you entered initially.

Note

After becoming familiar with the use of wizards, consider using
the Expert Mode available in some wizards. Where available, this
is selectable using a button, and speeds up the process of using
wizards.

1.9. Running Your Virtual Machine

To start a virtual machine, you have several options:

Double-click on the VM's entry in the list in the VirtualBox
Manager window.
Select the VM's entry in the list in the VirtualBox Manager
window, and click Start at
the top of the window.
Go to the VirtualBox VMs
folder in your system user's home directory. Find the
subdirectory of the machine you want to start and double-click
on the machine settings file. This file has a
.vbox file extension.

Starting a virtual machine displays 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. See the screenshot image in
Chapter 1, First Steps.

In general, you can use the virtual machine as you would use a
real computer. There are couple of points worth mentioning
however.

1.9.1. Starting a New VM for the First Time

When a VM is started for the first time, the
First Start Wizard, is
displayed. This wizard helps you to select an installation
medium. Since the VM is created empty, it would otherwise behave
just like a real computer with no OS installed. It will do
nothing and display an error message that no bootable OS was
found.

For this reason, the wizard helps you to select a medium to
install an OS from.

If you have physical CD or DVD media from which you want to
install your guest OS, such as a Windows installation CD or
DVD, put the media into your host's CD or DVD drive.

In the wizard's drop-down list of installation media, select
Host Drive with the correct
drive letter. In the case of a Linux host, choose a 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 such as with a Linux
distribution, you would normally burn this file to an empty
CD or DVD and proceed as described above. With
Oracle VM VirtualBox however, you can skip this step and mount the
ISO file directly. Oracle VM 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, the wizard's drop-down list contains a list of
installation media that were previously used with
Oracle VM VirtualBox.

If your medium is not in the list, especially if you are
using Oracle VM VirtualBox for the first time, click the small
folder icon next to the drop-down list to display a standard
file dialog. Here you can pick an image file on your host
disks.

After completing the choices in the wizard, you will be able to
install your OS.

1.9.2. Capturing and Releasing Keyboard and Mouse

Oracle VM VirtualBox provides a virtual USB tablet device to new
virtual machines through which mouse events are communicated to
the guest OS. If you are running a modern guest OS that can
handle such devices, mouse support may work out of the box
without the mouse being captured as
described below. See Section 3.5.1, “Motherboard Tab”.

Otherwise, if the virtual machine only sees standard PS/2 mouse
and keyboard devices, since the OS 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. But
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.

After installing a guest OS and before you install the Guest
Additions, described later, either your VM or the rest of your
computer can "own" the keyboard and the mouse. Both cannot own
the keyboard and mouse at the same time. You will see a
second mouse pointer which is always
confined to the limits of the VM window. You activate the VM by
clicking inside it.

To return ownership of keyboard and mouse to your host OS,
Oracle VM VirtualBox reserves a special key on your keyboard: the
Host key. By default, this is the
right Ctrl key on your keyboard. On a Mac
host, the default Host key is the left Command key. You can
change this default in the Oracle VM VirtualBox Global Settings. See
Section 1.16, “Global Settings”. The current setting for the
Host key is always displayed at the bottom right of your VM
window.

Figure 1.7. Host Key Setting on the Virtual Machine Task Bar

This means the following:

Your keyboard is owned by
the VM if the VM window on your host desktop has the
keyboard focus. If you have many windows open in your guest
OS, the window that has the focus in your VM is used. This
means that if you want to enter text within your VM, click
on the title bar of your VM window first.

To release keyboard ownership, press the Host key. As
explained above, this is typically the right Ctrl key.

Note that while the VM owns the keyboard, some key
sequences, such as Alt-Tab, will no longer be seen by the
host, but will go to the guest instead. After you press the
Host key to reenable the host keyboard, all key presses will
go through the host again, so that sequences such as Alt-Tab
will no longer reach the guest. For technical reasons it may
not be possible for the VM to get all keyboard input even
when it does own the keyboard. Examples of this are the
Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence on Windows hosts or single keys
grabbed by other applications on X11 hosts like the GNOME
desktop's "Control key highlights mouse pointer"
functionality.
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 enter text into the VM window, your mouse is not
necessarily owned by the VM yet.

To release ownership of your mouse by the VM, press the Host
key.

As this behavior can be inconvenient, Oracle VM VirtualBox provides a
set of tools and device drivers for guest systems called the
Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions which make VM keyboard and mouse
operation a lot more seamless. Most importantly, the Additions
will get rid of the second "guest" mouse pointer and make your
host mouse pointer work directly in the guest. See
Chapter 4, Guest Additions.

1.9.3. Typing Special Characters

OSes 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 OS, Oracle VM VirtualBox, or
the guest OS. Which of these three receives keypresses depends
on a number of factors, including the key itself.

Host OSes 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 OS 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.

On Linux and Oracle Solaris hosts, which use the X Window
System, the key combination
Ctrl+Alt+Backspace normally
resets the X server and restarts the entire graphical user
interface. As the X server intercepts this combination,
pressing it will usually restart your
host graphical user interface and kill
all running programs, including Oracle VM VirtualBox, in the
process.

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 enables you to switch between virtual terminals. As
with Ctrl+Alt+Delete, these combinations are intercepted by
the host OS and therefore always switch terminals on the
host.

If, instead, you want to send these key combinations to the
guest OS in the virtual machine, you
will need to use one of the following methods:
- Use the items in the
  Input,
  Keyboard menu of the
  virtual machine window. This menu includes the settings
  Insert Ctrl+Alt+Delete
  and Ctrl+Alt+Backspace.
  The latter will only have an effect with Linux or Oracle
  Solaris guests, however.
  
  This menu also includes an option for inserting the Host
  key combination.
- Use special key combinations with the Host key, normally
  the right Control key. Oracle VM VirtualBox will then
  translate these key combinations 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
    Oracle Solaris guest.
  - Host key + Function
    key. For example, to simulate Ctrl+Alt+Fx
    to switch between virtual terminals in a Linux
    guest.
For some other keyboard combinations such as
Alt-Tab to switch between
open windows, Oracle VM VirtualBox enables you to configure
whether these combinations will affect the host or the
guest, if a virtual machine currently has the focus. This is
a global setting for all virtual machines and can be found
under File,
Preferences,
Input.

1.9.4. 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
Oracle VM VirtualBox presents to your VM as a CD, DVD, or floppy
drive.

The settings are the same as those available for the VM in the
Settings dialog of the
Oracle VM VirtualBox main window. But as the
Settings dialog is disabled
while the VM is in the Running or Saved state, the
Devices menu saves you from
having to shut down and restart the VM every time you want to
change media.

Using the Devices menu, you can
attach the host drive to the guest or select a floppy or DVD
image, as described in Section 3.7, “Storage Settings”.

The Devices menu also includes
an option for creating a virtual ISO (VISO) from selected files
on the host.

1.9.5. Resizing the Machine's Window

You can resize the virtual machine's window when it is running.
In that case, one of the following things will happen:

If you have scaled mode
enabled, then the virtual machine's screen will be scaled to
the size of the window. This can be useful if you have many
machines running and want to have a look at one of them
while it is running in the background. Alternatively, it
might be useful to enlarge a window if the VM's output
screen is very small, for example because you are running an
old OS in it.

To enable scaled mode, press Host key
+ C, or select Scaled
Mode from the
View menu in the VM window.
To leave scaled mode, press Host key +
C again.

The aspect ratio of the guest screen is preserved when
resizing the window. To ignore the aspect ratio, press
Shift during the resize
operation.

See Chapter 14, Known Limitations for additional remarks.
If you have the Guest Additions installed and they support
automatic resizing, the
Guest Additions will automatically adjust the screen
resolution of the guest OS. For example, if you are running
a Windows guest with a resolution of 1024x768 pixels and you
then resize the VM window to make it 100 pixels wider, the
Guest Additions will change the Windows display resolution
to 1124x768.

See Chapter 4, Guest Additions.
Otherwise, if the window is bigger than the VM's screen, the
screen will be centered. If it is smaller, then scroll bars
will be added to the machine window.

1.9.6. 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, Oracle VM VirtualBox asks you whether you want to save or
power off the VM. As a shortcut, you can also press
Host key + Q.

Figure 1.8. Closing Down a Virtual Machine

The difference between the three options is crucial. They mean
the following:

Save the machine state:
With this option, Oracle VM VirtualBox
freezes the virtual machine by
completely saving its state to your local disk.

When you start the VM again later, 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 by closing its lid.
Send the shutdown signal.
This will send an ACPI shutdown signal to the virtual
machine, which has the same effect as if you had pressed the
power button on a real computer. So long as the VM is
running a fairly modern OS, this should trigger a proper
shutdown mechanism from within the VM.
Power off the machine: With
this option, Oracle VM VirtualBox also stops running the virtual
machine, but without saving its state.

Warning
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 OS 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 Section 1.11, “Snapshots”, you can use this option to
quickly restore the current
snapshot of the virtual machine. In that case,
powering off the machine will not disrupt its state, but any
changes made since that snapshot was taken will be lost.

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

1.10. Using VM Groups

VM groups enable the user to create ad hoc groups of VMs, and to
manage and perform functions on them collectively, as well as
individually.

The following figure shows VM groups displayed in VirtualBox
Manager.

Figure 1.9. Groups of Virtual Machines

The following features are available for groups:

Create a group using the VirtualBox Manager. Do one of the
following:
- Drag one VM on top of another VM.
- Select multiple VMs and select
  Group from the
  right-click menu.
Create and manage a group using the command line. Do one of
the following:
- Create a group and assign a VM. For example:
```
VBoxManage modifyvm "vm01" --groups "/TestGroup"
```
  This command creates a group "TestGroup" and attaches the
  VM "vm01" to that group.
- Detach a VM from the group, and delete the group if empty.
  For example:
```
VBoxManage modifyvm "vm01" --groups ""
```
  This command detaches all groups from the VM "vm01" and
  deletes the empty group.
Create multiple groups. For example:
```
VBoxManage modifyvm "vm01" --groups "/TestGroup,/TestGroup2"
```
This command creates the groups "TestGroup" and "TestGroup2",
if they do not exist, and attaches the VM "vm01" to both of
them.
Create nested groups, having a group hierarchy. For example:
```
VBoxManage modifyvm "vm01" --groups "/TestGroup/TestGroup2"
```
This command attaches the VM "vm01" to the subgroup
"TestGroup2" of the "TestGroup" group.
The following is a summary of group commands: Start, Pause,
Reset, Close (save state, send shutdown signal, poweroff),
Discard Saved State, Show in File System, Sort.

1.11. 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. A snapshot of a virtual machine is thus similar to a machine
in Saved state, but there can be many of them, and these saved
states are preserved.

To see the snapshots of a virtual machine, click on the machine
name in VirtualBox Manager. Then click the
List icon next to the machine
name, and select Snapshots. Until
you take a snapshot of the machine, the list of snapshots will be
empty except for the Current
State item, which represents the "now" point in the
lifetime of the virtual machine.

1.11.1. Taking, Restoring, and Deleting Snapshots

There are three operations related to snapshots, as follows:

Take a snapshot. This makes
a copy of the machine's current state, to which you can go
back at any given time later.
- If your VM is running, select Take
  Snapshot from the
  Machine pull-down menu
  of the VM window.
- If your VM is in either the Saved or the Powered Off
  state, as displayed next to the VM name in the
  Oracle VM VirtualBox main window, click the
  List icon next to the
  machine name and select
  Snapshots. The
  snapshots window is shown. Do one of the following:
  - Click the Take
    icon.
  - Right-click on the Current
    State item in the list and select
    Take.
In either case, a window is displayed prompting 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
Guest Additions", or "Service Pack 3 just installed". You
can also add a longer text in the
Description field.

Your new snapshot will then appear in the snapshots list.
Underneath your new snapshot, 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 are displayed in sequence,
and that each subsequent snapshot is derived from an earlier
one.

Figure 1.10. Snapshots List For a Virtual Machine

Oracle VM VirtualBox imposes no limits on the number of snapshots
you can take. The only practical limitation is disk space on
your host. Each snapshot stores the state of the virtual
machine and thus occupies some disk space. See
Section 1.11.2, “Snapshot Contents” for details on what is
stored in a snapshot.
Restore a snapshot. In the
list of snapshots, right-click on any snapshot you have
taken and select Restore.
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 the exact state it was in when the snapshot was
taken.

Note
Restoring a snapshot will affect the virtual hard drives
that are connected 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
snapshot 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 snapshots, they
remain unaltered when a machine is reverted. See
Section 5.4, “Special Image Write Modes”.

To avoid losing the current state when restoring a snapshot,
you can create a new snapshot before the restore operation.

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.
Delete a snapshot. This
does not affect the state of the virtual machine, but only
releases the files on disk that Oracle VM VirtualBox used to store
the snapshot data, thus freeing disk space. To delete a
snapshot, right-click on the snapshot name in the snapshots
tree and select Delete.
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.

1.11.2. Snapshot Contents

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

The snapshot contains a complete copy of the VM settings,
including the hardware configuration, so that when you
restore a snapshot, the VM settings are restored as well.
For example, if you changed the hard disk configuration or
the VM's system settings, that change is undone when you
restore the snapshot.

The copy of the settings is stored in the machine
configuration, an XML text file, and thus occupies very
little space.
The complete state of all the virtual disks attached to the
machine is preserved. Going back to a snapshot means that
all changes that had been made to the machine's disks, file
by file and bit by bit, will be undone as well. Files that
were since created will disappear, files that were deleted
will be restored, changes to files will be reverted.

Strictly speaking, this is only true for virtual hard disks
in "normal" mode. You can configure disks to behave
differently with snapshots, see
Section 5.4, “Special Image Write Modes”. In technical terms, it is
not the virtual disk itself that is restored when a snapshot
is restored. Instead, when a snapshot is taken,
Oracle VM VirtualBox creates differencing images which contain
only the changes since the snapshot were taken. When the
snapshot is restored, Oracle VM 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, see
Section 5.5, “Differencing Images”.

Creating the differencing image as such does not occupy much
space on the host disk initially, since the differencing
image will initially be empty and grow dynamically later
with each write operation to the disk. The longer you use
the machine after having created the snapshot, however, the
more the differencing image will grow in size.
If you took a snapshot while the machine was running, the
memory state of the machine is also saved in the snapshot.
This is in the same way that memory can be saved when you
close a VM window. When you restore such a snapshot,
execution resumes at exactly the point when the snapshot was
taken.

The memory state file can be as large as the memory size of
the virtual machine and will therefore occupy quite some
disk space as well.

1.12. Virtual Machine Configuration

When you select a virtual machine from the list in the VirtualBox
Manager window, you will see a summary of that machine's settings
on the right.

Clicking on Settings displays a
window, where you can configure many of the properties of the
selected VM. But be careful when changing VM settings. It is
possible to change all VM settings after installing a guest OS,
but certain changes might prevent a guest OS 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
because the Settings dialog
enables you to change fundamental characteristics of the virtual
machine that is created for your guest OS. For example, the
guest OS may not perform well if half of its memory is taken
away. As a result, if the
Settings button is disabled,
shut down the current VM first.

Oracle VM VirtualBox provides a wide range of parameters that can be
changed for a virtual machine. The various settings that can be
changed in the Settings window
are described in detail in Chapter 3, Configuring Virtual Machines. Even
more parameters are available when using the
VBoxManage command line interface. See
Chapter 8, VBoxManage.

1.13. Removing and Moving Virtual Machines

You can remove a VM from Oracle VM VirtualBox or move the VM and its
associated files, such as disk images, to another location on the
host.

Removing a VM. To remove a
VM, right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager's machine
list and select Remove.

The confirmation dialog enables you to specify whether to only
remove the VM from the list of machines or to remove the files
associated with the VM.

Note that the Remove menu
item is disabled while a VM is running.
Moving a VM. To move a VM to
a new location on the host, right-click on the VM in the
VirtualBox Manager's machine list and select
Move.

The file dialog prompts you to specify a new location for the
VM.

When you move a VM, Oracle VM VirtualBox configuration files are
updated automatically to use the new location on the host.

Note that the Move menu item
is disabled while a VM is running.

You can also use the VBoxManage movevm
command to move a VM. See Section 8.10, “VBoxManage movevm”.

For information about removing or moving a disk image file from
Oracle VM VirtualBox, see Section 5.3, “The Virtual Media Manager”.

1.14. Cloning Virtual Machines

You can create a full copy or a linked copy of an existing VM.
This copy is called a clone. You might use a
cloned VM to experiment with a VM configuration, to test different
guest OS levels, or to back up a VM.

The Clone Virtual Machine wizard
guides you through the cloning process.

Figure 1.11. The Clone Virtual Machine Wizard

Start the wizard by clicking
Clone in the right-click menu of
the VirtualBox Manager's machine list or in the
Snapshots view of the selected
VM.

Specify a new Name for the clone.
You can choose a Path for the
cloned virtual machine, otherwise Oracle VM VirtualBox uses the default
machines folder.

The Clone Type option specifies
whether to create a clone linked to the source VM or to create a
fully independent clone:

Full Clone: Copies all
dependent disk images to the new VM folder. A full clone can
operate fully without the source VM.
Linked Clone: Creates new
differencing disk images based on the source VM disk images.
If you select the current state of the source VM as the clone
point, Oracle VM VirtualBox creates a new snapshot.

The Snapshots option specifies
whether to create a clone of the current machine state only or of
everything.

Everything: Clones the
current machine state and all its snapshots.
Current Machine State and All
Children:. Clones a VM snapshot and all its child
snapshots.

The following clone options are available:

MAC Address Policy: Specifies
how to retain network card MAC addresses when cloning the VM.

For example, the Generate New MAC
Addresses For All Network Adapters value assigns a
new MAC address to each network card during cloning. This is
the default setting. This is the best option when both the
source VM and the cloned VM must operate on the same network.
Other values enable you to retain the existing MAC addresses
in the cloned VM.
Keep Disk Names: Retains the
disk image names when cloning the VM.
Keep Hardware UUIDs: Retains
the hardware universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) when
cloning the VM.

The duration of the clone operation depends on the size and number
of attached disk images. In addition, the clone operation saves
all the differencing disk images of a snapshot.

Note that the Clone menu item is
disabled while a machine is running.

You can also use the VBoxManage clonevm command
to clone a VM. See Section 8.9, “VBoxManage clonevm”.

1.15. Importing and Exporting Virtual Machines

Oracle VM VirtualBox can import and export virtual machines in the
following formats:

Open Virtualization Format
(OVF). This is the industry-standard format. See
Section 1.15.1, “About the OVF Format”.
Cloud service formats. Export
to cloud services such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is supported. Import is not
supported. See Section 1.15.4, “Exporting an Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure”.

1.15.1. About the OVF Format

OVF is a cross-platform standard supported by many
virtualization products which enables the creation of ready-made
virtual machines that can then be imported into a hypervisor
such as Oracle VM VirtualBox. Oracle VM VirtualBox makes OVF import and
export easy to do, using the VirtualBox Manager window or the
command-line interface.

Using OVF enables packaging of virtual
appliances. These are disk images, together with
configuration settings that can be distributed easily. This way
one can offer complete ready-to-use software packages, including
OSes with applications, that need no configuration or
installation except for importing into Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Note

The OVF standard is complex, and support in Oracle VM VirtualBox is
an ongoing process. In particular, no guarantee is made that
Oracle VM VirtualBox supports all appliances created by other
virtualization software. For a list of known limitations, see
Chapter 14, Known Limitations.

Appliances in OVF format can appear in the following variants:

They can come in several files, as one or several disk
images, typically in the widely-used VMDK format. See
Section 5.2, “Disk Image Files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD)”. They also include a textual
description file in an XML dialect with an
.ovf extension. These files
must then reside in the same directory for Oracle VM VirtualBox to
be able to import them.
Alternatively, the above files can be packed together into a
single archive file, typically with an
.ova extension. Such
archive files use a variant of the TAR archive format and
can therefore be unpacked outside of Oracle VM VirtualBox with any
utility that can unpack standard TAR files.

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. The disk images in the export will have a
flattened state identical to the current
state of the virtual machine.

1.15.2. Importing an Appliance in OVF Format

The following steps show how to import an appliance in OVF
format.

Double-click on the OVF or OVA file.

Oracle VM VirtualBox creates file type associations automatically
for any OVF and OVA files on your host OS.
Select File,
Import
Appliance from the VirtualBox Manager window.

From the file dialog, go to the file with either the
.ovf or the
.ova file extension.

Click Import to open the
Appliance Settings screen.

Figure 1.12. Appliance Settings Screen for Import Appliance

This screen shows the VMs described in the OVF or OVA file
and enables you to change the VM settings.

By default, membership of VM groups is preserved on import
for VMs that were initially exported from Oracle VM VirtualBox.
You can change this behavior by using the
Primary Group
setting for the VM.

The following global settings apply to all of the VMs that
you import:
- Base Folder: Specifies
  the directory on the host in which to store the imported
  VMs.
  
  If an appliance has multiple VMs, you can specify a
  different directory for each VM by editing the
  Base Folder setting for
  the VM.
- MAC Address Policy:
  Reinitializes the MAC addresses of network cards in your
  VMs prior to import, by default. You can override the
  default behavior and preserve the MAC addresses on
  import.
- Import Hard Drives as
  VDI: Imports hard drives in the VDI format
  rather that in the defalut VMDK format.
Click Import to import the
appliance.

Oracle VM VirtualBox copies the disk images and creates local VMs
with the settings described on the
Appliance Settings screen.
The imported VMs are shown in the list of VMs in VirtualBox
Manager.

Because disk images are large, the VMDK images that are
included with virtual appliances are shipped in a compressed
format that cannot be used directly by VMs. So, the images
are first unpacked and copied, which might take several
minutes.

You can use the VBoxManage import command to
import an appliance. See Section 8.11, “VBoxManage import”.

1.15.3. Exporting an Appliance in OVF Format

The following steps show how to export an appliance in OVF
format.

Select File,
Export Appliance to open
the Export Virtual
Appliance wizard.

From the initial window, you can combine several VMs into an
OVF appliance.

Select one or more VMs to export, and click
Next.
The Appliance Settings
screen enables you to select the following settings:
- Format: Selects the
  Open Virtualization
  Format value for the output files.
  
  The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure value exports
  export to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. See Section 1.15.4, “Exporting an Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure”.
- File: Selects the
  location in which to store the exported files.
- MAC Address Policy:
  Specifies whether to retain or reassign network card MAC
  addresses on export.
- Write Manifest File:
  Enables you to include a manifest file in the exported
  archive file.
- Include ISO Image
  Files: Enables you to include ISO image files
  in the exported archive file.
Click Next to show the
Virtual System Settings
screen.

You can edit settings for the virtual appliance. For
example, you can change the name of the virtual appliance or
add product information, such as vendor details or license
text.

Double-click the appropriate field to change its value.
Click Export to begin the
export process. Note that this operation might take several
minutes.

You can use the VBoxManage export command to
export an appliance. See Section 8.12, “VBoxManage export”.

1.15.4. Exporting an Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

Oracle VM VirtualBox supports the export of VMs to an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure service.

Before you can export a VM to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, ensure that you perform the
following configuration steps:

Generate an API signing key pair that is used for API
requests to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
- The key pair is usually installed in the
  .oci folder in your
  home directory. For example,
  ~/.oci on a Linux
  system.
- Upload the public key of the key pair to the cloud
  service.
For step-by-step instructions for creating and uploading an
API signing key for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, see:

https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/iaas/Content/API/Concepts/apisigningkey.htm#How
Create a profile for your cloud account.

The cloud profile contains resource identifiers for your
cloud account, such as your user OCID, and the fingerprint
for your public key. You can create a cloud profile in the
following ways:
- Automatically by using the Cloud
  Profile Manager. See
  Section 1.15.5, “The Cloud Profile Manager”.
- Manually by creating an
  oci_config file in your
  Oracle VM VirtualBox global configuration directory. For
  example, this is
  $HOME/.config/VirtualBox/oci_config
  on a Linux host.
- Manually by creating a
  config file in your
  Oracle Cloud Infrastructure configuration directory. For example, this is
  $HOME/.oci/config on a
  Linux host.
  
  This is the same file that is used by the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure command
  line interface.
  
  Oracle VM VirtualBox automatically uses the
  config file if no cloud
  profile file is present in your global configuration
  directory. Alternatively, you can import this file
  manually into the Cloud Profile Manager.
For more information about the cloud profile settings used
by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure see:

https://docs.cloud.oracle.com/iaas/Content/API/Concepts/sdkconfig.htm
Ensure that the subnets that are used by source VMs are
available in the target compartment on the cloud service.

Perform the following steps to export a VM to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure:

Select File,
Export Appliance to open
the Export Virtual
Appliance wizard.

Select a VM to export and click
Next to open the
Appliance Settings screen.
From the Format drop-down
list, select Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

In the Account drop-down
list, select your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account.

You can set up Oracle Cloud Infrastructure accounts by using the Cloud Profile
Manager.

The list after the Account
field shows the profile settings for your cloud account.

Figure 1.13. Appliance Settings Screen, Showing Cloud Profile Settings

Click Next to make an API
request to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure service and open the
Virtual System
Settings screen.
Optionally edit settings used for the virtual machine on
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

For example, you can edit the Disk Size and Shape used for
the VM instance.

Click Export to export the
VMs to the cloud service.

The VMs are uploaded to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

Instances are created for the uploaded VMs.

By default, the VM instance is started after upload to
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Monitor the export process by using the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console.

You can also use the VBoxManage export
command to export a VM to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. See
Section 8.12.2, “Export to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure”.

1.15.5. The Cloud Profile Manager

The Cloud Profile Manager is a component of Oracle VM VirtualBox that
enables you to create, edit, and manage cloud profiles for your
cloud service accounts.

Figure 1.14. The Cloud Profile Manager

To open the Cloud Profile Manager select
File,
Cloud Profile Manager from the
VirtualBox Manager window.

Use the Cloud Profile Manager to create a new cloud profile
automatically. Or, create a cloud profile by importing settings
from your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure configuration file into the Cloud Profile
Manager.

Perform the following steps to create a new cloud profile:

Click the Add icon and
specify a Name for the
profile.
Click Properties and
specify the following property values for the profile:
- Compartment OCID
- Fingerprint of the public key
- Location of the private key on the client device
- (Optional) Passphrase for the private key, if the key is
  encrypted
- Region OCID
- Tenancy OCID
- User OCID
Some of these are settings for your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account, which you
can view from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Console.
Click Apply to save your
changes.

The cloud profile settings are saved in the
oci_config file in your
Oracle VM VirtualBox global settings directory.

Perform the following steps to import an existing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
configuration file:

Ensure that a config file
is present in your Oracle Cloud Infrastructure configuration directory. For
example, this is
$HOME/.oci/config on a
Linux host.
Click the Import icon to
open a dialog that prompts you to import cloud profiles from
external files.

Warning
This action overwrites any cloud profiles that are in your
Oracle VM VirtualBox global settings directory.
Click Import.

Your cloud profile settings are saved to the
oci_config file in your
Oracle VM VirtualBox global settings directory.
Click Properties to show
the cloud profile settings.

Double-click on the appropriate field to change the value.
Click Apply to save your
changes.

1.16. Global Settings

The Global Settings dialog can be
displayed using the File menu, by
clicking the Preferences item.
This dialog offers a selection of settings, most of which apply to
all virtual machines of the current user. The
Extensions option applies to the
entire system.

The following settings are available:

General. Enables the user to
specify the default folder/directory for VM files, and the
VRDP Authentication Library.
Input. Enables the user to
specify the Host key. It identifies the key that toggles
whether the cursor is in the focus of the VM or the Host OS
windows, see Section 1.9.2, “Capturing and Releasing Keyboard and Mouse”, and which is
also used to trigger certain VM actions, see
Section 1.9.3, “Typing Special Characters”.
Update. Enables the user to
specify various settings for Automatic Updates.
Language. Enables the user to
specify the GUI language.
Display. Enables the user to
specify the screen resolution, and its width and height. A
default scale factor can be specified for all guest screens.
Network. Enables the user to
configure the details of Host Only Networks.
Extensions. Enables the user
to list and manage the installed extension packages.
Proxy. Enables the user to
configure a HTTP Proxy Server.

1.17. Alternative Front-Ends

As briefly mentioned in Section 1.3, “Features Overview”,
Oracle VM VirtualBox has a very flexible internal design that enables
you to use multiple interfaces to control the same virtual
machines. For example, you can start a virtual machine with the
VirtualBox Manager window and then stop it from the command line.
With Oracle VM VirtualBox's support for the Remote Desktop Protocol
(RDP), you can even run virtual machines remotely on a headless
server and have all the graphical output redirected over the
network.

The following front-ends are shipped in the standard
Oracle VM VirtualBox package:

VirtualBox. This is the
VirtualBox Manager, a graphical user interface that uses the
Qt toolkit. This interface is described throughout this
manual. While this is the simplest and easiest front-end to
use, some of the more advanced Oracle VM VirtualBox features are not
included.
VBoxManage. A command-line
interface for automated and detailed control of every aspect
of Oracle VM VirtualBox. See
Chapter 8, VBoxManage.
VBoxHeadless. A front-end
that produces no visible output on the host at all, but can
act as a RDP server if the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension
(VRDE) is installed and enabled for the VM. As opposed to the
other graphical interfaces, the headless 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. See
Section 7.1.2, “VBoxHeadless, the Remote Desktop Server”.

If the above front-ends still do not satisfy your particular
needs, it is possible to create yet another front-end to the
complex virtualization engine that is the core of Oracle VM VirtualBox,
as the Oracle VM VirtualBox core neatly exposes all of its features in a
clean API. See Chapter 11, Oracle VM VirtualBox Programming Interfaces.

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Chapter 1. First Steps

1.1. Why is Virtualization Useful?

1.2. Some Terminology

1.3. Features Overview

1.4. Supported Host Operating Systems

1.5. Host CPU Requirements

1.6. Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox and Extension Packs

1.7. Starting Oracle VM VirtualBox

1.8. Creating Your First Virtual Machine

Caution

Note

1.9. Running Your Virtual Machine

1.9.1. Starting a New VM for the First Time

1.9.2. Capturing and Releasing Keyboard and Mouse

1.9.3. Typing Special Characters

1.9.4. Changing Removable Media

1.9.5. Resizing the Machine's Window

1.9.6. Saving the State of the Machine

Warning

1.10. Using VM Groups

1.11. Snapshots

1.11.1. Taking, Restoring, and Deleting Snapshots

Note

Note

1.11.2. Snapshot Contents

1.12. Virtual Machine Configuration

Note

1.13. Removing and Moving Virtual Machines

1.14. Cloning Virtual Machines

1.15. Importing and Exporting Virtual Machines

1.15.1. About the OVF Format

Note

Note

1.15.2. Importing an Appliance in OVF Format

1.15.3. Exporting an Appliance in OVF Format

1.15.4. Exporting an Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

1.15.5. The Cloud Profile Manager

Warning

1.16. Global Settings

1.17. Alternative Front-Ends