VirtualBox
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VirtualBox is a virtual PC emulator like VMware. It is in constant development and new features are implemented all the time. e.g. version 2.2 introduced OpenGL 3D acceleration support for Linux and Solaris guests. It has a Qt GUI interface, as well as headless and SDL command line tools for managing and running virtual machines. It includes guest additions for some guest operating systems, which integrate functions of the guest and host systems, including sharing files, the clipboard, video acceleration and a “seamless” window integration mode.
Contents
- 1 Installation on host
- 2 Setup
- 3 Arch Linux guests
- 4 Shared Folders as Arch Linux Guest
- 5 Troubleshooting
- 5.1 USB subsystem is not working on the host or guest
- 5.2 Failed to create the host-only network interface
- 5.3 WinXP: Bit-depth cannot be greater than 16
- 5.4 Mounting .vdi Images
- 5.5 Startup problems because of mount failures
- 5.6 Copy&Paste not working on Arch Linux Guest
- 5.7 Mouse is resetting to (0,0) randomly and frequently
- 5.8 Use Serial port in guest OS
- 5.9 Abort on resume
- 6 External links
Installation on host
The basic GPL-licensed VirtualBox suite can be installed with the virtualbox package, found in the official repositories. You will need to install virtualbox-host-modules separately, if it is not installed with the the virtualbox package, which contains the precompiled modules for the stock archlinux kernel. For custom kernels, read the section below.
In order to use the graphical interface, based on Qt (VirtualBox
command), you will also need to install the qt package. This is not required for the simpler SDL-only GUI (VBoxSDL
command) nor for the VBoxHeadless
command.
If you are using the linux-lts kernel you should install also the virtualbox-host-modules-lts package.
Hosts running a custom kernel
VirtualBox works just fine with custom kernels such as Linux-ck without the need to keep any of the official ARCH kernel packages on the system. The trick to keeping pacman from bringing down the ARCH kernel packages is to install virtualbox with the virtualbox-host-dkms package, which contains the source for the virtualbox kernel modules. See FS#26721 for further explanations.
Once virtualbox-host-dkms is installed, simply generate the kernel modules for your custom kernel by running:
# dkms install vboxhost/<virtualbox-host-source version> -k <your custom kernel's version>/<your architecture>
Which for the lazy is the command:
# dkms install vboxhost/$(pacman -Q virtualbox|awk {'print $2'}|sed 's/\-.\+//') -k $(uname -rm|sed 's/\ /\//')
and load it:
# modprobe vboxdrv
Automatic re-compilation of the virtualbox host modules with every update of any kernel
This is possible thanks to vboxhost-hookAUR from the AUR. In vboxhost-hook, the 'automatic re-compilation' functionality is done by a vboxhost hook on mkinitcpio after forcing to update the linux-headers package. You will need to add 'vboxhost' to the HOOKS array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, as well as 'linux-headers' and your custom kernel(s) headers to the SyncFirst array in /etc/pacman.conf for this to work.
The hook will call the dkms command to update the virtualbox host modules for the version of your new kernel.
Setup
Add the desired username to the vboxusers group. Everything may work fine without this step but shared folders and possibly some other optional stuff require it to work. The new group does not automatically apply to existing sessions; the user has to log in again or start a new environment with a command like newgrp
or sudo -u username -s
.
# gpasswd -a username vboxusers
Loading Kernel Modules
VirtualBox running on Linux uses its own kernel modules, including a mandatory one called vboxdrv, which must be loaded before virtual machines can run. It can be automatically loaded when Arch Linux starts up, or it can be loaded manually when necessary.
To load the VirtualBox driver at startup, add a file with the *.conf
suffix in the /etc/modules-load.d
directory (e.g. virtualbox.conf) that reads "vboxdrv":
# tee /etc/modules-load.d/virtualbox.conf <<< "vboxdrv"
depmod -a
.To load the module manually:
# modprobe vboxdrv
To start the VirtualBox graphical manager:
$ VirtualBox
Guest additions disc
The virtualbox
package also suggests installing virtualbox-guest-iso on the host (Arch Linux) running VirtualBox. It is a disc image that can be used to install the guest additions onto guest systems. Make it available to the (running) guest by going to Devices and clicking "Install Guest Additions... Host+D". Then run the guest additions installation from inside the guest.
Booting a live disc
Click the 'New' button to create a new virtual environment. Name it appropriately and select Operating System type and version. Select base memory size (note: most operating systems will need at least 512 MB to function properly). Create a new hard disk image (a hard disk image is a file that will contain the operating system's filesystem and files).
When the new image has been created, click 'Settings', then CD/DVD-ROM, check 'Mount CD/DVD Drive' then select an ISO image.
Starting virtual machines with a service
See Systemd/Services#VirtualBox_virtual_machines for details on how to setup a systemd service for each virtual machine.
Advanced setup
See VirtualBox Extras for advanced configuration.
Arch Linux guests
Installing Arch under VirtualBox is straightforward, and additions should be installed through pacman (not through "Install Guest Additions" in VirtualBox, or from a mounted ISO image).
Install the Guest Additions
Install the virtualbox-guest-utils package:
# pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils
Manually load the modules with:
# modprobe -a vboxguest vboxsf vboxvideo
Create a *.conf
file (e.g. virtualbox.conf
) in /etc/modules-load.d/
with these lines:
/etc/modules-load.d/virtualbox.conf
vboxguest vboxsf vboxvideo
Automatic re-compilation of the virtualbox guest modules with every update of any kernel
This is possible thanks to vboxguest-hookAUR from the AUR. In vboxguest-hook, the 'automatic re-compilation' functionality is done by a vboxguest hook on mkinitcpio after forcing to update the linux-headers package. You will need to add 'vboxguest' to the HOOKS array in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, as well as 'linux-headers' and your custom kernel(s) headers to the SyncFirst array in /etc/pacman.conf for this to work.
The hook will call the dkms command to update the virtualbox guest modules for the version of your new kernel.
Start the sharing services
After installing virtualbox-guest-utils above, you should start VBoxClient-all
to start services for sharing the clipboard, resizing the screen, etc.
- If you are running something that launches
/etc/xdg/autostart/vboxclient.desktop
, such as GNOME or KDE, then nothing needs to be done. - If you use
.xinitrc
to launch things instead, you must add the following to your.xinitrc
before launching your WM.
# VBoxClient-all &
Using USB webcam / microphone
- Make sure the virtual machine is not running and your webcam / microphone is not being used.
- Bring up the main VirtualBox window and go to settings for Arch machine. Go to USB section.
- Make sure "Enable USB Controller" is selected. Also make sure that "Enable USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller" is selected too.
- Click the "Add filter from device" button (the cable with the '+' icon).
- Select your USB webcam/microphone device from the list.
- Now click OK and start your VM.
Using Arch under Virtualbox EFI mode
My experience with this configuration was pretty terrible, but it does work.
UPD. Using efibootmgr has the same effect as using VirtualBox boot menu (see the note below): settings disappear after VM shutdown. First, efibootmgr
does *not* work. It will appear to work, but all changes it makes appear to be overwritten on reboot. After performing a standard UEFI/GPT installation, reboot and you should get dumped to the EFI shell. Type exit and you will get a menu. Select the Boot Management Manager, Boot Options, Add Boot Option. Use the file browser to find the grub efi file and select it. Add a label if you want. Afterwards, select Change Boot Order from the menu, use arrow keys to select your Arch option, and + to move it up to the top. GRUB should boot by default now.
Other options are: 1) move your loader to \EFI\boot\bootx64.efi, 2) create \stratup.nsh script, which executes desirable loader, like this:
\startup.nsh
HD16a0a1:\EFI\refind\refindx64.efi
Here I'm using consistent mapping name (HD16a0a1). It's probably a good idea, because they do survive configuration changes.
exit
. Obviously, this will only work with grub-efi
, not grub-bios
.Regenerating the grub.cfg
file may also be required to fix broken UUIDs. Check with the lsblk -f
command that they match.
Shared folders are managed via the VirtualBox program on the host. They may be added, auto-mounted and made read-only from there. Creating a shared folder from the VirtualBox program in the host locates that folder in /media/sf_SHAREDFOLDERNAME
. At this time an additional step is needed to have that folder created in the Arch Guest because Arch use a package for Guest Additions. To create and access this shared folder from the Arch Guest, this must also be done at the command line after installing the Guest Additions package(s) from pacman:
# groupadd vboxsf # gpasswd -a $USER vboxsf
If you wish, a symbolic link may be made to another folder in your home directory for easy access. As an example, if a shared folder named "Dropbox" was created in the VirtualBox program on the host machine, then /media/sf_Dropbox is automatically created in the guest so this could be done:
$ ln -s /media/sf_Dropbox/* ~/dropbox
The .run script provided in the Guest Additions iso does this for you, however, Arch does not recommend using that script so this step must be done manually. The instructions for it were found here: (pastebin: [1]) .
If shared folders are not auto-mounted, try manually mount or read the next section.
To prevent startup problems when you're using systemd, you should add comment=systemd.automount
to your /etc/fstab
. This way, they are mounted only when you access those mountpoints and not during startup. Otherwise your system might become unusable after a kernel upgrade (if you install your guest additions manually).
desktop /media/desktop vboxsf uid=user,gid=group,rw,dmode=700,fmode=600,comment=systemd.automount 0 0
Don't waste your time to test the nofail
option. mount.vboxsf
is not able to handle this (2012-08-20).
desktop /media/desktop vboxsf uid=user,gid=group,rw,dmode=700,fmode=600,nofail 0 0
Synchronise guest date with host
To keep sync date and time, make sure you have virtualbox-guest-utils installed in your host (see previous section). Then run
# systemctl enable vboxservice.service
To enable the service for next boot. To start immediately, run
# systemctl start vboxservice.service
You also need run this daemon in order to use auto-mounting feature of shared folders that are mentioned above.
Troubleshooting
USB subsystem is not working on the host or guest
Sometimes the usb subsystem is not auto-detected resulting in an error or in a not visible USB drive on the host, even when the user is in the vboxusers group. See this topic [2] for details.
fstab method
Adding an entry in /etc/fstab
should resolve this issue:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs auto,busgid=108,busmode=0775,devgid=108,devmode=664 0 0
USB subsystem method
USB subsystem will work if you add
VBOX_USB=usbfs
to ~/.bashrc
and reboot your system or open a new bash instance.
Failed to create the host-only network interface
To be able to create a Host-Only Network Adapter or a Bridged Network Adapter the kernel modules vboxnetadp
and vboxnetflt
need to be loaded. It's possible to load these kernel modules manually with
# modprobe -a vboxnetadp vboxnetflt
To load them automatically at boot, add a new line for each module to /etc/modules-load.d/virtualbox.conf
:
vboxdrv vboxnetadp vboxnetflt
MODULES
array in /etc/rc.conf
. This is now deprecated.More information in this topic.
WinXP: Bit-depth cannot be greater than 16
If you are running at 16-bit color depth, then the icons may appear fuzzy/choppy. However, upon attempting to change the color depth to a higher level, the system may restrict you to a lower resolution or simply not enable you to change the depth at all. To fix this, run regedit
add the following key to the Virtual Windows XP registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Terminal Services] "ColorDepth"=dword:00000004
Then update the color depth in the desktop properties window. If nothing happens, force the screen to redraw through some method (i.e. Template:Keypress to redraw/enter full screen).
Mounting .vdi Images
This just work with static size vdi images! Dynamic size won't be easy mountable! First we need one information from your .vdi image:
$ VBoxManage internalcommands dumphdinfo Arch_64min.vdi |grep offData Header: offBlocks=4096 offData=69632
Now, add to your offData
32256. e.g. 32256 + 69632 = 101888
Now you can mount your vdi image:
# mount -t ext4 -o rw,noatime,noexec,loop,offset=101888 Arch_64min.vdi /mnt/
Startup problems because of mount failures
If you experience problems in a systemd setup after a kernel upgrade, you should start the system with init=/bin/bash (if the emergency shell doesn't work for you).
root=/dev/mapper/vg_main-lv_root ro vga=792 resume=/dev/mapper/vg_main-lv_swap init=/bin/bash
Then mount the root-filesystem with write access:
# mount / -o remount,rw
Change /etc/fstab according to VirtualBox#Shared Folders as Arch Linux Guest. Then exec systemd with in the bash shell:
# exec /bin/systemd
Copy&Paste not working on Arch Linux Guest
Since updating virtualbox-guest-additions
to version 4.2.0-2
copy&paste from Host OS to Arch Linux Guest stopped working. It seems to be due to VBoxClient-all
requiring root access. In previous versions adding VBoxClient-all & to ~/.xinitrc was sufficient to make copy&paste work. Update ~/.xinitrc to match sudo VBoxClient-all &
and add the line , NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/VBoxClient-all
to your username in the sudoers file and restart X. It should all work again. The line in the sudoers file should look similar to this:
# Allow sudo for user 'you' and let him run VBoxClient-all without requiring a password you ALL = PASSWD: ALL, NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/VBoxClient-all
visudo
to edit the sudoers file. This will check for syntax errors when saving.Mouse is resetting to (0,0) randomly and frequently
Due to xorg bug 54353 (and related bug reports discussed within), the VirtualBox mouse device will frequently reset to the upper left corner of the screen.
The workaround suggested in the bug discussion can be applied by adding a script to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d
with:
for Z in $(xinput list | sed '/\(master\|slave \) \<pointer\>/!d;s/.*id=\([0-9]\+\).*/\1/'); do xinput set-prop $Z "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 0.500000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.500000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.500000 xinput set-prop $Z "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000 done
By changing the matrix's value and changing it back to its original value, the internal condition that triggers this bug is avoided.
Use Serial port in guest OS
Check you permission in Serial port
$ /bin/ls -l /dev/ttyS* crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 64 Feb 3 09:12 /dev/ttyS0 crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 65 Feb 3 09:12 /dev/ttyS1 crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 66 Feb 3 09:12 /dev/ttyS2 crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 67 Feb 3 09:12 /dev/ttyS3
Add you user in uucp group.
# gpasswd -a YOURUSER uucp
and relogon.
Abort on resume
There is a known bug that causes abort on resume: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/11289. The workaround is simple: always use Host+q or the menu to close the VM.