How to restart the VirtualBox kernel module in Ubuntu

If you're encountering problems in Virtualbox on Ubuntu and you feel you need to restart your machine, don't! You're on Linux, not windows! You can just close Virtualbox and then restart the Virtualbox kernel module by running the following:

"/etc/init.d/vboxdrv restart"

And then start Virtualbox and try again :)

How to install Guest Additions for Ubuntu Guest in Virtualbox

Guest Additions are very useful in VirtualBox (or any other virtualization software in general), it installs virtual adapters for your hardware and enables the following:

• Better graphics support (very useful when resizing the desktop or changing the guest's resolution)
• Folder sharing between the host and the guest (you can refer to this article for a how-to)
• Mouse Integration

Maybe other features as well which I don't know. To install the guest addtions, you can simply follow the following five steps:

1. Click Devices->Install Guest Additions, this will mount a virtual cdrom containing the files from which we will install the guest addtions.
2. Open a terminal and navigate to the folder containing the guest additions "cd /media/cdrom"
3. Run the guest addition installer "sudo sh VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run"
4. Wait till the additions are installed and the kernel modules are compiled, note that this may take a few minutes.
5. Restart the Ubuntu guest.

This article is dedicated to my cousin Midoooz, to use it in his first virtual machine :)

Temporary workaround for virtualbox not able to unmount CD/DVD drive or ISO image

Just don't use  a dynamic expanding harddisk and the problem is gone!!

How to solve the problems of "Oracle Enterprise Linux" in virtualbox

Not able to boot:
Just press escape during the grub loading process and choose the second kernel :), that's it! If you want it to be persistent to avoid doing that at every startup, just go edit the "/boot/grub/grub.conf" and change "default=0" to "default=1" to point to the second kernel automatically.

Source

Not able to install Guest Additions:

1. mount the installation DVD, navigate to the folder "Server" and issue the command "rpm -ivh kernel-devel-2.6.18-164.el5.i686.rpm"
2. unmount the DVD (if you're not able to unmount due to a bug in virtualbox that prevents unmounting, just shutdown the guest OS and then remove it from the storage section)
3. In the guest OS, click "Devices"->"Install Guest Additions"
4. The CD will be mounted, navigate to its folder (in /media/VBox***) and run "sh VBoxLinux***x86.sh" (x86 here if you're using 32-bit edition)
5. Reboot and enjoy :)
   

Access shared-folder in Ubuntu host from Ubuntu guest in Virtualbox

This is the scenario that you run Ubuntu as your host operating system and Ubuntu guest in VirtualBox, and that you want to access a specific folder from Ubuntu host.

First you have to make sure that have install Guest Additions. From the VirtualBox's menu go to Devices → Install Guest Additions... This will mount a virtual CD on your /media/cdrom. Normally this folder's window will show up. As root run the program VBoxLinuxAdditions.run. When the program completes reboot your VirtualBox.

With Guest Additions installed you may now go ahead and define the shared folder(s). From the VirtualBox's menu go to Devices → Shared Folders. A dialog will show up. In this dialog you can specify which folder from your Ubuntu host system you want to share with your Ubuntu guest. Press the button with the + symbol to add a new shared folder in the list. You will have to specify a Folder Name for each folder you add. Make sure you memorize that name because you will need it very soon.

When done with you shared folder(s) specification, you may now go ahead and actually mount these folders from Ubuntu. First you have to create a mounpoint, that is, a directory in your Ubuntu guest which will reflect the shared folder from Ubuntu host:

# sudo mkdir /media/host-share

Of course you may choose an alternative path for your mountpoint. With your mountpoint created you can now mount the shared folder, like this:

# sudo mount -t vboxsf folder-name /media/host-share

Where folder-name will be the name you assigned for this folder when you were adding it in the shared folders list.

Source

Install Moblin 2.1 in Virtualbox

I faced a problem while trying to test the new release of Moblin (2.1) which is an OS primarily designed for netbooks. When trying to boot from the live image, I get an error message stating that the kernel is not supported and that I must have something called "pae" enabled, I googled around and found what "pae" is, it's a feature in the processor and is an abbreviation for "Physical Address Extension" and here is a brief description (not quite good though) http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_pae, anyway here are the steps I used to get this .img file running in my virtualbox:

1. Download the .img file from the website
2. Rename it to .iso
3. Assign it in the storage (as a virtual ISO CD)
4. Open the options for the virtual machine you've just created
5. Click system -> Processor -> Enable PAE.

Now you can run it and continue with the live image or installation.

Enjoy :)!

VirtualBox with USB Support on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

http://www.samlesher.com/ubuntu/virtualbox-with-usb-support-on-ubuntu-810-intrepid-ibex/

There are two versions of Virtual Box:
- OSE (Open Source Edition) which is in the repos
- Closed Source Edition, or Standard, or just plain “Virtual Box”
OSE does not have USB support. There are a few other features from the closed source version that aren’t included in OSE, you can see the list here. So, if you want to have USB support in VirtualBox, you need to install closed source edition and make a change to /etc/fstab. Here are the steps:
1. Remove OSE
$ sudo apt-get autoremove virtualbox-ose
2. Add the VirtualBox repo for Intrepid Ibex. Click System > Administration > Software Sources. Click the ‘Third Party Software’ tab. Click ‘Add’ and enter:
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free
Save the VirtualBox GPG key from here, then import it into Synaptic by clicking the ‘Authentication’ tab and then ‘Import Key File’.
Click the ‘Reload’ button in Synaptic to reload the repositories.
3. Install the latest virtualbox package (as of this writing it is virtualbox-2.2) by selecting it in Synaptic, or running this command from a terminal:
$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-2.2
4. Add yourself to the vboxusers group:
$ sudo gpasswd -a YOURUSERNAME vboxusers
5. Find the devgid for ‘vboxusers’:
$ grep vboxusers /etc/group
It will return something like:
vboxusers:x:125:username
Add this line to the bottom of /etc/fstab, replace the devgid number with your devgid:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=125,devmode=664 0 0
After you reboot you should now have USB support in VirtualBox.
Last tested on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

Notes:

1. This also works with version 2.1 of VirtualBox
2. After modifying the /etc/fstab file, it's not necessary to restart to enable the USB support in VirtualBox, you can just run "sudo mount -a"
   

VirtualBox Virtualization Software on Ubuntu (DRAFT)

1. Open-source: no USB support, commercial yes
   
2. http://www.ubuntu-unleashed.com/2008/04/howto-install-virtualbox-in-hardy-heron.html