Create and Manage Virtual Machines Using VirtualBox

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VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.

Install Virtualbox in Ubuntu Gutsy

If you want to install Virtualbox in Ubuntu Dapper,Edgy,Feisty,Gutsy you need to download the latest .deb package from here if you are using Ubuntu dapper you need to download the appropriate package from this link.In this example i am showing how to install virtualbox in Ubuntu edgy.
Preparing Your system

First you need to install the following packages

sudo apt-get install libxalan110 libxerces27

wget http://www.virtualbox.org/download/1.5.4/virtualbox_1.5.4-27034_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb

Once you download the package you have virtualbox_1.5.4-27034_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb file

Install.deb file using the following command

sudo dpkg -i virtualbox_1.5.4-27034_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb

At the time of installation if you have any dependency problems like the following errors

Selecting previously deselected package virtualbox.
(Reading database ... 174459 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking virtualbox (from virtualbox_1.5.4-27034_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of virtualbox:
virtualbox depends on libxalan110; however:
Package libxalan110 is not installed.
virtualbox depends on libxerces27; however:
Package libxerces27 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing virtualbox (--install):
dependency problems -- leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
virtualbox

If you see the above error message you can use the following command to install all the required dependencies

sudo apt-get -f install

This will complete the installation

Starting the VirtualBox Graphical User Interface

If you want to start Virtualbox GUI use the following command from your terminal(Applications--->Accessories--- >Termianl)

VirtualBox

Once it opens you should see the following screen

VirtualBox Version Details

Creating a Virtual machine

If you want to create a Virtual machine you need to click on "New" button in the user interface will guide you through the new virtual machine

Now the following wizard will appear click next

In the next screen You nees to select VMname and OS Type and click next

Now you need to select the memory for your VM

Here you need to select the Virtual hard disk details and click next

Summary of your Virtual Machine and click finish

Once you click on finish You should see the following screen

If you want to start this VM you need to click on "Start" in the user interface

This is virtualbox installation in ubuntu edgy and also explains how to create a new virtual machine now you can install whatever OS you want to test.If you want more information on virtualbox check here

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59 Responses

  1. Hi,
    Great how to. Worked like a charm. I installed VirtualBox using the .deb file for Feisty (KUbuntu 7.0.4) and it worked flawlessly. Have setup a Feisty guest on a Feisty host and it is working perfectly with the guest additions installed.

    A welcome pleasant experience after battling with Qemu on Feisty all day long.

    Had to re-install Qemu to get it to finally work(was immediately going to ‘Stopped’ after starting Qemu). And then it finally bombed during the Feisty installation as guest OS with a message that primary partition ‘/’ could not be mounted! What a PITA. qcow, qcow2, raw format no help. Tried Edgy, same problem. No help from Google searches.

    Same setup on Virtual Box worked flawlessly! Performance appears to be acceptable too with a virtual mem of 256MB running on a Pentium 3GHz processor with 1GB memory on host system running Feisty Fawn (KUbuntu 7.0.4 desktop version).

    -Andy

  2. steve says:

    if u get:
    VirtualBox kernel driver not accessible

    run it as root

  3. Dimitri Mallis says:

    i cant build form source on edgy 64bit…

    $ ./configure
    Checking for environment:

    Warning! Support for AMD64 host systems is work in progress.
    Don’t expect it to work or even to build at the moment.

    Determined linux.amd64, OK.
    Checking for kBuild: found, OK.
    Checking for gcc: found version 4.1.2, using precompiled objects for recompiler, OK.
    Checking for as86:
    ** as86 (variable AS86) not found!

    i guess i will just have to wait abit…

  4. Steven says:

    Error cannot install ‘libxalan’

    how do I solve this problem?

  5. streppel says:

    apt-get install bin86

  6. Uhmm… Where’s that makefile for VirtualBox located at? Seems like I’m having some minor difficulties getting that KERN_DIR added, although I do know in which directory the source code is… Probably I’m just stupid or something. Maybe I should just cry out for my mom to help me.

  7. Tom says:

    Your instructions worked great and Virtual Box opened right up. I am using Ubuntu Feisty 7.04 (32 bit). Virtual Box Version 1.4.0 for i386. However, I also received this error in the terminal at the same time.

    WARNING: You are not a member of the “vboxusers” group. Please add yourself
    to this group before starting VirtualBox.

    You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.
    Qt WARNING: X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 166
    Major opcode: 146
    Minor opcode: 3
    Resource id: 0x0
    Qt WARNING: Failed to open device
    Qt WARNING: X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 166
    Major opcode: 146
    Minor opcode: 3
    Resource id: 0x0
    Qt WARNING: Failed to open device

    How do I add myself as a member of the group? And when I do that, will those warning messages disappear?

  8. Tom says:

    nevermind about adding myself as a user. I managed to do that, but the above warning messages are still there. Can someone give me an instruction on how to remove those warnings?

  9. Ian Johnston says:

    I have successfully installed Virtualbox on two machines, both running Feisty. I used the repositories listed at Innotek and the installations went perfectly.

    On the other hand…

    On Machine 1, I have tried to install three guest OSes without success: OS/2 4.5 (crashes during install), Windows 98 (freezes during install) and – scrabbled around in box of operating systems – BeOS 4.5 (can’t access the CD it has just booted from and gives up during install)

    On Machine 2, a laptop, I have WIndows 98 installed as guest, but it is very slow, uses 50% CPU at all times, won’t run in anything other than 640*480*16 and crashes on restart if I try to save a snapshot – it has to be rebooted each time.

    So rather a mixed experience. Looks nice, installs easily, doesn’t actually, erm, work.

    Ian

  10. Mike says:

    unable to get WinXp.iso to load correctly in Virtual Box. The install locks up every time.

    ANy Ideas?

    Thx

    Mike

  11. Scott says:

    I’ve read all the manual, faqs, pointer, etc and I’m still having problems. I’ve installed Virtualbox, have the account permissions correct, and have created a VM. I don’t know how to load the OS into the VM or have the VM use a directory on a fat32 partition. So everytime that I ‘power up’, I get no bootable OS found. Can anyone point me to the directions on what to do next. Regards.

  12. admin says:

    @hi scott

    first you need to create a new VM with the above procedure after taht you need to follow as normal machine procedure for example you want to boot from cd use f2 key to set the boot options at the time of starting your VM then start the installation

  13. Scott says:

    Your input was definitely helpful. The problem was that, even though the OS cd was being recognized by the Linux, VB was only seeing the cdrom, not the burner. I am now able to select f12, select cdrom, and it accesses the lower cdrom with the OS cd.
    Thank you so much!

  14. Carl Lee says:

    Qt WARNING: Session management error: Authentication Rejected, reason : None of the authentication protocols specified are supported and host-based authentication failed
    Segmentation fault (core dumped)

    Why the warning/error above happen? How to solve it?

    Thanks

  15. George Lupanow says:

    The install looks like it works fine.
    I added myself to the vboxusers group and verified with grep.
    When I try to start VirtualBox, I get the following messages:
    *** stack smashing detected ***: /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox terminated
    Aborted (core dumped)

    What does this mean and how do I fix it?
    Thanks

  16. kj_synack says:

    @MKDon
    You should run VBoxManage commands with as user “bob”, NOT root. That particular command looks for your “guest” in /home/.bob/

  17. Christus says:

    Hi

    I am geting thefollowing error while trying to start;

    The VirtualBox kernel driver is not accessible to the current user. Make sure that the user has write permissions for /dev/vboxdrv by adding them to the vboxusers groups. You will need to logout for the change to take effect..
    VBox status code: -1909 (VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_ACCESSIBLE).

    Result Code:
    0x80004005
    Component:
    Console
    Interface:
    IConsole {1dea5c4b-0753-4193-b909-22330f64ec45}

    Please let me know the solution to resolve this.

  18. PartisanEntity says:

    Any one know if I can allow access to a guest OS from multiple user accounts in Ubuntu? (For example, so that both my wife and I can access the same guest OS installation of XP?)

    Thank you.

  19. Steve says:

    I have just installed Virtual Box on Ubuntu 8.04. Seems to work pretty well. There are some apps I need on a daily basis that only work on Windows. Is my box vulnerable since I have Windows running on it or is the fact that the main OS is Linux and Windows is running on the VM mean that I have the natural protection that Linux provides ok?

  20. sime says:

    Hi I am getting this warning after installing the VirtualBox, how can i add to vboxusers?

    WARNING: You are not a member of the “vboxusers” group. Please add yourself
    to this group before starting VirtualBox.

    You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.

    Thanks in advance

  21. Kyle says:

    I have 2 hard drives on my laptop.. with vista64 on one and ubuntu on the other.. how do i create a virtual box that will run the windows on my first HD?? .. im new to linux so any information will be greatly appreciated. thanks!

  22. sanny says:

    hi. everybody,

    I am new to ubuntu, I have windows XP installed in my C drive and Ubuntu on D drive, how can I access windows XP thru linux(Ubuntu), I have installed virtual box to do that. do i need to install windows XP again in Linux….using virtual box…? otherwise can I have access to my windows XP in any other manner thru linux. any information about this will be greatly appreciated.

  23. Yazid says:

    Hello guys,

    I am new to Ubuntu too, I have installed Ubuntu as the host and then created a virtual machine (Windows server 2008). I want to access the virtual machince from another PC how do i do?

    TIA
    Yaz

  24. klar says:

    Thanks for the information. It will be useful for many.

  25. wallybescotty says:

    where are the virtual machines storded, and if i remove the one i installed where are the files from the virtual machine??, i know windows stores files from virtual box thats why i use vmwear when im on windows 🙂

  26. Arttu says:

    For anyone struggling to get existing Windows to run in virtual machine (in whatever that runs Sun Virtualbox), I’d recommend a free tool named VMware vCentre converter. You have to register to VMware to get to download the application (might be found somewhere on the internet but be careful), but it makes it really easy to convert your current running machine to a virtual machine. You can change what partitions you want to be included, how much memory to allocate etc.

  27. kamesh says:

    how do u access the hosts memory from the virtual machine…the host being ubuntu n the machine windows xp..how do u trasfer data between the host n d machine..is it possible…?…

  28. Javier says:

    Hello, in the second step I get this:

    javi@javi-laptop:~$ wget http://www.virtualbox.org/download/1.5.4/virtualbox_1.5.4-27034_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb
    –2011-01-05 02:30:18– http://www.virtualbox.org/download/1.5.4/virtualbox_1.5.4-27034_Ubuntu_gutsy_i386.deb
    Resolviendo http://www.virtualbox.org... 88.198.19.108
    Conectando a http://www.virtualbox.org|88.198.19.108|:80… conectado.
    Petición HTTP enviada, esperando respuesta… 403 Forbidden
    2011-01-05 02:30:18 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

    How can I solve this?

    Thanks in advice!

  29. crb3 says:

    @Javier: 1.5.4 is no longer available onsite, and the URL structure has changed.

    Go look at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds
    and, from there, browse what builds are still available. I’m trying to set up on MEPIS 6.5.1 which is based on Dapper, and I can tell you that virtualbox 2.2.4 is the last build shown which shows compatibility with Dapper, in case that matters to you. I can tell you that apt-get installed those two libraries just fine. I can’t, however, tell you as yet whether it will install and run without roadblock dependencies, because right now my wget download of that 22Meg .deb keeps stalling out at their end.

    Two hints from ‘man wget’ for using wget in such an annoying situation: the -c option-switch means “continue from what I’ve got already instead of starting over”, and the option “-T 90” means “the timeout before wget gets tired of waiting and sends another wakeup call is now 90 seconds, not 15 minutes”. Good luck; I think we’re both going to need it.

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