Ubuntu Sharing » virtualbox

Manage your VirtualBox Guest OS with VBoxManage

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:03:03 +0000

VBoxManage is a command-line utility that allows you to control all of VirtualBox’s powerful features.Use VBoxManage ,you can make virtualbox guest OS autostart when login host machine,and you can create new virtual machines,change virtual machines’ settings,etc.

If you have installed virtualbox in your system,now you can run following commands in terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal):

VBoxManage startvm “WinXP”

this will start the guest “WinXP” if you have this virtual guest in your virtualbox.

Tips:Go to System->Preferences->Startup Applications.Click on Add,type in name and previous command in command area.And next time you login,this guest OS will autostart.

You can see your virtualbox version with this command:

VBoxManage  -v

and view a list of virtual machines with:

VBoxManage list vms

Create new virtual machine with:

VBoxManage createvm -name "guest_name_here" -register

More about this command,you can tpye this in terminal:

VBoxManage help

Enable remote desktop in Virtual machine(Virtualbox guest)

admin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:28:39 +0000

This tutorial shows how to enable remote control to virtual machine desktop.
Configuring virtual machine
First,open up VirtualBox and click on the virtual machine you want to connect to.Click Settings,select Display(or,Remote display) in left.Go to Remote Display tab and check the Enable Server.

Here we need to remember the Server Port :3389 which will be used in connecting this desktop.

Connecting this virtual machine desktop
Connect from Ubuntu:
First,we need install this in the computer that we want to remote control to the virtual desktop.Run this in terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal)

sudo apt-get install rdesktop

Now,use this command to connect to the remote virtual machine:

rdesktop -u wraith -p password -g 1024x768 -a 16 192.168.1.100:3389

Here:
wraith is the username of the HOST.
password is the password for the user on the HOST.
192.168.1.100:3389 is the Host IPaddress and Server Port.

Connect from Windows:
Just go to Start->All Programs->Accessories->Communications->Remote Desktop Connection.And type in:
Computer: 192.168.1.100:3389
User name: wraith
Password: ******

Enable VirtualBox ubuntu guest 3D Acceleration

admin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:44:09 +0000

VirtualBox has the feature that supports 3D acceleration for Linux guest since 2.2 released.To enable this in your Linux guest,first you need to install guest additions from machine->Install guest additions in the guest window.Then open settings of your Linux virtual machine and check the 3D acceleration option.

Make sure you have installed graphics drive in host machine.

And now click install compiz and enable 3D effects in the virtual machine.

Enable VirtualBox virtual machines(Guests) USB support

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:32:07 +0000

I installed Virtualbox and XP guest in Ubuntu 9.04,and enabled file sharing between them.But I encountered USB problem when I inserted a USB disk.Finally,I worked it out by following steps.
1.Open up VirtualBox,select the virtual machine and click on Settings.Then select USB in left and check the two checkboxes.

2.Open up terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal).Create usb group and add current user to the group:

sudo groupadd usbfs
sudo adduser your_username_here usbfs

3.Use this command,and you will get group id:

cat /etc/group | grep usbfs

Example of output:

usbfs:x:1001:wraith

Here,1001 is the group id.
4.Edit /etc/fstab by this command:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Add this line in the bottom.

none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=1001,devmode=664 0 0

Here 1001 is the group id in step 3.
5.Run following command:

sudo chmod 777 /proc/bus/usb

Restart your computer.

Tips:
I don’t konw whether it matters,but you’d better install guest additions (from Devices->Install guest additions in VM window)

How to share folder between VirtualBox Host and Virutal Machines(Guests)

admin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:37:18 +0000

This tutorial shows how to share folder between virtualbox Ubuntu host and Windows guest,or Windows host and Ubuntu guest.
First of all,make sure you have installed guest additions(from virtual machine windows,click to Machines->Install guest additions).
Ubuntu host and Windows/Vista guest:
1.First,create the shared folder in ubuntu host,assuming the folder is /home/user_name/vbshare:

mkdir ~/vbshare

2.Boot up Windows guest and go to Devices->Shared Folders

Click the button at right to create a share.
In Folder Path navigate to the folder you created in step one and select it.Check “Make Permanent”.

3.For Windows guest,navigate to Start->Run and type:

cmd

In dos console,use this command:

net use t: \\vboxsvr\vbshare

For Vista guest,open your Windows Explorer, click on the Map Network Drive.Type following in Folder area and check “Reconnect at logon”.

\\vboxsvr\vbshare

4.Open My computer,you will see the shared folder:

Windows Host and Ubuntu guest:
1.Create an folder,assuming it is:

c:/vbshare

2.Same to the step 2 above.
3.In ubuntu guest,open terminal(Applications->Accessories->Terminal).Using following command mount the folder:

sudo mkdir /media/vb_share
sudo mount -t vboxsf vbshare /media/vb_share

Install/Update the latest VirtualBox without hurting current VMs

admin — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:27:22 +0000

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
VirtualBox 3.0.6 released on Sep. 9,2009,which improves stability and performance.
To update to the latest version,first make a backup for your current VMs(File->Export Appliance…),although the fresh installation won’t hurt current VMs setups.

Remove the old version with this command:

sudo apt-get remove --purge virtualbox

This won’t delete your VMs which lie in your home directory. And now download the latest version from VirtualBox home page ,double click to install it.
Also,you can install it by adding source in source.list:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

add this line to the file,save and close it.
For ubuntu 9.04:

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

For ubuntu 8.10:

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

For ubuntu 8.04:

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

Then,add the GPG key:

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

Update and install:

sudo apt-get update
apt-get install virtualbox-3.0

Replace virtualbox-3.0

  by virtualbox to install VirtualBox 1.6.6
   by virtualbox-2.0 to install VirtualBox 2.0.10
   by virtualbox-2.1 to install VirtualBox 2.1.4
   by virtualbox-2.2 to install VirtualBox 2.2.4

Install Windows XP inside ubuntu using Virtualbox

admin — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:07:59 +0000

If you are a Linux ubuntu user and you just want to do any thing in Windows when you are operating in ubuntu,you may not want to restart your computer and select to boot Windows.This tutorial tells how to install Windows XP with virtualbox inside ubuntu,and I hope it may help.Following is my virtual XP system.

1.First,install Virtualbox, here tells you how to install it.

2.After Virtualbox installed,click to System–>Administration–>Users&Groups,

click unlock at following window,enter you password then click Manage Groups

scroll down to select vboxusers, then click Properties,

tick wraith on,wraith is my user name.

You can just execute following command in a terminal instead what you do above:

sudo adduser user-name vboxusers

type your ubuntu user name instead user-name.

3.Now open Virtualbox at Applications–>System Tools–>Sun VirtualBox,

Click New to create a new machine

click next and enter a name for the machine at bottom select OS to Microsoft Windows ,Windows XP

click next and set memory size,512MB is recommended if you have a 1GB RAM.

click next and create new hard disk

click next until following window,select as follow

click next and distribute virtual hard disk size

click next,then finish.you will see:

Click Settings,in General,set the Video Memory size,then go to CD/DVD-ROM,tick on Mount CD/DVD Drive–>Host CD/DVD drive

click Audio,select Host Audio Driver to OSS audio driver,click ok to change at last.

Now,you need a CD for Windows install,put it in you CD-ROM,and click Start ,windows will be installing.Click start to run Windows after the install finish.

Tips:

If you want to install the virtual XP system with an image file,click Settings and tick on ISO Image File at CD/DVD-ROM tab,then add it from your disk.

How to install Virtualbox in ubuntu 9.04

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:34:03 +0000

Virtualbox can run whole operating system in a window,but that do not have direct access to your computer hardware,Virtualbox can run all versions of Windows,Linux and various other systems.

To install virtualbox,you need to install following package by running following command in a terminal window first:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install dkms

Then download .deb package for virtualbox install from the link:http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

Just double click on the package you downloaded,click Install Package in next window and install it by prompt.

After install finish,restart computer,then you can open it at Applications–>System Tools–>Sun Virtual Box,when you first open up you will see following figure,scroll down to bottom and select I agree

then create user name

you will see virtualbox work window:

Tips:

click here for installing windows XP with virtualbox inside ubuntu