source: vbox/trunk/doc/manual/en_US/user_Installation.xml@ 32574

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<chapter id="installation">
  <title>Installation details</title>

  <para>As installation of VirtualBox varies depending on your host operating
  system, we provide installation instructions in four separate chapters for
  Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris, respectively.</para>

  <sect1>
    <title>Installing on Windows hosts</title>

    <sect2>
      <title>Prerequisites</title>

      <para>For the various versions of Windows that we support as host
      operating systems, please refer to <xref
      linkend="hostossupport" />.</para>

      <para>In addition, Windows Installer 1.1 or higher must be present on
      your system. This should be the case if you have all recent Windows
      updates installed.</para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Performing the installation</title>

      <para>The VirtualBox installation can be started <itemizedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>either by double-clicking on its executable file (contains
            both 32- and 64-bit architectures)</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>or by entering <screen>VirtualBox.exe -extract</screen></para>

            <para>on the command line. This will extract both installers into
            a temporary directory in which you'll then find the usual .MSI
            files. Then you can do a <screen>msiexec /i VirtualBox-&lt;version&gt;-MultiArch_&lt;x86|amd64&gt;.msi</screen>
            to perform the installation.</para>
          </listitem>
        </itemizedlist></para>

      <para>In either case, this will display the installation welcome dialog
      and allow you to choose where to install VirtualBox to and which
      components to install. In addition to the VirtualBox application, the
      following components are available:<glosslist>
          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>USB support</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>This package contains special drivers for your Windows
              host that VirtualBox requires to fully support USB devices
              inside your virtual machines.</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>

          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>Networking</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>This package contains extra networking drivers for your
              Windows host that VirtualBox needs to support Host Interface
              Networking (to make your VM's virtual network cards accessible
              from other machines on your physical network).</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>

          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>Python Support</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>This package contains Python scripting support for the
              VirtualBox API (see <xref linkend="VirtualBoxAPI" />). To get this
              feature installed an already working Python installation on the
              system is required.</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>
        </glosslist></para>

      <para>Depending on your Windows configuration, you may see warnings
      about "unsigned drivers" or similar. Please select "Continue" on these
      warnings as otherwise VirtualBox might not function correctly after
      installation.</para>

      <para>The installer will create a "VirtualBox" group in the programs
      startup folder which allows you to launch the application and access its
      documentation.</para>

      <para>With standard settings, VirtualBox will be installed for all users
      on the local system. In case this is not wanted, you have to invoke the
      installer by first extracting it by using <screen>VirtualBox.exe -extract</screen>
      and then do as follows: <screen>VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ALLUSERS=2</screen>
      or <screen>msiexec /i VirtualBox-&lt;version&gt;-MultiArch_&lt;x86|amd64&gt;.msi ALLUSERS=2</screen>
      on the extracted .MSI files. This will install VirtualBox only for the
      current user.</para>

      <para>To not install certain features of VirtualBox there is an <computeroutput>ADDLOCAL</computeroutput>
      parameter that can be specified additionally to explicitly name the features
      to be installed. The following features are available:

        <glosslist>
          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>VBoxApplication</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>Main binaries of VirtualBox.
                <note>This feature never can be absent,
                since it contains the minimum set of files to have working VirtualBox installation!</note>
              </para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>

          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>VBoxUSB</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>USB support.</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>

          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>VBoxNetwork</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>All networking support; includes the VBoxNetworkFlt and VBoxNetworkAdp features (see below).</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>

          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>VBoxNetworkFlt</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>Bridged networking support.</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>

          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>VBoxNetworkAdp</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>Host-only networking support.</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>

          <glossentry>
            <glossterm>VBoxPython</glossterm>

            <glossdef>
              <para>Python support.</para>
            </glossdef>
          </glossentry>
        </glosslist>

      To only install USB support along with the main binaries, do a:
      <screen>VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB</screen>
      or <screen>msiexec /i VirtualBox-&lt;version&gt;-MultiArch_&lt;x86|amd64&gt;.msi ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB</screen></para>

    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Uninstallation</title>

      <para>As we use the Microsoft Installer, VirtualBox can be safely
      uninstalled at any time by choosing the program entry in the "Add/Remove
      Programs" applet in the Windows Control Panel.</para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Unattended installation</title>

      <para>Unattended installations can be performed using the standard MSI
      support.</para>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title>Installing on Mac OS X hosts</title>

    <sect2>
      <title>Performing the installation</title>

      <para>For Mac OS X hosts, VirtualBox ships in a disk image (dmg) file.
      Perform the following steps: <orderedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>Double-click on that file to have its contents
            mounted.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>A window will open telling you to double click on the
            <computeroutput>VirtualBox.mpkg</computeroutput> installer file
            displayed in that window.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>This will start the installer, which will allow you to
            select where to install VirtualBox to.</para>
          </listitem>
        </orderedlist></para>

      <para>After installation, you can find a VirtualBox icon in the
      "Applications" folder in the Finder.</para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Uninstallation</title>

      <para>To uninstall VirtualBox, open the disk image (dmg) file again and
      double-click on the uninstall icon contained therein.</para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Unattended installation</title>

      <para>To perform a non-interactive installation of VirtualBox you can
      use the command line version of the installer application.</para>

      <para>Mount the disk image (dmg) file as described in the normal
      installation. Then open a terminal session and execute:</para>

      <screen>sudo installer -pkg /Volumes/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.mpkg \
      -target /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD</screen>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title id="install-linux-host">Installing on Linux hosts</title>

    <sect2>
      <title>Prerequisites</title>

      <para>For the various versions of Linux that we support as host
      operating systems, please refer to <xref
      linkend="hostossupport" />.</para>

      <para>You will need to install the following packages on your Linux
      system before starting the installation (some systems will do this for
      you automatically when you install VirtualBox):</para>

      <itemizedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>Qt 4.4.0 or higher;</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>SDL 1.2.7 or higher (this graphics library is typically called
          <computeroutput>libsdl</computeroutput> or similar).</para>
        </listitem>
      </itemizedlist>

      <note>
        <para>To be precise, these packages are only required if you want to
        run the VirtualBox graphical user interfaces. In particular,
        <computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>, our main graphical user
        interface, requires both Qt and SDL;
        <computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput>, our simplified GUI, requires
        only SDL. By contrast, if you only want to run the headless VRDP
        server that comes with VirtualBox, neither Qt nor SDL are
        required.</para>
      </note>
    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="externalkernelmodules">
      <title>The VirtualBox kernel module</title>

      <para>VirtualBox uses a special kernel module to perform physical memory
      allocation and to gain control of the processor for guest system
      execution. Without this kernel module, you will still be able to work
      with virtual machines in the configuration interface, but you will not
      be able to start any virtual machines.</para>

      <para>The VirtualBox kernel module is automatically installed on your
      system when you install VirtualBox. To maintain it with future kernel
      updates, for recent Linux distributions -- for example Fedora Core 5 and
      later, Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) and later and Mandriva 2007.1 and later --,
      generally we recommend installing Dynamic Kernel Module Support
      (DKMS)<footnote>
          <para>See <ulink
          url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support</ulink>
          for an introduction.</para>
        </footnote>. This framework helps to build kernel modules and to deal
      with kernel upgrades.</para>

      <para>If DKMS is not already installed, execute one of the following:
      <itemizedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>On an Ubuntu system:</para>

            <screen>sudo apt-get install dkms</screen>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>On a Fedora system:<screen>yum install dkms</screen></para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>On a Mandriva system:<screen>urpmi dkms</screen></para>
          </listitem>
        </itemizedlist></para>

      <para>If DKMS is available and installed, the VirtualBox kernel module
      should always work automatically, and it will be automatically rebuilt
      if your host kernel is updated.</para>

      <para>Otherwise, there are only two situations in which you will need to
      worry about the kernel module:<orderedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>The original installation fails. This probably means that
            your Linux system is not prepared for building external kernel
            modules.</para>

            <para>Most Linux distributions can be set up simply by installing
            the right packages - normally, these will be the GNU compiler
            (GCC), GNU Make (make) and packages containing header files for
            your kernel - and making sure that all system updates are
            installed and that the system is running the most up-to-date
            kernel included in the distribution. <emphasis>The version numbers
            of the header file packages must be the same as that of the kernel
            you are using.</emphasis></para>

            <itemizedlist>
              <listitem>
                <para>With Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must install the
                right version of the
                <computeroutput>linux-headers</computeroutput> and if it
                exists the <computeroutput>linux-kbuild</computeroutput>
                package. Current Ubuntu releases should have the right
                packages installed by default.</para>
              </listitem>

              <listitem>
                <para>In even older Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must
                install the right version of the
                <computeroutput>kernel-headers</computeroutput>
                package.</para>
              </listitem>

              <listitem>
                <para>On Fedora and Redhat systems, the package is
                <computeroutput>kernel-devel</computeroutput>.</para>
              </listitem>

              <listitem>
                <para>On SUSE and openSUSE Linux, you must install the right
                versions of the <computeroutput>kernel-source</computeroutput>
                and <computeroutput>kernel-syms</computeroutput>
                packages.</para>
              </listitem>

              <listitem>
                <para>Alternatively, if you have built your own kernel,
                <computeroutput>/usr/src/linux</computeroutput> should point
                to your kernel sources. If you have not removed the files
                created during the build process, then your system will
                already be set up correctly.</para>
              </listitem>
            </itemizedlist>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>The kernel of your Linux host got updated. In that case, the
            kernel module will need to be reinstalled by executing (as
            root):</para>

            <screen>/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup</screen>
          </listitem>
        </orderedlist></para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>USB and advanced networking support</title>

      <para>In order to use VirtualBox's USB support, the user account under
      which you intend to run VirtualBox must have read and write access to
      the USB filesystem (<computeroutput>usbfs</computeroutput>).</para>

      <para>In addition, access to
      <computeroutput>/dev/net/tun</computeroutput> will be required if you
      want to use Host Interface Networking, which is described in detail in
      <xref linkend="network_bridged" />.</para>

      <!--TODO Write a couple of notes about hardened kernels. If PaX is installed, VBox presently doesn't start. I tried with a
gentoo hardened kernel that had PaX enabled, and VBoxHeadless failed with really funny VERR_NO_MEMORY messages. Discussing
it with Knut revealed that PaX might be the problem, and running paxctl to disable these protections actually
helped. For reference:
First run paxctl -C VBoxVDRP to have the executable modified to support PaX flags in the first place.
Then paxctl -pemrxs VBoxHeadless to disable all protections. TODO: Figure out which ones are really needed.-->
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Performing the installation</title>

      <para>VirtualBox is available in a number of package formats native to
      various common Linux distributions (see <xref linkend="hostossupport" />
      for details). In addition, there is an alternative generic installer
      (.run) which should work on most Linux distributions.</para>

      <sect3>
        <title>Installing VirtualBox from a Debian/Ubuntu package</title>

        <para>First, download the appropriate package for your distribution.
        The following examples assume that you are installing to a 32-bit Ubuntu
        Karmic system. Use <computeroutput>dpkg</computeroutput> to install the
        Debian package:</para>

        <screen>sudo dpkg -i VirtualBox-3.2_$VBOX_VERSION_STRING_Ubuntu_karmic_i386.deb</screen>

        <para>You will be asked to accept the VirtualBox Personal Use and
        Evaluation License. Unless you answer "yes" here, the installation
        will be aborted.</para>

        <para>The group <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> will be
        created during installation. Note that a user who is going to run
        VirtualBox must be member of that group. A user can be made member of
        the group <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> through the GUI
        user/group management or at the command line with</para>

        <screen>sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username</screen>

        <para>Also note that adding an active user to that group will require
        that user to log out and back in again. This should be done manually
        after successful installation of the package.</para>

        <para>The installer will also search for a VirtualBox kernel module
        suitable for your kernel. The package includes pre-compiled modules
        for the most common kernel configurations. If no suitable kernel
        module is found, the installation script tries to build a module
        itself. If the build process is not successful you will be shown a
        warning and the package will be left unconfigured. Please have a look
        at <computeroutput>/var/log/vbox-install.log</computeroutput> to find
        out why the compilation failed. You may have to install the
        appropriate Linux kernel headers (see <xref
        linkend="externalkernelmodules" />). After correcting any problems, do
        <screen>sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup</screen>This will start a
        second attempt to build the module.</para>

        <para>If a suitable kernel module was found in the package or the
        module was successfully built, the installation script will attempt to
        load that module. If this fails, please see <xref
        linkend="linuxkernelmodulefailstoload" /> for further
        information.</para>

        <para>Once VirtualBox has been successfully installed and configured,
        you can start it by selecting "VirtualBox" in your start menu or from
        the command line (see <xref linkend="startingvboxonlinux" />).</para>
      </sect3>

      <sect3>
        <title>Using the alternative installer (VirtualBox.run)</title>

        <para>The alternative installer performs the following steps:</para>

        <itemizedlist>
          <listitem>
            <para>It unpacks the application files to a target directory of
            choice. By default, <screen>/opt/VirtualBox/</screen> will be
            used.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>It builds the VirtualBox kernel module
            (<computeroutput>vboxdrv</computeroutput>) and installs it.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>It creates
            <computeroutput>/etc/init.d/vboxdrv</computeroutput>, an init
            script to start the VirtualBox kernel module.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>It creates a new system group called
            <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput>.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>It creates symbolic links to
            <computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,
            <computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput>,
            <computeroutput>VBoxVRDP</computeroutput>,
            <computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput> and
            <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> in
            <computeroutput>/usr/bin</computeroutput>.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>It creates
            <computeroutput>/etc/udev/60-vboxdrv.rules</computeroutput>, a
            description file for udev, if that is present, which makes the
            module accessible to anyone in the group
            <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput>.</para>
          </listitem>

          <listitem>
            <para>It writes the installation directory to
            <computeroutput>/etc/vbox/vbox.cfg</computeroutput>.</para>
          </listitem>
        </itemizedlist>

        <para>The installer must be executed as root with either
        <computeroutput>install</computeroutput> or
        <computeroutput>uninstall</computeroutput> as the first parameter. If
        you do not want the installer to ask you whether you wish to accept
        the license agreement (for example, for performing unattended
        installations), you can add the parameter
        <computeroutput>license_accepted_unconditionally</computeroutput>.
        Finally, if you want to use a directory other than the default
        installation directory, add the desired path as an extra
        parameter.</para>

        <screen>sudo ./VirtualBox.run install /opt/VirtualBox</screen>

        <para>Or if you do not have the "sudo" command available, run the
        following as root instead:<screen>./VirtualBox.run install /opt/VirtualBox</screen></para>

        <para>After that you need to put every user which should be able to
        use VirtualBox in the group
        <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput>, either through the GUI
        user management tools or by running the following command as
        root:</para>

        <screen>sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username</screen>

        <para><note>
            <para>The <computeroutput>usermod</computeroutput> command of some
            older Linux distributions does not support the
            <computeroutput>-a</computeroutput> option (which adds the user to
            the given group without affecting membership of other groups). In
            this case, find out the current group memberships with the
            <computeroutput>groups</computeroutput> command and add all these
            groups in a comma-separated list to the command line after the
            <computeroutput>-G</computeroutput> option, e.g. like this:
            <computeroutput>usermod -G group1,group2,vboxusers
            username</computeroutput>.</para>
          </note>If any users on your system should be able to access host USB
        devices from within VirtualBox guests, you should also add them to the
        appropriate user group that your distribution uses for USB access,
        e.g. <computeroutput>usb</computeroutput> or
        <computeroutput>usbusers</computeroutput>.</para>
      </sect3>

      <sect3>
        <title>Performing a manual installation</title>

        <para>If, for any reason, you cannot use the shell script installer
        described previously, you can also perform a manual installation.
        Invoke the installer like this:</para>

        <screen>./VirtualBox.run --keep --noexec</screen>

        <para>This will unpack all the files needed for installation in the
        directory <computeroutput>install</computeroutput> under the current
        directory. The VirtualBox application files are contained in
        <computeroutput>VirtualBox.tar.bz2</computeroutput> which you can
        unpack to any directory on your system. For example:</para>

        <screen>sudo mkdir /opt/VirtualBox
sudo tar jxf ./install/VirtualBox.tar.bz2 -C /opt/VirtualBox</screen>

        <para>or as root:<screen>mkdir /opt/VirtualBox
tar jxf ./install/VirtualBox.tar.bz2 -C /opt/VirtualBox</screen></para>

        <para>The sources for VirtualBox's kernel module are provided in the
        <computeroutput>src</computeroutput> directory. To build the module,
        change to the directory and issue</para>

        <screen>make</screen>

        <para>If everything builds correctly, issue the following command to
        install the module to the appropriate module directory:</para>

        <screen>sudo make install</screen>

        <para>In case you do not have sudo, switch the user account to root
        and perform<screen>make install</screen></para>

        <para>The VirtualBox kernel module needs a device node to operate. The
        above make command will tell you how to create the device node,
        depending on your Linux system. The procedure is slightly different
        for a classical Linux setup with a
        <computeroutput>/dev</computeroutput> directory, a system with the now
        deprecated <computeroutput>devfs</computeroutput> and a modern Linux
        system with <computeroutput>udev</computeroutput>.</para>

        <para>On certain Linux distributions, you might experience
        difficulties building the module. You will have to analyze the error
        messages from the build system to diagnose the cause of the problems.
        In general, make sure that the correct Linux kernel sources are used
        for the build process.</para>

        <para>Note that the user who is going to run VirtualBox needs read and
        write permission on the VirtualBox kernel module device node
        <computeroutput>/dev/vboxdrv</computeroutput>. You can either define a
        <computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> group by entering<screen>groupadd vboxusers
chgrp vboxusers /dev/vboxdrv
chmod 660 /dev/vboxdrv</screen>or, alternatively, simply give all users access
        (insecure, not recommended!)<screen>chmod 666 /dev/vboxdrv</screen>You
        should also add any users who will be allowed to use host USB devices
        in VirtualBox guests to the appropriate USB users group for your
        distribution. This group is often called
        <computeroutput>usb</computeroutput> or
        <computeroutput>usbusers</computeroutput>.</para>

        <para>Next, you will have to install the system initialization script
        for the kernel module:<screen>cp /opt/VirtualBox/vboxdrv.sh /etc/init.d/vboxdrv</screen>(assuming
        you installed VirtualBox to the
        <computeroutput>/opt/VirtualBox</computeroutput> directory) and
        activate the initialization script using the right method for your
        distribution. You should create VirtualBox's configuration
        file:<screen>mkdir /etc/vbox
echo INSTALL_DIR=/opt/VirtualBox &gt; /etc/vbox/vbox.cfg</screen>and, for
        convenience, create the following symbolic links:</para>

        <screen>ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VirtualBox
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxSVC
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxManage
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxHeadless
ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxSDL</screen>
      </sect3>

      <sect3>
        <title>Updating and uninstalling VirtualBox</title>

        <para>Before updating or uninstalling VirtualBox, you must terminate
        any virtual machines which are currently running and exit the
        VirtualBox or VBoxSVC applications. To update VirtualBox, simply run
        the installer of the updated version. To uninstall VirtualBox, invoke
        the installer like this: <screen>sudo ./VirtualBox.run uninstall</screen>
        or as root<screen>./VirtualBox.run uninstall</screen>. Starting with
        version 2.2.2, you can uninstall the .run package by invoking <screen>/opt/VirtualBox/uninstall.sh</screen>To
        manually uninstall VirtualBox, simply undo the steps in the manual
        installation in reverse order.</para>
      </sect3>

      <sect3>
        <title>Automatic installation of Debian packages</title>

        <para>The Debian packages will request some user feedback when
        installed for the first time. The debconf system is used to perform
        this task. To prevent any user interaction during installation,
        default values can be defined. A file
        <computeroutput>vboxconf</computeroutput> can contain the following
        debconf settings: <screen>virtualbox virtualbox/module-compilation-allowed boolean true
virtualbox virtualbox/delete-old-modules boolean true</screen>The first line
        allows compilation of the vboxdrv kernel module if no module was found
        for the current kernel. The second line allows the package to delete
        any old vboxdrv kernel modules compiled by previous
        installations.</para>

        <para>These default settings can be applied with <screen>debconf-set-selections vboxconf</screen>
        prior to the installation of the VirtualBox Debian package.</para>

        <para>In addition there are some common configuration options that can be set prior to
        the installation, described in <xref linkend="linux_install_opts" />.</para>
      </sect3>

      <sect3>
        <title>Automatic installation of .rpm packages</title>

        <para>The .rpm format does not provide a configuration system
        comparable to the debconf system. See <xref linkend="linux_install_opts" />
        for how to set some common installation options provided by VirtualBox.</para>
      </sect3>

      <sect3>
        <title id="linux_install_opts">Automatic installation options</title>
        <para>To configure the installation process of our .deb and .rpm packages, a file
        <computeroutput>/etc/default/virtualbox</computeroutput> is interpreted.
        The automatic generation of the udev rule can be prevented by the following setting:
        <screen>INSTALL_NO_UDEV=1</screen> The creation of the group vboxusers can be prevented
        by <screen>INSTALL_NO_GROUP=1</screen> If the line <screen>INSTALL_NO_VBOXDRV=1</screen>
        is specified, the package installer will not try to build the
        <computeroutput>vboxdrv</computeroutput> kernel module if no module according to the
        current kernel was found.</para>
      </sect3>

    </sect2>

    <sect2 id="startingvboxonlinux">
      <title>Starting VirtualBox on Linux</title>

      <para>The easiest way to start a VirtualBox program is by running the
      program of your choice (<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,
      <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>,
      <computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput> or
      <computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput>) from a terminal. These
      are symbolic links to <computeroutput>VBox.sh</computeroutput> that
      start the required program for you.</para>

      <para>The following detailed instructions should only be of interest if
      you wish to execute VirtualBox without installing it first. You should
      start by compiling the <computeroutput>vboxdrv</computeroutput> kernel
      module (see above) and inserting it into the Linux kernel. VirtualBox
      consists of a service daemon (<computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput>)
      and several application programs. The daemon is automatically started if
      necessary. All VirtualBox applications will communicate with the daemon
      through Unix local domain sockets. There can be multiple daemon
      instances under different user accounts and applications can only
      communicate with the daemon running under the user account as the
      application. The local domain socket resides in a subdirectory of your
      system's directory for temporary files called
      <computeroutput>.vbox-&lt;username&gt;-ipc</computeroutput>. In case of
      communication problems or server startup problems, you may try to remove
      this directory.</para>

      <para>All VirtualBox applications
      (<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,
      <computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput>,
      <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> and
      <computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput>) require the VirtualBox
      directory to be in the library path:</para>

      <screen>LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP"</screen>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title id="install-solaris-host">Installing on Solaris hosts</title>

    <para>For the various versions of Solaris that we support as host
    operating systems, please refer to <xref
    linkend="hostossupport" />.</para>

    <para>If you have a previously installed instance of VirtualBox on your
    Solaris host, please uninstall it first before installing a new instance.
    Refer to <xref linkend="uninstallsolhost" /> for uninstall
    instructions.</para>

    <sect2>
      <title>Performing the installation</title>

      <para>VirtualBox is available as a standard Solaris package. Download
      the VirtualBox SunOS package which includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit
      versions of VirtualBox. <emphasis>The installation must be performed as
      root and from the global zone</emphasis> as the VirtualBox installer
      loads kernel drivers which cannot be done from non-global zones. To
      verify which zone you are currently in, execute the
      <computeroutput>zonename</computeroutput> command. Execute the following
      commands:</para>

      <screen>gunzip -cd VirtualBox-$VBOX_VERSION_STRING-SunOS.tar.gz | tar xvf -</screen>

      <para>Starting with VirtualBox 3.1 the VirtualBox kernel package is no
      longer a separate package and has been integrated into the main package.
      Install the VirtualBox package using:</para>

      <screen>pkgadd -d VirtualBox-$VBOX_VERSION_STRING-SunOS.pkg</screen>

      <note>
        <para>If you are using Solaris Zones, to install VirtualBox only into
        the current zone and not into any other zone, use
        <computeroutput>pkgadd -G</computeroutput>. For more information refer
        to the <computeroutput>pkgadd</computeroutput> manual; see also <xref
        linkend="solariszones" />.</para>
      </note>

      <para>The installer will then prompt you to enter the package you wish
      to install. Choose "1" or "all" and proceed. Next the installer will ask
      you if you want to allow the postinstall script to be executed. Choose
      "y" and proceed as it is essential to execute this script which installs
      the VirtualBox kernel module. Following this confirmation the installer
      will install VirtualBox and execute the postinstall setup script.</para>

      <para>Once the postinstall script has been executed your installation is
      now complete. You may now safely delete the uncompressed package and
      <computeroutput>autoresponse</computeroutput> files from your system.
      VirtualBox would be installed in
      <computeroutput>/opt/VirtualBox</computeroutput>.</para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Starting VirtualBox on Solaris</title>

      <para>The easiest way to start a VirtualBox program is by running the
      program of your choice (<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,
      <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>,
      <computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput> or
      <computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput>) from a terminal. These
      are symbolic links to <computeroutput>VBox.sh</computeroutput> that
      start the required program for you.</para>

      <para>Alternatively, you can directly invoke the required programs from
      <computeroutput>/opt/VirtualBox</computeroutput>. Using the links
      provided is easier as you do not have to type the full path.</para>

      <para>You can configure some elements of the
      <computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput> Qt GUI such as fonts and
      colours by executing <computeroutput>VBoxQtconfig</computeroutput> from
      the terminal.</para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title id="uninstallsolhost">Uninstallation</title>

      <para>Uninstallation of VirtualBox on Solaris requires root permissions.
      To perform the uninstallation, start a root terminal session and
      execute:</para>

      <screen>pkgrm SUNWvbox</screen>

      <para>After confirmation, this will remove VirtualBox from your
      system.</para>

      <para>If you are uninstalling VirtualBox version 3.0 or lower, you need
      to remove the VirtualBox kernel interface package, execute:</para>

      <para><screen>pkgrm SUNWvboxkern</screen></para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Unattended installation</title>

      <para>To perform a non-interactive installation of VirtualBox we have
      provided a response file named
      <computeroutput>autoresponse</computeroutput> that the installer will
      use for responses to inputs rather than ask them from you.</para>

      <para>Extract the tar.gz package as described in the normal
      installation. Then open a root terminal session and execute:</para>

      <screen>pkgadd -d VirtualBox-$VBOX_VERSION_STRING-SunOS-x86 -n -a autoresponse SUNWvbox</screen>

      <para>To perform a non-interactive uninstallation, open a root terminal
      session and execute:</para>

      <screen>pkgrm -n -a /opt/VirtualBox/autoresponse SUNWvbox</screen>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title id="solariszones">Configuring a zone for running
      VirtualBox</title>

      <para>Starting with VirtualBox 1.6 it is possible to run VirtualBox from
      within Solaris zones. For an introduction of Solaris zones, please refer
      to <ulink
      url="http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/solaris_zones.jsp">http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/solaris_zones.jsp</ulink>.</para>

      <para>Assuming that VirtualBox has already been installed into your
      zone, you need to give the zone access to VirtualBox's device node. This
      is done by performing the following steps. Start a root terminal and
      execute:</para>

      <screen>zonecfg -z vboxzone</screen>

      <para>Inside the <computeroutput>zonecfg</computeroutput> prompt add the
      <computeroutput>device</computeroutput> resource and
      <computeroutput>match</computeroutput> properties to the zone. Here's
      how it can be done:</para>

      <screen>zonecfg:vboxzone&gt;add device
zonecfg:vboxzone:device&gt;set match=/dev/vboxdrv
zonecfg:vboxzone:device&gt;end
zonecfg:vboxzone&gt;verify
zonecfg:vboxzone&gt;exit</screen>

      <para>If you are running VirtualBox 2.2.0 or above on OpenSolaris or
      Nevada hosts, you should add a device for
      <computeroutput>/dev/vboxusbmon</computeroutput> too, similar to what
      was shown above. This does not apply to Solaris 10 hosts due to lack of
      USB support.</para>

      <para>Replace "vboxzone" with the name of the zone in which you intend
      to run VirtualBox. Next reboot the zone using
      <computeroutput>zoneadm</computeroutput> and you should be able to run
      VirtualBox from within the configured zone.</para>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>
</chapter>