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). Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and
OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems
including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista,
Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and
OpenBSD. VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has
an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and
platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated
company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Sun ensures the product
always meets professional quality criteria.
Some of the features of VirtualBox are:
• Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined
internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes it easy
to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you can start a
virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine
from the command line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a full
Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don't have
to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.
• Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The configuration settings of virtual
machines are stored entirely in XML and are independent of the local machines.
Virtual machine definitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.
• Guest Additions for Windows and Linux. VirtualBox has special software that
can be installed inside Windows and Linux virtual machines to improve
performance and make integration much more seamless. Among the features provided
by these Guest Additions are mouse pointer integration and arbitrary screen
solutions (e.g. by resizing the guest window).
• Shared folders. Like many other virtualization solutions, for easy data
exchange between hosts and guests, VirtualBox allows for declaring certain host
directories as "shared folders", which can then be accessed from within virtual
machines.
A number of extra features are available with the full VirtualBox release
only (see the "Editions" page for details):
• Virtual USB Controllers. VirtualBox implements a virtual USB controller and
allows you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without
having to install device specific drivers on the host.
• Remote Desktop Protocol. Unlike any other virtualization software, VirtualBox
fully supports the standard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). A virtual machine can
act as an RDP server, allowing you to "run" the virtual machine remotely on some
thin client that merely displays the RDP data.
• USB over RDP. With this unique feature, a virtual machine that acts as an RDP
server can still access arbitrary USB devices that are connected on the RDP
client. This way, a powerful server machine can virtualize a lot of thin clients
that merely need to display RDP data and have USB devices plugged in.
Changes in VirtualBox VirtualBox 3.1.2 (2009-12-17):
* VMM: fixed SMP stability regression
* USB: fixed USB related host crashes on 64 bits Windows hosts (#5237)
* Main: wrong default HWVirtExExclusive value for new VMs (bug #5664)
* Main: DVD passthrough setting was lost (bug #5681)
* VBoxManage: iSCSI disks do not support adding a comment (bug #4460)
* VBoxManage: added missing --cpus and --memory options to OVF --import
* GUI: fixed VBox URL in update dialog for German and Dutch languages
* GUI: NLS updates
* OVF: fixed export of non standard storage controller names (bug #5643)
* Solaris hosts: several USB fixes (including support for Apple iPhone)
* Mac OS X hosts: several fixes for the 3D support
* Mac OS X hosts: re-enabled CMD+Key combinations, even if the Host-Key isn't
CMD (bug #5684)
* Mac OS X hosts: fixed to fast scrolling if the mouse wheel is used inside the
guest (bug #5672)
* Mac OS X hosts: dock & menubar don't disappear in fullscreen when the VM is
not running on the primary display (bug #1762)
* Mac OS X hosts: added an option for enabling "Auto show Dock & Menubar in
fullscreen" (bug #5636)
* Windows host installer: fixed starting VBox with wrong privileges right after
installation (bug #4162)
* Host interface and host-only networking: prevent driver from unloading while a
VM is still active (Windows host only)
* Host-only networking: fixed host-only interface creation (Windows host only)
(bug #5708)
* Virtio-net: don't crash without an attached network
* Virtio-net: fixed the issue with intermittent network in VM with several
virtual CPU cores.
* NAT: fixed port-forwarding regressions (bug #5666)
* NAT: fixed crash under certain conditions (bug #5427)
* NAT: fixed resolving of names containing a slash or underscore when using the
host resolver DNS proxy (bug #5698)
* ATA: fixed sporadic crash when resuming after a VM was forcefully paused (e.g.
due to iSCSI target being unavailable)
* SATA: fixed raw vmdk disks (bug #5724)
* Linux guests: increased the default memory for Redhat and Fedora guests
* Linux Guest Additions: fixed installation on RHEL 3.9 guests and on some 64bit
guests
* Linux Guest Additions: prevent SELinux warnings concerning text relocations in
VBoxOGL.so (bug #5690)
* X11 guests: fixed mouse support for some Xorg 1.4 guests (openSUSE 11.0)
* X11 guests: fixed xorg.conf modification for some older Xorg releases
(openSUSE 11.1)
* Windows guests: fixed some VBoxService shutdown issues
* Windows guests: fixed VBoxVideo spinlock issues on NT4
* Windows Guest Additions: fixed uninstallation issues of NT4
* Shared folders: fixed resolving of symlink target (bug #5631)
* 2D Video acceleration: delay loading of OpenGL dlls for Windows hosts to avoid
GUI crashes on misconfigured systems
* 2D Video acceleration: fixed issues with video picture not displayed on
playback
