VirtualBox

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1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
3"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd">
4<chapter id="BasicConcepts">
5 <title>Configuring virtual machines</title>
6
7 <para>Whereas <xref linkend="Introduction" /> gave you a quick introduction
8 to VirtualBox and how to get your first virtual machine running, the
9 following chapter describes in detail how to configure virtual
10 machines.</para>
11
12 <para>You have considerable latitude in deciding what virtual hardware will
13 be provided to the guest. The virtual hardware can be used for communicating
14 with the host system or with other guests. For instance, if you provide
15 VirtualBox with the image of a CD-ROM in an ISO file, VirtualBox can present
16 this image to a guest system as if it were a physical CD-ROM. Similarly, you
17 can give a guest system access to the real network via its virtual network
18 card, and, if you so choose, give the host system, other guests, or
19 computers on the Internet access to the guest system.</para>
20
21 <sect1 id="guestossupport">
22 <title>Supported guest operating systems</title>
23
24 <para>Since VirtualBox is designed to provide a generic virtualization
25 environment for x86 systems, it may run operating systems of any kind,
26 even those not listed here. However, the focus is to optimize VirtualBox
27 for the following guest systems:</para>
28
29 <para><glosslist>
30 <glossentry>
31 <glossterm>Windows NT 4.0</glossterm>
32
33 <glossdef>
34 <para>All versions, editions and service packs are fully
35 supported; however, there are some issues with older service
36 packs. We recommend to install service pack 6a. Guest Additions
37 are available with a limited feature set.</para>
38 </glossdef>
39 </glossentry>
40
41 <glossentry>
42 <glossterm>Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008 /
43 Windows 7 / Windows 8 / Server 2012</glossterm>
44
45 <glossdef>
46 <para>All versions, editions and service packs are fully supported
47 (including 64-bit versions, under the preconditions listed below).
48 Guest Additions are available.</para>
49 </glossdef>
50 </glossentry>
51
52 <glossentry>
53 <glossterm>DOS / Windows 3.x / 95 / 98 / ME</glossterm>
54
55 <glossdef>
56 <para>Limited testing has been performed. Use beyond legacy
57 installation mechanisms not recommended. No Guest Additions
58 available.</para>
59 </glossdef>
60 </glossentry>
61
62 <glossentry>
63 <glossterm>Linux 2.4</glossterm>
64
65 <glossdef>
66 <para>Limited support.</para>
67 </glossdef>
68 </glossentry>
69
70 <glossentry>
71 <glossterm>Linux 2.6</glossterm>
72
73 <glossdef>
74 <para>All versions/editions are fully supported (32 bits and 64
75 bits). Guest Additions are available.</para>
76
77 <para>We strongly recommend using a Linux kernel version 2.6.13 or
78 higher for better performance.<note>
79 <para>Certain Linux kernel releases have bugs that prevent
80 them from executing in a virtual environment; please see <xref
81 linkend="ts_linux-buggy" /> for details.</para>
82 </note></para>
83 </glossdef>
84 </glossentry>
85
86 <glossentry>
87 <glossterm>Linux 3.x</glossterm>
88
89 <glossdef>
90 <para>All versions/editions are fully supported (32 bits and 64
91 bits). Guest Additions are available.</para>
92 </glossdef>
93 </glossentry>
94
95 <glossentry>
96 <glossterm>Solaris 10 (u6 and higher), Solaris 11 (including Solaris
97 11 Express)</glossterm>
98
99 <glossdef>
100 <para>Fully supported (32 bits and 64 bits). Guest Additions are
101 available.</para>
102 </glossdef>
103 </glossentry>
104
105 <glossentry>
106 <glossterm>FreeBSD</glossterm>
107
108 <glossdef>
109 <para>Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. Limited
110 support. Guest Additions are not available yet.</para>
111 </glossdef>
112 </glossentry>
113
114 <glossentry>
115 <glossterm>OpenBSD</glossterm>
116
117 <glossdef>
118 <para>Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. Versions 3.7
119 and later are supported. Guest Additions are not available
120 yet.</para>
121 </glossdef>
122 </glossentry>
123
124 <glossentry>
125 <glossterm>OS/2 Warp 4.5</glossterm>
126
127 <glossdef>
128 <para>Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. We
129 officially support MCP2 only; other OS/2 versions may or may not
130 work. Guest Additions are available with a limited feature
131 set.<footnote>
132 <para>See <xref linkend="KnownIssues" />.</para>
133 </footnote></para>
134 </glossdef>
135 </glossentry>
136
137 <glossentry>
138 <glossterm>Mac OS X</glossterm>
139
140 <glossdef>
141 <para>VirtualBox 3.2 added experimental support for Mac OS X
142 guests, but this comes with restrictions. Please see the following
143 section as well as <xref linkend="KnownIssues" />.</para>
144 </glossdef>
145 </glossentry>
146 </glosslist></para>
147
148 <sect2 id="intro-macosxguests">
149 <title>Mac OS X guests</title>
150
151 <para>Starting with version 3.2, VirtualBox has experimental support for
152 Mac OS X guests. This allows you to install and execute unmodified
153 versions of Mac OS X on supported host hardware.</para>
154
155 <para>Whereas competing solutions perform modifications to the Mac OS X
156 install DVDs (e.g. different boot loader and replaced files), VirtualBox
157 is the first product to provide the modern PC architecture expected by
158 OS X without requiring any "hacks".</para>
159
160 <para>You should be aware of a number of <emphasis role="bold">important
161 issues</emphasis> before attempting to install a Mac OS X guest:<orderedlist>
162 <listitem>
163 <para>Mac OS X is commercial, licensed software and contains
164 <emphasis role="bold">both license and technical restrictions</emphasis>
165 that limit its use to certain hardware and usage scenarios. It is
166 important that you understand and obey these restrictions.</para>
167
168 <para>In particular, for most versions of Mac OS X, Apple prohibits
169 installing them on non-Apple hardware.</para>
170
171 <para>These license restrictions are also enforced on a technical
172 level. Mac OS X verifies whether it is running on Apple hardware,
173 and most DVDs that that come with Apple hardware even check for an
174 exact model. These restrictions are <emphasis>not</emphasis>
175 circumvented by VirtualBox and continue to apply.</para>
176 </listitem>
177
178 <listitem>
179 <para>Only <emphasis role="bold">CPUs</emphasis> known and tested
180 by Apple are supported. As a result, if your Intel CPU is newer
181 than the build of Mac OS X, or if you have a non-Intel CPU, it will
182 most likely panic during bootup with an "Unsupported CPU"
183 exception. It is generally best to use the Mac OS X DVD that came
184 with your Apple hardware.</para>
185 </listitem>
186
187 <listitem>
188 <para>The Mac OS X installer expects the harddisk to be
189 <emphasis role="bold">partitioned</emphasis> so when it does not
190 offer a selection, you have to launch the Disk Utility from the
191 "Tools" menu and partition the hard disk. Then close the Disk
192 Utility and proceed with the installation.</para>
193 </listitem>
194
195 <listitem>
196 <para>In addition, as Mac OS X support in VirtualBox is currently
197 still experimental, please refer also to <xref linkend="KnownIssues" />.</para>
198 </listitem>
199 </orderedlist></para>
200 </sect2>
201
202 <sect2 id="intro-64bitguests">
203 <title>64-bit guests</title>
204
205 <para>VirtualBox supports 64-bit guest operating systems, even on 32-bit
206 host operating systems,<footnote>
207 <para>64-bit guest support was added with VirtualBox 2.0; support
208 for 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts was added with VirtualBox
209 2.1.</para>
210 </footnote> provided that the following conditions are
211 met:<orderedlist>
212 <listitem>
213 <para>You need a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization
214 support (see <xref linkend="hwvirt" />).</para>
215 </listitem>
216
217 <listitem>
218 <para>You must enable hardware virtualization for the particular
219 VM for which you want 64-bit support; software virtualization is
220 not supported for 64-bit VMs.</para>
221 </listitem>
222
223 <listitem>
224 <para>If you want to use 64-bit guest support on a 32-bit host
225 operating system, you must also select a 64-bit operating system
226 for the particular VM. Since supporting 64 bits on 32-bit hosts
227 incurs additional overhead, VirtualBox only enables this support
228 upon explicit request.</para>
229
230 <para>On 64-bit hosts (which typically come with hardware
231 virtualization support), 64-bit guest operating systems are always
232 supported regardless of settings, so you can simply install a
233 64-bit operating system in the guest.</para>
234 </listitem>
235 </orderedlist></para>
236
237 <para><warning>
238 <para>On any host, you should enable the <emphasis role="bold">I/O
239 APIC</emphasis> for virtual machines that you intend to use in
240 64-bit mode. This is especially true for 64-bit Windows VMs. See
241 <xref linkend="settings-general-advanced" />. In addition, for
242 64-bit Windows guests, you should make sure that the VM uses the
243 <emphasis role="bold">Intel networking device</emphasis>, since
244 there is no 64-bit driver support for the AMD PCNet card; see <xref
245 linkend="nichardware" />.</para>
246 </warning></para>
247
248 <para>If you use the "Create VM" wizard of the VirtualBox graphical user
249 interface (see <xref linkend="gui-createvm" />), VirtualBox will
250 automatically use the correct settings for each selected 64-bit
251 operating system type.</para>
252 </sect2>
253 </sect1>
254
255 <sect1>
256 <title>Emulated hardware</title>
257
258 <para>VirtualBox virtualizes nearly all hardware of the host. Depending on
259 a VM's configuration, the guest will see the following virtual
260 hardware:<itemizedlist>
261 <listitem>
262 <para><emphasis role="bold">Input devices.</emphasis> By default,
263 VirtualBox emulates a standard PS/2 keyboard and mouse. These
264 devices are supported by almost all past and present operating
265 systems.</para>
266
267 <para>In addition, VirtualBox can provide virtual USB input devices
268 to avoid having to capture mouse and keyboard, as described in <xref
269 linkend="keyb_mouse_normal" />.</para>
270 </listitem>
271
272 <listitem>
273 <para><emphasis role="bold">Graphics.</emphasis> The VirtualBox
274 graphics device (sometimes referred to as VGA device) is, unlike
275 nearly all other emulated devices, not based on any physical
276 counterpart. It is a simple, synthetic device which provides
277 compatibility with standard VGA and several extended registers used
278 by the VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE).</para>
279 </listitem>
280
281 <listitem>
282 <para><emphasis role="bold">Storage.</emphasis> VirtualBox currently
283 emulates the standard ATA interface found on Intel PIIX3/PIIX4
284 chips, the SATA (AHCI) interface, and two SCSI adapters (LSI Logic
285 and BusLogic); see <xref linkend="harddiskcontrollers" /> for
286 details. Whereas providing one of these would be enough for
287 VirtualBox by itself, this multitude of storage adapters is required
288 for compatibility with other hypervisors. Windows is particularly
289 picky about its boot devices, and migrating VMs between hypervisors
290 is very difficult or impossible if the storage controllers are
291 different.</para>
292 </listitem>
293
294 <listitem>
295 <para><emphasis role="bold">Networking.</emphasis> See <xref
296 linkend="nichardware" />.</para>
297 </listitem>
298
299 <listitem>
300 <para><emphasis role="bold">USB.</emphasis> VirtualBox emulates two
301 USB host controllers, EHCI and OHCI. There is a need for two host
302 controllers because OHCI only handles USB low- and full-speed
303 devices (both USB 1.x and 2.0), while EHCI only handles high-speed
304 devices (USB 2.0 only). The emulated USB controllers do not
305 communicate directly with devices on the host but rather with a
306 virtual USB layer which abstracts the USB protocol and allows the
307 use of remote USB devices.</para>
308 </listitem>
309
310 <listitem>
311 <para><emphasis role="bold">Audio.</emphasis> See <xref
312 linkend="settings-audio" />.</para>
313 </listitem>
314 </itemizedlist></para>
315 </sect1>
316
317 <sect1 id="generalsettings">
318 <title>General settings</title>
319
320 <para>In the Settings window, under "General", you can configure the most
321 fundamental aspects of the virtual machine such as memory and essential
322 hardware. There are three tabs, "Basic", "Advanced" and
323 "Description".</para>
324
325 <sect2>
326 <title>"Basic" tab</title>
327
328 <para>Under the "Basic" tab of the "General" settings category, you can
329 find these settings:</para>
330
331 <glosslist>
332 <glossentry>
333 <glossterm>Name</glossterm>
334
335 <glossdef>
336 <para>The name under which the VM is shown in the list of VMs in
337 the main window. Under this name, VirtualBox also saves the VM's
338 configuration files. By changing the name, VirtualBox renames
339 these files as well. As a result, you can only use characters
340 which are allowed in your host operating system's file
341 names.</para>
342
343 <para>Note that internally, VirtualBox uses unique identifiers
344 (UUIDs) to identify virtual machines. You can display these with
345 <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>.</para>
346 </glossdef>
347 </glossentry>
348
349 <glossentry>
350 <glossterm>Operating system / version</glossterm>
351
352 <glossdef>
353 <para>The type of the guest operating system that is (or will be)
354 installed in the VM. This is the same setting that was specified
355 in the "New Virtual Machine" wizard, as described in <xref
356 linkend="gui-createvm" />.</para>
357
358 <para>Whereas the default settings of a newly created VM depend on
359 the selected operating system type, changing the type later has no
360 effect on VM settings; this value is then purely informational and
361 decorative.</para>
362 </glossdef>
363 </glossentry>
364 </glosslist>
365 </sect2>
366
367 <sect2 id="settings-general-advanced">
368 <title>"Advanced" tab</title>
369
370 <para><glosslist>
371 <glossentry>
372 <glossterm>Snapshot folder</glossterm>
373
374 <glossdef>
375 <para>By default, VirtualBox saves snapshot data together with
376 your other VirtualBox configuration data; see <xref
377 linkend="vboxconfigdata" />. With this setting, you can specify
378 any other folder for each VM.</para>
379 </glossdef>
380 </glossentry>
381
382 <glossentry>
383 <glossterm>Shared clipboard</glossterm>
384
385 <glossdef>
386 <para>You can select here whether the clipboard of the guest
387 operating system should be shared with that of your host. If you
388 select "Bidirectional", then VirtualBox will always make sure
389 that both clipboards contain the same data. If you select "Host
390 to guest" or "Guest to host", then VirtualBox will only ever
391 copy clipboard data in one direction.</para>
392
393 <para>Clipboard sharing requires that the VirtualBox Guest
394 Additions be installed. As a result, this setting has no effect
395 otherwise; see <xref linkend="guestadditions" /> for
396 details.</para>
397
398 <para>The shared clipboard is disabled by default. See
399 <xref linkend="security_clipboard"/> for an explanation. This
400 setting can be changed at any time using the "Shared Clipboard"
401 menu item in the "Devices" menu of the virtual machine.</para>
402 </glossdef>
403 </glossentry>
404
405 <glossentry>
406 <glossterm>Drag'n'Drop</glossterm>
407 <glossdef>
408 <para>This setting allows to enable Drag and Drop: Select a file
409 on the desktop, click the left mouse button, move the mouse
410 to the VM window and release the mouse button. The file is
411 copied from the host to the guest. This feature is currently
412 only implemented for Linux guests and only for copying files
413 from the host to the guest.<footnote><para>Support
414 for Drag'n'Drop was added with VirtualBox 4.2</para></footnote></para>
415 </glossdef>
416 </glossentry>
417
418 <glossentry>
419 <glossterm>Removable media: remember runtime changes</glossterm>
420
421 <glossdef>
422 <para>If this is checked, VirtualBox will save the state of what
423 media has been mounted between several runs of a virtual
424 machine.</para>
425 </glossdef>
426 </glossentry>
427
428 <glossentry>
429 <glossterm>Mini toolbar</glossterm>
430
431 <glossdef>
432 <para>In full screen or seamless mode, VirtualBox can display a
433 small toolbar that contains some of the items that are normally
434 available from the virtual machine's menu bar. This toolbar
435 reduces itself to a small gray line unless you move the mouse
436 over it. With the toolbar, you can return from full screen or
437 seamless mode, control machine execution or enable certain
438 devices. If you don't want to see the toolbar, disable this
439 setting.</para>
440 <para>The second setting allows to show the toolbar at the top
441 of the screen instead of showing it at the bottom.</para>
442 </glossdef>
443 </glossentry>
444 </glosslist></para>
445 </sect2>
446
447 <sect2>
448 <title>"Description" tab</title>
449
450 <para>Here you can enter any description for your virtual machine, if
451 you want. This has no effect on the functionality of the machine, but
452 you may find this space useful to note down things like the
453 configuration of a virtual machine and the software that has been
454 installed into it.</para>
455 <para>To insert a line break into the description text field, press
456 <emphasis>Shift+Enter</emphasis>.</para>
457 </sect2>
458 </sect1>
459
460 <sect1 id="settings-system">
461 <title>System settings</title>
462
463 <para>The "System" category groups various settings that are related to
464 the basic hardware that is presented to the virtual machine.<note>
465 <para>As the activation mechanism of Microsoft Windows is sensitive to
466 hardware changes, if you are changing hardware settings for a Windows
467 guest, some of these changes may trigger a request for another
468 activation with Microsoft.</para>
469 </note></para>
470
471 <sect2 id="settings-motherboard">
472 <title>"Motherboard" tab</title>
473
474 <para>On the "Motherboard" tab, you can influence virtual hardware that
475 would normally be on the motherboard of a real computer.<glosslist>
476 <glossentry>
477 <glossterm>Base memory</glossterm>
478
479 <glossdef>
480 <para>This sets the amount of RAM that is allocated and given to
481 the VM when it is running. The specified amount of memory will
482 be requested from the host operating system, so it must be
483 available or made available as free memory on the host when
484 attempting to start the VM and will not be available to the host
485 while the VM is running. This is the same setting that was
486 specified in the "New Virtual Machine" wizard, as described with
487 guidelines under <xref linkend="gui-createvm" /> above.</para>
488
489 <para>Generally, it is possible to change the memory size after
490 installing the guest operating system (provided you do not
491 reduce the memory to an amount where the operating system would
492 no longer boot).</para>
493 </glossdef>
494 </glossentry>
495
496 <glossentry>
497 <glossterm>Boot order</glossterm>
498
499 <glossdef>
500 <para>This setting determines the order in which the guest
501 operating system will attempt to boot from the various virtual
502 boot devices. Analogous to a real PC's BIOS setting, VirtualBox
503 can tell a guest OS to start from the virtual floppy, the
504 virtual CD/DVD drive, the virtual hard drive (each of these as
505 defined by the other VM settings), the network, or none of
506 these.</para>
507
508 <para>If you select "Network", the VM will attempt to boot from
509 a network via the PXE mechanism. This needs to be configured in
510 detail on the command line; please see <xref
511 linkend="vboxmanage-modifyvm" />.</para>
512 </glossdef>
513 </glossentry>
514
515 <glossentry>
516 <glossterm>Chipset</glossterm>
517
518 <glossdef>
519 <para>Here you can select which chipset will be presented to the
520 virtual machine. Before VirtualBox 4.0, PIIX3 was the only
521 available option here. For modern guest operating systems such
522 as Mac OS X, that old chipset is no longer well supported. As a
523 result, VirtualBox 4.0 introduced an emulation of the more
524 modern ICH9 chipset, which supports PCI express, three PCI
525 buses, PCI-to-PCI bridges and Message Signaled Interrupts
526 (MSI). This allows modern operating systems to address more PCI
527 devices and no longer requires IRQ sharing. Note that the ICH9
528 support is experimental and not recommended for guest operating
529 systems which do not require it.</para>
530 </glossdef>
531 </glossentry>
532
533 <glossentry>
534 <glossterm>Pointing Device</glossterm>
535
536 <glossdef>
537 <para>The default virtual pointing devices for older guests is the
538 traditional PS/2 mouse. If set to <emphasis>USB tablet</emphasis>,
539 VirtualBox reports to the virtual machine that a USB tablet
540 device is present and communicates mouse events to
541 the virtual machine through this device. The third setting is
542 a <emphasis>USB Multi-Touch Tablet</emphasis> which is suited
543 for recent Windows guests.</para>
544
545 <para>Using the virtual USB tablet has the advantage that
546 movements are reported in absolute coordinates (instead of as
547 relative position changes), which allows VirtualBox to translate
548 mouse events over the VM window into tablet events without
549 having to "capture" the mouse in the guest as described in <xref
550 linkend="keyb_mouse_normal" />. This makes using the VM less
551 tedious even if Guest Additions are not installed.<footnote>
552 <para>The virtual USB tablet was added with VirtualBox 3.2.
553 Depending on the guest operating system selected, this is
554 now enabled by default for new virtual machines.</para>
555 </footnote></para>
556 </glossdef>
557 </glossentry>
558 <glossentry>
559 <glossterm>Enable I/O APIC</glossterm>
560
561 <glossdef>
562 <para>Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers (APICs) are a
563 newer x86 hardware feature that have replaced old-style
564 Programmable Interrupt Controllers (PICs) in recent years. With
565 an I/O APIC, operating systems can use more than 16 interrupt
566 requests (IRQs) and therefore avoid IRQ sharing for improved
567 reliability.<note>
568 <para>Enabling the I/O APIC is <emphasis>required</emphasis>
569 for 64-bit guest operating systems, especially Windows
570 Vista; it is also required if you want to use more than one
571 virtual CPU in a virtual machine.</para>
572 </note></para>
573
574 <para>However, software support for I/O APICs has been
575 unreliable with some operating systems other than Windows. Also,
576 the use of an I/O APIC slightly increases the overhead of
577 virtualization and therefore slows down the guest OS a
578 little.<warning>
579 <para>All Windows operating systems starting with Windows
580 2000 install different kernels depending on whether an I/O
581 APIC is available. As with ACPI, the I/O APIC therefore
582 <emphasis>must not be turned off after
583 installation</emphasis> of a Windows guest OS. Turning it on
584 after installation will have no effect however.</para>
585 </warning></para>
586 </glossdef>
587 </glossentry>
588
589 <glossentry>
590 <glossterm>Enable EFI</glossterm>
591
592 <glossdef>
593 <para>This enables Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which
594 replaces the legacy BIOS and may be useful for certain
595 advanced use cases. Please refer to <xref linkend="efi" /> for
596 details.</para>
597 </glossdef>
598 </glossentry>
599
600 <glossentry>
601 <glossterm>Hardware clock in UTC time</glossterm>
602
603 <glossdef>
604 <para>If checked, VirtualBox will report the system time in UTC
605 format to the guest instead of local (host) time. This affects
606 how the virtual real-time clock (RTC) operates and may be useful
607 for Unix-like guest operating systems, which typically expect
608 the hardware clock to be set to UTC.</para>
609 </glossdef>
610 </glossentry>
611
612 </glosslist></para>
613
614 <para>In addition, you can turn off the <emphasis role="bold">Advanced
615 Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)</emphasis> which VirtualBox
616 presents to the guest operating system by default. ACPI is the current
617 industry standard to allow operating systems to recognize hardware,
618 configure motherboards and other devices and manage power. As all modern
619 PCs contain this feature and Windows and Linux have been supporting it
620 for years, it is also enabled by default in VirtualBox. It can only be
621 turned off on the command line; see <xref
622 linkend="vboxmanage-modifyvm" />.<warning>
623 <para>All Windows operating systems starting with Windows 2000
624 install different kernels depending on whether ACPI is available, so
625 ACPI <emphasis>must not be turned off</emphasis> after installation
626 of a Windows guest OS. Turning it on after installation will have no
627 effect however.</para>
628 </warning></para>
629 </sect2>
630
631 <sect2 id="settings-processor">
632 <title>"Processor" tab</title>
633
634 <para>On the "Processor" tab, you can set how many virtual <emphasis
635 role="bold">CPU cores</emphasis> the guest operating systems should see.
636 Starting with version 3.0, VirtualBox supports symmetrical
637 multiprocessing (SMP) and can present up to 32 virtual CPU cores to each
638 virtual machine.</para>
639
640 <para>You should not, however, configure virtual machines to use more
641 CPU cores than you have available physically (real cores, no hyperthreads).</para>
642
643 <para>On this tab you can also set the <emphasis role="bold">"CPU execution
644 cap"</emphasis>. This setting
645 limits the amount of time a host CPU spents to emulate a virtual CPU.
646 The default setting is 100% meaning that there is no limitation. A setting
647 of 50% implies a single virtual CPU can use up to 50% of a single host
648 CPU. Note that limiting the execution time of the virtual CPUs may induce
649 guest timing problems.</para>
650
651 <para>In addition, the <emphasis role="bold">"Enable PAE/NX"</emphasis>
652 setting determines whether the PAE and NX capabilities of the host CPU
653 will be exposed to the virtual machine. PAE stands for "Physical Address
654 Extension". Normally, if enabled and supported by the operating system,
655 then even a 32-bit x86 CPU can access more than 4 GB of RAM. This is
656 made possible by adding another 4 bits to memory addresses, so that with
657 36 bits, up to 64 GB can be addressed. Some operating systems (such as
658 Ubuntu Server) require PAE support from the CPU and cannot be run in a
659 virtual machine without it.</para>
660
661 <para>With virtual machines running modern server operating systems,
662 VirtualBox also supports CPU hot-plugging. For details about this,
663 please refer to <xref linkend="cpuhotplug" />.</para>
664 </sect2>
665
666 <sect2>
667 <title>"Acceleration" tab</title>
668
669 <para>On this page, you can determine whether and how VirtualBox should
670 use hardware virtualization extensions that your host CPU may support.
671 This is the case with most CPUs built after 2006.</para>
672
673 <para>You can select for each virtual machine individually whether
674 VirtualBox should use software or hardware virtualization.<footnote>
675 <para>Prior to VirtualBox version 2.2, software virtualization was
676 the default; starting with version 2.2, VirtualBox will enable
677 hardware virtualization by default for new virtual machines that you
678 create. (Existing virtual machines are not automatically changed for
679 compatibility reasons, and the default can of course be changed for
680 each virtual machine.)</para>
681 </footnote></para>
682
683 <para>In most cases, the default settings will be fine; VirtualBox will
684 have picked sensible defaults depending on the operating system that you
685 selected when you created the virtual machine. In certain situations,
686 however, you may want to change these preconfigured defaults.</para>
687
688 <para>Advanced users may be interested in technical details about
689 software vs. hardware virtualization; please see <xref
690 linkend="hwvirt" />.</para>
691
692 <para>If your host's CPU supports the <emphasis role="bold">nested
693 paging</emphasis> (AMD-V) or <emphasis role="bold">EPT</emphasis> (Intel
694 VT-x) features, then you can expect a significant performance increase
695 by enabling nested paging in addition to hardware virtualization. For
696 technical details, see <xref linkend="nestedpaging" />.</para>
697 </sect2>
698 </sect1>
699
700 <sect1 id="settings-display">
701 <title>Display settings</title>
702
703 <glosslist>
704 <glossentry>
705 <glossterm>Video memory size</glossterm>
706
707 <glossdef>
708 <para>This sets the size of the memory provided by the virtual
709 graphics card available to the guest, in MB. As with the main
710 memory, the specified amount will be allocated from the host's
711 resident memory. Based on the amount of video memory, higher
712 resolutions and color depths may be available.</para>
713 <para>The GUI will show a warning if the amount of video memory
714 is too small to be able to switch the VM into full screen mode.
715 The minimum value depends on the number of virtual monitors, the
716 screen resolution and the color depth of the host display as well
717 as of the activation of <emphasis>3D acceleration</emphasis> and
718 <emphasis>2D video acceleration</emphasis>. A rough estimate
719 is (<emphasis>color depth</emphasis> / 8) x
720 <emphasis>vertical pixels</emphasis> x
721 <emphasis>horizontal pixels</emphasis> x
722 <emphasis>number of screens</emphasis> = <emphasis>number of bytes</emphasis>.
723 Like said above, there might be extra memory required for any
724 activated display acceleration setting.</para>
725 </glossdef>
726 </glossentry>
727
728 <glossentry>
729 <glossterm>Monitor count</glossterm>
730
731 <glossdef>
732 <para>With this setting VirtualBox can provide more than one virtual
733 monitor to a virtual machine. If a guest operating system (such as
734 Windows) supports multiple attached monitors, VirtualBox can pretend
735 that multiple virtual monitors are present.<footnote>
736 <para>Multiple monitor support was added with VirtualBox
737 3.2.</para>
738 </footnote> Up to 8 such virtual monitors are supported.</para>
739
740 <para>The output of the multiple monitors will be displayed on the
741 host in multiple VM windows which are running side by side.</para>
742
743 <para>However, in full screen and seamless mode, they will use the
744 available physical monitors attached to the host. As a result, for
745 full screen and seamless modes to work with multiple monitors, you
746 will need at least as many physical monitors as you have virtual
747 monitors configured, or VirtualBox will report an error. You can
748 configure the relationship between guest and host monitors using the
749 view menu by pressing Host key + Home when you are in full screen or
750 seamless mode.</para>
751
752 <para>Please see <xref linkend="KnownIssues" /> also.</para>
753 </glossdef>
754 </glossentry>
755
756 <glossentry>
757 <glossterm>Enable 3D acceleration</glossterm>
758
759 <glossdef>
760 <para>If a virtual machine has Guest Additions installed, you can
761 select here whether the guest should support accelerated 3D
762 graphics. Please refer to <xref linkend="guestadd-3d" /> for
763 details.</para>
764 </glossdef>
765 </glossentry>
766
767 <glossentry>
768 <glossterm>Enable 2D video acceleration</glossterm>
769
770 <glossdef>
771 <para>If a virtual machine with Microsoft Windows has Guest
772 Additions installed, you can select here whether the guest should
773 support accelerated 2D video graphics. Please refer to <xref
774 linkend="guestadd-2d" /> for details.</para>
775 </glossdef>
776 </glossentry>
777
778 <glossentry>
779 <glossterm>Remote display</glossterm>
780
781 <glossdef>
782 <para>Under the "Remote display" tab, if the VirtualBox Remote
783 Display Extension (VRDE) is installed, you can enable the VRDP server
784 that is built into VirtualBox. This allows you to connect to the
785 console of the virtual machine remotely with any standard RDP viewer,
786 such as <computeroutput>mstsc.exe</computeroutput> that comes with
787 Microsoft Windows. On Linux and Solaris systems you can use the
788 standard open-source <computeroutput>rdesktop</computeroutput>
789 program. These features are described in detail in
790 <xref linkend="vrde" />.</para>
791 </glossdef>
792 </glossentry>
793
794 <glossentry>
795 <glossterm>Video Capture</glossterm>
796
797 <glossdef>
798 <para>Under the "Video Capture" tab you can enable video capturing
799 for this VM. Note that this feature can also be enabled/disabled
800 while the VM is executed.</para>
801 </glossdef>
802 </glossentry>
803 </glosslist>
804 </sect1>
805
806 <sect1 id="settings-storage">
807 <title>Storage settings</title>
808
809 <para>The "Storage" category in the VM settings allows you to connect
810 virtual hard disk, CD/DVD and floppy images and drives to your virtual
811 machine.</para>
812
813 <para>In a real PC, so-called "storage controllers" connect physical disk
814 drives to the rest of the computer. Similarly, VirtualBox presents virtual
815 storage controllers to a virtual machine. Under each controller, the
816 virtual devices (hard disks, CD/DVD or floppy drives) attached to the
817 controller are shown.<note>
818 <para>This section can only give you a quick introduction to the
819 VirtualBox storage settings. Since VirtualBox gives you an enormous
820 wealth of options in this area, we have dedicated an entire chapter of
821 this User Manual to explaining all the details: please see <xref
822 linkend="storage" />.</para>
823 </note></para>
824
825 <para>If you have used the "Create VM" wizard to create a machine, you
826 will normally see something like the following:</para>
827
828 <para><mediaobject>
829 <imageobject>
830 <imagedata align="center" fileref="images/vm-settings-harddisk.png"
831 width="10cm" />
832 </imageobject>
833 </mediaobject></para>
834
835 <para>Depending on the guest operating system type that you selected when
836 you created the VM, the typical layout of storage devices in a new VM is
837 as follows:<itemizedlist>
838 <listitem>
839 <para>You will see an <emphasis role="bold">IDE
840 controller,</emphasis> to which a virtual CD/DVD drive has been
841 attached (to the "secondary master" port of the IDE
842 controller).</para>
843 </listitem>
844
845 <listitem>
846 <para>You will also see a <emphasis role="bold">SATA
847 controller,</emphasis> which is a more modern type of storage
848 controller for higher hard disk data throughput, to which the
849 virtual hard disks are attached. Initially you will normally have
850 one such virtual disk, but as you can see in the above screenshot,
851 you can have more than one, each represented by a disk image file
852 (VDI files, in this case).</para>
853 </listitem>
854 </itemizedlist></para>
855
856 <para>If you created your VM with an older version of VirtualBox, the
857 default storage layout may differ. You might then only have an IDE
858 controller to which both the CD/DVD drive and the hard disks have been
859 attached. This might also apply if you selected an older operating system
860 type when you created the VM. Since older operating systems do not support
861 SATA without additional drivers, VirtualBox will make sure that no such
862 devices are present initially. Please see <xref
863 linkend="harddiskcontrollers" /> for additional information.</para>
864
865 <para>VirtualBox also provides a <emphasis role="bold">floppy
866 controller</emphasis>, which is special: you cannot add devices other than
867 floppy drives to it. Virtual floppy drives, like virtual CD/DVD drives,
868 can be connected to either a host floppy drive (if you have one) or a disk
869 image, which in this case must be in RAW format.</para>
870
871 <para>You can modify these media attachments freely. For example, if you
872 wish to copy some files from another virtual disk that you created, you
873 can connect that disk as a second hard disk, as in the above screenshot.
874 You could also add a second virtual CD/DVD drive, or change where these
875 items are attached. The following options are available:<itemizedlist>
876 <listitem>
877 <para>To <emphasis role="bold">add another virtual hard disk, or a
878 CD/DVD or floppy drive,</emphasis> select the storage controller to
879 which it should be added (IDE, SATA, SCSI, SAS, floppy controller)
880 and then click on the "add disk" button below the tree. You can then
881 either select "Add CD/DVD device" or "Add Hard Disk". (If you
882 clicked on a floppy controller, you can add a floppy drive instead.)
883 Alternatively, right-click on the storage controller and select a
884 menu item there.</para>
885
886 <para>On the right part of the window, you can then set the
887 following:<orderedlist>
888 <listitem>
889 <para>You can then select to which <emphasis
890 role="bold">device slot</emphasis> of the controller the
891 virtual disk should be connected to. IDE controllers have four
892 slots which have traditionally been called "primary master",
893 "primary slave", "secondary master" and "secondary slave". By
894 contrast, SATA and SCSI controllers offer you up to 30 slots
895 to which virtual devices can be attached.</para>
896 </listitem>
897
898 <listitem>
899 <para>You can select which <emphasis role="bold">image
900 file</emphasis> to use.<itemizedlist>
901 <listitem>
902 <para>For virtual hard disks, a button with a drop-down
903 list appears on the right, offering you to either select
904 a <emphasis role="bold">virtual hard disk
905 file</emphasis> using a standard file dialog or to
906 <emphasis role="bold">create a new hard disk</emphasis>
907 (image file), which will bring up the "Create new disk"
908 wizard, which was described in <xref
909 linkend="gui-createvm" />.</para>
910
911 <para>For details on the image file types that are
912 supported, please see <xref
913 linkend="vdidetails" />.</para>
914 </listitem>
915
916 <listitem>
917 <para>For virtual CD/DVD drives, the image files will
918 typically be in the standard ISO format instead. Most
919 commonly, you will select this option when installing an
920 operating system from an ISO file that you have obtained
921 from the Internet. For example, most Linux distributions
922 are available in this way.</para>
923
924 <para>For virtual CD/DVD drives, the following
925 additional options are available:</para>
926
927 <para><itemizedlist>
928 <listitem>
929 <para>If you select <emphasis role="bold">"Host
930 drive"</emphasis> from the list, then the physical
931 device of the host computer is connected to the VM,
932 so that the guest operating system can read from and
933 write to your physical device. This is, for
934 instance, useful if you want to install Windows from
935 a real installation CD. In this case, select your
936 host drive from the drop-down list presented.</para>
937
938 <para>If you want to write (burn) CDs or DVDs using
939 the host drive, you need to also enable the
940 <emphasis role="bold">"Passthrough"</emphasis>
941 option; see <xref linkend="storage-cds" />.</para>
942 </listitem>
943
944 <listitem>
945 <para>If you select <emphasis role="bold">"Remove
946 disk from virtual drive",</emphasis> VirtualBox will
947 present an empty CD/DVD drive to the guest into
948 which no media has been inserted.</para>
949 </listitem>
950 </itemizedlist></para>
951 </listitem>
952 </itemizedlist></para>
953 </listitem>
954 </orderedlist></para>
955 </listitem>
956
957 <listitem>
958 <para>To <emphasis role="bold">remove an attachment,</emphasis>
959 select it and click on the "remove" icon at the bottom (or
960 right-click on it and select the menu item).</para>
961 </listitem>
962 </itemizedlist></para>
963
964 <para>Removable media (CD/DVDs and floppies) can be changed while the
965 guest is running. Since the "Settings" dialog is not available at that
966 time, you can also access these settings from the "Devices" menu of your
967 virtual machine window.</para>
968 </sect1>
969
970 <sect1 id="settings-audio">
971 <title>Audio settings</title>
972
973 <para>The "Audio" section in a virtual machine's Settings window
974 determines whether the VM will see a sound card connected, and whether the
975 audio output should be heard on the host system.</para>
976
977 <para>If audio is enabled for a guest, you can choose between the
978 emulation of an Intel AC'97 controller, an Intel HD Audio
979 controller<footnote>
980 <para>Intel HD Audio support was added with VirtualBox 4.0 because
981 Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit versions) as well as 64-bit Windows Vista
982 do not support the Intel AC'97 controller.</para>
983 </footnote> or a SoundBlaster 16 card. In any case, you can select what
984 audio driver VirtualBox will use on the host.</para>
985
986 <para>On a Linux host, depending on your host configuration, you can also
987 select between the OSS, ALSA or the PulseAudio subsystem. On newer Linux
988 distributions (Fedora 8 and above, Ubuntu 8.04 and above), the PulseAudio
989 subsystem should be preferred.</para>
990 </sect1>
991
992 <sect1 id="settings-network">
993 <title>Network settings</title>
994
995 <para>The "Network" section in a virtual machine's Settings window allows
996 you to configure how VirtualBox presents virtual network cards to your VM,
997 and how they operate.</para>
998
999 <para>When you first create a virtual machine, VirtualBox by default
1000 enables one virtual network card and selects the "Network Address
1001 Translation" (NAT) mode for it. This way the guest can connect to the
1002 outside world using the host's networking and the outside world can
1003 connect to services on the guest which you choose to make visible outside
1004 of the virtual machine.</para>
1005
1006 <para>This default setup is good for probably 95% of VirtualBox users.
1007 However, VirtualBox is extremely flexible in how it can virtualize
1008 networking. It supports many virtual network cards per virtual machine,
1009 the first four of which can be configured in detail in the Manager window.
1010 Additional network cards can be configured on the command line with
1011 VBoxManage. </para>
1012
1013 <para>Because of the vast array of options available, we have dedicated an
1014 entire chapter of this manual to discussing networking configuration;
1015 please see <xref linkend="networkingdetails" />.</para>
1016 </sect1>
1017
1018 <sect1 id="serialports">
1019 <title>Serial ports</title>
1020
1021 <para>VirtualBox fully supports virtual serial ports in a virtual machine
1022 in an easy-to-use manner.<footnote>
1023 <para>Serial port support was added with VirtualBox 1.5.</para>
1024 </footnote></para>
1025
1026 <para>Ever since the original IBM PC, personal computers have been
1027 equipped with one or two serial ports (also called COM ports by DOS and
1028 Windows). Serial ports were commonly used with modems, and some
1029 computer mice used to be connected to serial ports before USB became
1030 commonplace.
1031 </para>
1032
1033 <para>While serial ports are no longer as ubiquitous as they used to be,
1034 there are still some important uses left for them. For example, serial
1035 ports can be used to set up a primitive network over a null-modem cable,
1036 in case Ethernet is not available. Also, serial ports are indispensable
1037 for system programmers needing to do kernel debugging, since kernel
1038 debugging software usually interacts with developers over a serial port.
1039 With virtual serial ports, system programmers can do kernel debugging on a
1040 virtual machine instead of needing a real computer to connect to.</para>
1041
1042 <para>If a virtual serial port is enabled, the guest operating system sees
1043 a standard 16550A compatible UART device. Both receiving and transmitting
1044 data is supported. How this virtual serial port is then connected to the
1045 host is configurable, and the details depend on your host operating system.
1046 </para>
1047
1048 <para>You can use either the graphical user interface or the command-line
1049 <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> tool to set up virtual serial
1050 ports. For the latter, please refer to <xref
1051 linkend="vboxmanage-modifyvm" />; in that section, look for the
1052 <computeroutput>--uart</computeroutput> and
1053 <computeroutput>--uartmode</computeroutput> options.</para>
1054
1055 <para>In either case, you can configure up to two virtual serial ports per
1056 virtual machine. For each such device, you will need to
1057 determine<orderedlist>
1058 <listitem>
1059 <para>what kind of serial port the virtual machine should see by
1060 selecting an I/O base address and interrupt (IRQ). For these, we
1061 recommend to use the traditional values<footnote>
1062 <para>See, for example, <ulink
1063 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_(hardware_interface)">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_(hardware_interface)</ulink>.</para>
1064 </footnote>, which are:</para>
1065
1066 <para><orderedlist>
1067 <listitem>
1068 <para>COM1: I/O base 0x3F8, IRQ 4</para>
1069 </listitem>
1070
1071 <listitem>
1072 <para>COM2: I/O base 0x2F8, IRQ 3</para>
1073 </listitem>
1074
1075 <listitem>
1076 <para>COM3: I/O base 0x3E8, IRQ 4</para>
1077 </listitem>
1078
1079 <listitem>
1080 <para>COM4: I/O base 0x2E8, IRQ 3</para>
1081 </listitem>
1082 </orderedlist></para>
1083 </listitem>
1084
1085 <listitem>
1086 <para>Then, you will need to determine what this virtual port should
1087 be connected to. For each virtual serial port, you have the
1088 following options:</para>
1089
1090 <para><itemizedlist>
1091 <listitem>
1092 <para>You can elect to have the virtual serial port
1093 "disconnected", which means that the guest will see the
1094 device, but it will behave as if no cable had been connected
1095 to it.</para>
1096 </listitem>
1097
1098 <listitem>
1099 <para>You can connect the virtual serial port to a physical
1100 serial port on your host. (On a Windows host, this will be a
1101 name like <computeroutput>COM1</computeroutput>; on Linux or
1102 Solaris hosts, it will be a device node like
1103 <computeroutput>/dev/ttyS0</computeroutput>). VirtualBox will
1104 then simply redirect all data received from and sent to the
1105 virtual serial port to the physical device.</para>
1106 </listitem>
1107
1108 <listitem>
1109 <para>You can tell VirtualBox to connect the virtual serial
1110 port to a software pipe on the host. This depends on your host
1111 operating system:<itemizedlist>
1112 <listitem>
1113 <para>On a Windows host, data will be sent and received
1114 through a named pipe. The pipe name must be in the format
1115 <computeroutput>\\.\pipe\&lt;name&gt;</computeroutput>
1116 where <computeroutput>&lt;name&gt;</computeroutput> should
1117 identify the virtual machine but may be freely
1118 chosen.</para>
1119 <para>For forwarding serial traffic, you can use a helper
1120 program called VMware Serial Line Gateway, available for
1121 download at
1122 <literal> <ulink
1123 url="http://www.l4ka.org/91.php">http://www.l4ka.org/91.php</ulink>
1124 </literal>. This tool provides a fixed server mode named
1125 pipe at
1126 <computeroutput>\\.\pipe\vmwaredebug</computeroutput>
1127 and connects incoming TCP connections on port 567 with
1128 the named pipe.</para>
1129 </listitem>
1130
1131 <listitem>
1132 <para>On a Mac, Linux or Solaris host, a local
1133 domain socket is used instead. The socket filename must be
1134 chosen such that the user running VirtualBox has
1135 sufficient privileges to create and write to it. The
1136 <computeroutput>/tmp</computeroutput> directory is often a
1137 good candidate.</para>
1138 <para>On Linux there are various tools which can connect
1139 to a local domain socket or create one in server mode. The
1140 most flexible tool is
1141 <computeroutput>socat</computeroutput> and is available
1142 as part of many distributions.</para>
1143 </listitem>
1144 </itemizedlist></para>
1145
1146 <para>In this case, you can configure whether VirtualBox
1147 should create the named pipe (or, on non-Windows hosts, the
1148 local domain socket) itself or whether VirtualBox should
1149 assume that the pipe (or socket) exists already. With the
1150 <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> command-line
1151 options, this is referred to as "server" or "client" mode,
1152 respectively.</para>
1153
1154 <para>For a direct connection between two virtual machines
1155 (corresponding to a null-modem cable), simply configure one VM
1156 to create a pipe/socket and another to attach to it.
1157 </para>
1158 </listitem>
1159
1160 <listitem>
1161 <para>You can send the virtual serial port output to a file.
1162 This option is very useful for capturing diagnostic output from
1163 a guest. Any file may be used for this purpose, as long as the
1164 user running VirtualBox has sufficient privileges to create and
1165 write to the file.
1166 </para>
1167 </listitem>
1168 </itemizedlist></para>
1169 </listitem>
1170 </orderedlist>Up to two serial ports can be configured per virtual
1171 machine, but you can pick any port numbers out of the above. However,
1172 serial ports cannot reliably share interrupts; if both ports are to be
1173 used at the same time, they must use different interrupt levels, for
1174 example COM1 and COM2, but not COM1 and COM3.
1175 </para>
1176 </sect1>
1177
1178 <sect1>
1179 <title>USB support</title>
1180
1181 <sect2 id="settings-usb">
1182 <title>USB settings</title>
1183
1184 <para>The "USB" section in a virtual machine's Settings window allows
1185 you to configure VirtualBox's sophisticated USB support.</para>
1186
1187 <para>VirtualBox can allow virtual machines to access the USB devices on
1188 your host directly. To achieve this, VirtualBox presents the guest
1189 operating system with a virtual USB controller. As soon as the guest
1190 system starts using a USB device, it will appear as unavailable on the
1191 host.<note>
1192 <orderedlist>
1193 <listitem>
1194 <para>Be careful with USB devices that are currently in use on
1195 the host! For example, if you allow your guest to connect to
1196 your USB hard disk that is currently mounted on the host, when
1197 the guest is activated, it will be disconnected from the host
1198 without a proper shutdown. This may cause data loss.</para>
1199 </listitem>
1200
1201 <listitem>
1202 <para>Solaris hosts have a few known limitations regarding USB
1203 support; please see <xref linkend="KnownIssues" />.</para>
1204 </listitem>
1205 </orderedlist>
1206 </note></para>
1207
1208 <para>In addition to allowing a guest access to your local USB devices,
1209 VirtualBox even allows your guests to connect to remote USB devices by
1210 use of the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension (VRDE). For details about
1211 this, see <xref linkend="usb-over-rdp" />.</para>
1212
1213 <para>In the Settings dialog, you can first configure whether USB is
1214 available in the guest at all, and in addition also optionally enable
1215 the USB 2.0 (EHCI) controller for the guest. If so, you can determine in
1216 detail which devices are available. For this, you must create so-called
1217 "filters" by specifying certain properties of the USB device.<note>
1218 <para>The EHCI controller is shipped as a VirtualBox extension
1219 package, which must be installed separately. See <xref
1220 linkend="intro-installing" /> for more information.</para>
1221 </note></para>
1222
1223 <para>Clicking on the "+" button to the right of the "USB Device
1224 Filters" window creates a <emphasis role="bold">new filter.</emphasis>
1225 You can give the filter a name (for referencing it later) and specify
1226 the filter criteria. The more criteria you specify, the more precisely
1227 devices will be selected. For instance, if you specify only a vendor ID
1228 of 046d, all devices produced by Logitech will be available to the
1229 guest. If you fill in all fields, on the other hand, the filter will
1230 only apply to a particular device model from a particular vendor, and
1231 not even to other devices of the same type with a different revision and
1232 serial number.</para>
1233
1234 <para>In detail, the following criteria are available:</para>
1235
1236 <orderedlist>
1237 <listitem>
1238 <para><emphasis role="bold">Vendor and product ID.</emphasis> With
1239 USB, each vendor of USB products carries an identification number
1240 that is unique world-wide, the "vendor ID". Similarly, each line of
1241 products is assigned a "product ID" number. Both numbers are
1242 commonly written in hexadecimal (that is, they are composed of the
1243 numbers 0-9 and the letters A-F), and a colon separates the vendor
1244 from the product ID. For example,
1245 <computeroutput>046d:c016</computeroutput> stands for Logitech as a
1246 vendor, and the "M-UV69a Optical Wheel Mouse" product.</para>
1247
1248 <para>Alternatively, you can also specify <emphasis
1249 role="bold">"Manufacturer"</emphasis> and <emphasis
1250 role="bold">"Product"</emphasis> by name.</para>
1251
1252 <para>To list all the USB devices that are connected to your host
1253 machine with their respective vendor and product IDs, you can use
1254 the following command (see <xref linkend="vboxmanage" />): <screen>VBoxManage list usbhost</screen></para>
1255
1256 <para>On Windows, you can also see all USB devices that are attached
1257 to your system in the Device Manager. On Linux, you can use the
1258 <computeroutput>lsusb</computeroutput> command.</para>
1259 </listitem>
1260
1261 <listitem>
1262 <para><emphasis role="bold">Serial number.</emphasis> While vendor
1263 and product ID are already quite specific to identify USB devices,
1264 if you have two identical devices of the same brand and product
1265 line, you will also need their serial numbers to filter them out
1266 correctly.</para>
1267 </listitem>
1268
1269 <listitem>
1270 <para><emphasis role="bold">Remote.</emphasis> This setting
1271 specifies whether the device will be local only, or remote only
1272 (over VRDP), or either.</para>
1273 </listitem>
1274 </orderedlist>
1275
1276 <para>On a Windows host, you will need to unplug and reconnect a USB
1277 device to use it after creating a filter for it.</para>
1278
1279 <para>As an example, you could create a new USB filter and specify a
1280 vendor ID of 046d (Logitech, Inc), a manufacturer index of 1, and "not
1281 remote". Then any USB devices on the host system produced by Logitech,
1282 Inc with a manufacturer index of 1 will be visible to the guest
1283 system.</para>
1284
1285 <para>Several filters can select a single device -- for example, a
1286 filter which selects all Logitech devices, and one which selects a
1287 particular webcam.</para>
1288
1289 <para>You can <emphasis role="bold">deactivate</emphasis> filters
1290 without deleting them by clicking in the checkbox next to the filter
1291 name.</para>
1292 </sect2>
1293
1294 <sect2>
1295 <title>Implementation notes for Windows and Linux hosts</title>
1296
1297 <para>On Windows hosts, a kernel mode device driver provides USB proxy
1298 support. It implements both a USB monitor, which allows VirtualBox to
1299 capture devices when they are plugged in, and a USB device driver to
1300 claim USB devices for a particular virtual machine. As opposed to
1301 VirtualBox versions before 1.4.0, system reboots are no longer necessary
1302 after installing the driver. Also, you no longer need to replug devices
1303 for VirtualBox to claim them.</para>
1304
1305 <para>On newer Linux hosts, VirtualBox accesses USB devices through
1306 special files in the file system. When VirtualBox is installed, these
1307 are made available to all users in the
1308 <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> system group. In order to be
1309 able to access USB from guest systems, make sure that you are a member
1310 of this group.</para>
1311
1312 <para>On older Linux hosts, USB devices are accessed using the
1313 <computeroutput>usbfs</computeroutput> file system. Therefore, the user
1314 executing VirtualBox needs read and write permission to the USB file
1315 system. Most distributions provide a group (e.g.
1316 <computeroutput>usbusers</computeroutput>) which the VirtualBox user
1317 needs to be added to. Also, VirtualBox can only proxy to virtual
1318 machines USB devices which are not claimed by a Linux host USB driver.
1319 The <computeroutput>Driver=</computeroutput> entry in
1320 <computeroutput>/proc/bus/usb/devices</computeroutput> will show you
1321 which devices are currently claimed. Please refer to <xref
1322 linkend="ts_usb-linux" /> also for details about
1323 <computeroutput>usbfs</computeroutput>.</para>
1324 </sect2>
1325 </sect1>
1326
1327 <sect1>
1328 <title>Shared folders</title>
1329
1330 <para>Shared folders allow you to easily exchange data between a virtual
1331 machine and your host. This feature requires that the VirtualBox Guest
1332 Additions be installed in a virtual machine and is described in detail in
1333 <xref linkend="sharedfolders" />.</para>
1334 </sect1>
1335
1336 <sect1 id="efi">
1337 <title>Alternative firmware (EFI)</title>
1338
1339 <para>Starting with release 3.1, VirtualBox includes experimental support
1340 for the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI), which is a new industry
1341 standard intended to eventually replace the legacy BIOS as the primary
1342 interface for bootstrapping computers and certain system services
1343 later.</para>
1344
1345 <para>By default, VirtualBox uses the BIOS firmware for virtual machines.
1346 To use EFI for a given virtual machine, you can enable EFI in the
1347 machine's "Settings" dialog (see <xref linkend="settings-motherboard" />).
1348 Alternatively, use the <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> command
1349 line interface like this: <screen>VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --firmware efi</screen>
1350 To switch back to using the BIOS, use: <screen>VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --firmware bios</screen>One
1351 notable user of EFI is Apple's Mac OS X, but recent Linuxes (such as Fedora
1352 11) and Windows (starting with Vista) offer special versions that can be
1353 booted using EFI as well.</para>
1354
1355 <para>Another possible use of EFI in VirtualBox is development and testing
1356 of EFI applications, without booting any OS.</para>
1357
1358 <para>Note that the VirtualBox EFI support is experimental and will be
1359 enhanced as EFI matures and becomes more widespread. While Mac OS X and
1360 Linux guests are known to work fine, Windows guests are currently unable
1361 to boot with the VirtualBox EFI implementation.</para>
1362
1363 <sect2 id="efividmode">
1364 <title>Video modes in EFI</title>
1365
1366 <para>EFI provides two distinct video interfaces: GOP (Graphics Output
1367 Protocol) and UGA (Universal Graphics Adapter). Mac OS X uses GOP, while
1368 Linux tends to use UGA. VirtualBox provides a configuration option to
1369 control the framebuffer size for both interfaces.</para>
1370
1371 <para>To control GOP, use the following
1372 <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> command: <screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" VBoxInternal2/EfiGopMode N</screen>
1373 Where N can be one of 0,1,2,3,4 referring to the 640x480, 800x600,
1374 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1440x900 screen resolution respectively.</para>
1375
1376 <para>To change the UGA resolution: <screen>VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" VBoxInternal2/UgaHorizontalResolution 1440
1377VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" VBoxInternal2/UgaVerticalResolution 900</screen></para>
1378
1379 <para>The video mode for both GOP and UGA can only be changed when the
1380 VM is powered off and remains persistent until changed.</para>
1381 </sect2>
1382 </sect1>
1383</chapter>
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