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VirtualBox

lastmod 2025-12-15created 2014-03-2430 edits

VirtualBox is commercial, proprietary software (with a limited GPL version), originally developed by InnoTek and now developed by Oracle. It is x86 virtualization software that virtualizes Linux, macOS, Solaris, and Windows as guest operating systems. A few years after development began, a limited open-source version, VirtualBox OSE, was released under the GPL in January 2007.

Compared with other commercial virtualization software such as VMWare Workstation and Microsoft Virtual PC, VirtualBox is somewhat lacking in features, but it offers some special ones. For example, it has features for controlling virtual machines remotely, such as the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), iSCSI support, and USB support for remote devices over RDP.

VirtualBox supports Intel's hardware virtualization VT-x and AMD's AMD-V.

According to a 2007 DesktopLinux.com survey, VirtualBox ranked third among the most popular software packages for running Windows programs on the Linux desktop.

On February 12, 2008, Sun Microsystems acquired Innotek, the company that developed VirtualBox. With Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems on April 20, 2009, it is now distributed as Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Categories

How to install VirtualBox Guest Additions

WARNING

This is a legacy method. Nobody goes this far these days

This summarizes how to install Guest Additions. Written based on CentOS 7.

First, mount the inserted CD. 

$ sudo mkdir /media/cdrom
$ sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

On a CentOS 7 minimal install, you need to install a few basic packages. 

$ sudo yum install update
$ sudo yum install gcc gcc-c++ bzip2
$ sudo yum install samba

You also need to add the kernel source. <del> 

$ sudo yum install kernel-devel-`uname -r`

</del> The method below is recommended over the one above. 

$ sudo yum install kernel-devel
$ sudo reboot

When the kernel is updated, you must reboot into the new kernel.

Set the environment variable. 

$ export KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`
## Or for CentOS 5 and Red Hat 5
$ export KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`-`uname -m`

If you need to install Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS), see that page.

If you need X Window support, install it as follows. 

$ yum groupinstall "X Window System"

Then run the VBoxLinuxAdditions.run script on the CDROM.

Windows Install 

winget install -e --id Oracle.VirtualBox

VirtualBox Extension Pack

If you want to use Ubuntu's official apt: 

sudo apt install virtualbox virtualbox-ext-pack

Reportedly, depending on the situation you may need to use modprobe. I've never used it 

sudo modprobe vboxdrv

Sharing directory 

$ mount -t vboxsf shared /mnt/shared

Host Key Combination

Go to Preferences > Input > Virtual Machine:

VirtualBox_-_Host_Key_Combination.png

For reference, the default on Linux (Ubuntu) seems to be Right Ctrl...

Drag and Drop

After installing VirtualBox Extension Pack, select Drag and Drop from the context menu:

VirtualBox_-_Drag_and_Drop.png

Shared Clipboard

After installing VirtualBox Extension Pack, select Shared Clipboard from the context menu:

VirtualBox_-_Shared_Clipboard.png

GNOME Desktop Icon 

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Name=IE11 - Win7
Comment=Starts the VirtualBox machine IE11 - Win7
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBoxVM --comment "IE11 - Win7" --startvm "{cef75819-d5fa-470e-9c31-d5487e256f0f}"
Icon=virtualbox-vbox.png

Windows Virtual Machine

You can download Windows images for free. See Windows#Windows Virtual Machine.

Installing Windows 11

Download the image from the official Windows site (store) and create a VM that meets the minimum requirements.

When you boot from the disk image, the first screen is the language selection screen; press Shift+F10 there and a command prompt appears.

Run regedit and 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > Setup

create a key (folder) named LabConfig under it.

Create the following values in that folder:

Name

Type

Data

BypassTPMCheck

DWORD (32-bit) Value

1

BypassSecureBootCheck

DWORD (32-bit) Value

1

Then close all windows and proceed with the installation.

INFORMATION

If you don't modify the registry with regedit, a warning tells you to meet the requirements and installation does not proceed

For setup and usage after that, see Windows 11.

Setting up the Korean/English toggle key for Windows7 on Mac

Run regedit.exe, modify the registry values as below, and reboot. 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters] 
"LayerDriver KOR"="kbd101c.dll" 
"OverrideKeyboardType"=dword:00000008 
"OverrideKeyboardSubtype"=dword:00000005 
"OverrideKeyboardIdentifier"="PCAT_101CKEY"
  • Left Shift + Space: Korean/English toggle.
  • Left Ctrl + Space: Hanja conversion. (May conflict with the Intelli-Sense shortcut in IDEs such as Eclipse.)

Port Forwarding in NAT

Go to Devices > Settings > Network > Adapter 1 > NAT > Advanced > Port Forwarding.

Virtual_Box_-NAT-_Port_Forwarding_1.png

Check the Host PC and Guest PC information and enter it.

Virtual_Box_-NAT-_Port_Forwarding_2.png

If you leave Host IP and Guest IP as 0.0.0.0, it binds to all IPs.

Troubleshooting

How to enable seamless mode

To use seamless mode, enable 3D acceleration (Enable 3D Acceleration).

scale mode on/off

To change the scale mode manually, do the following.

  1. Open the {vmname}.vbox-prev file in the /home/{username}/VirtualBox VMs/{vmname} folder.
  2. Find <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/Scale" value="on"/> and change value to off.

See also

Favorite site

Documentation

References

  1. VirtualBox_-_Network_guide.pdf ↩

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