Links

• Manual
  • Configuring virtual machines
    • Storage settings
    • USB support
    • Alternative firmware (EFI)
  • Virtual networking
    • Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine
  • VBoxManage
  • Nested paging and VPIDs
• www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Main/src-all/Global.cpp
  • Defaults for different OSes are listed here.
• Limitations to running in a VM
  • http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/38474
  • Power consumption will also be much higher
• Python SDK via pyvbox
  • https://github.com/mjdorma/pyvbox
  • http://pythonhosted.org/pyvbox/readme.html#getting-started
  • https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pyvbox
  • virtualbox.library.IVirtualBox
    • session → ISession
  • virtualbox.library.IMachine
    • name
    • description
    • state → MachineState
    • remove(delete=True)
    • save_settings()
    • discard_settings()
    • set_boot_order(position, device)
  • virtualbox.library.MachineState
  • virtualbox.library.ISession(interface=None, manager=None)
    • console → IConsole)
  • virtualbox.library.IConsole(interface=None)
  • restore_snapshot(snapshot=None)
  • take_snapshot(name, description)
  • create_shared_folder(name, host_path, writable, automount)
  • remove_shared_folder(name)
  • display
  • keyboard
  • power_button()
  • power_down()
  • power_up()
  • power_up_paused()
  • power_sleep_button()
  • reset()
  • resume()

Notes

• Host-Only Networking / Adapter
  • The IP address to reach the host machine when using the Host Only Network Adapter is 192.168.56.1
  • If you have daemons that were brought up before VirtualBox initialized the Host Only interface, then you can use something like this to forward specific ports so that stuff from inside the VM can connect to the host.
    • sudo socat TCP-LISTEN:80,reuseaddr,bind=192.168.56.1,fork TCP:localhost:80
    • sudo socat TCP6-LISTEN:80,reuseaddr,bind=192.168.56.1,fork TCP6:localhost:80

Shared Folders

These show up under vboxsvr.  Mount like this under windows.

net use H: \\vboxsvr\sharename

Missing TAP/TUN / need to restart?

Ref: 1 & 2

sudo /Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox/VirtualBox restart

# Confirm permissions
sudo chown -R root:wheel /Library/StartupItems
sudo chmod -R 0755 /Library/StartupItems

Suggestions for Ubuntu guest

• Enable IO APIC, VT-x, PAE/NX and Nested Paging
• Disable EFI
• Set HW Clock in UTC
• Set chipset to ICH9
• 128MB video RAM
• Use VirtIO drivers for network and disk
• Disable promiscuous mode for network
• Execution Cap:  You can set this to less than 100% – but watch for clock drift if you do that.
• Disable Unity!  Because both 2D and 3D accel is disabled, Unity 3D should not be installed.  But ensure that it is disabled and isn't trying to use CPU emulation instead.
• Install Guest Additions and extension packakages
• VirtualBox extension pack

Guest Additions

Ref: VirtualBox extension pack

• Install the dependencies
  • sudo aptitude install build-essential dkms
  • Linux headers
    • This depends on the kernel.  Install linux-headers-X where X is the ending 1 or 2 words of uname -r (e.g. server, generic-pae)
    • e.g. sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
• Install Guest Additions
  • Mount it
  • Run as sudo: VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

Linux VM Clone considerations

Ref: Preparing Linux Template VMs

• Each clone should differ on:
  • mac addresses, UUIDs
  • hostname, domain suffix, IP addresses, networking, routing and firewall rules
  • SSH host keys, nginx/openvpn certificates
• Mounts
  • Unmount NFS exports before you clone the machine.
  • Unmount other stuff stuff you don't want mounted that way on the new machines.
• Networking
  • New hostname.
  • Change domain suffix if needed.
  • IP address.  Is it still DHCP based?  Static IPs need to be changed.
  • Routing changes if any.
  • Firewall rules.
  • Monitoring data, etc.
• SSH host keys
  • Delete /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* before powering off the VM and cloning it.  They will be recreated on startup.
  • Or:  On first boot of the clone, rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* followed by dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server.
• If /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules exists, you might have to delete it.
• Other certificates and keys
  • Nginx SSL certificate to match the new hostname.
  • OpenVPN certificate.
  • known_hosts files
• Nice to do before the clone
  • apt-get clean
  • Force log rotation so they start afresh on the clones. Delete old logs.
  • Clean out tmp.  rm -rf /tmp/* ; rm -rf /var/tmp/*
  • Zero out free space.  Consolidate used space.
    • If your VM used a sparse disk though, this grows it before shrinking it (with more effort) and so it might not be worth it.