Virtualbox Guest Additions For Mac Os X Guests

Mac Guest Additions Virtualbox
Virtualbox Guest Additions For Mac Os X Guests 2017

User Manual for Release 6.0

E97727-04

Table of Contents

Preface

1 First Steps

1.1 Why is Virtualization Useful?

1.2 Some Terminology

1.3 Features Overview

1.4 Supported Host Operating Systems

1.4.1 Host CPU Requirements

1.5 Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox and Extension Packs

1.6 Starting Oracle VM VirtualBox

1.7 Creating Your First Virtual Machine

1.8 Running Your Virtual Machine

1.8.1 Starting a New VM for the First Time
1.8.2 Capturing and Releasing Keyboard and Mouse
1.8.3 Typing Special Characters
1.8.4 Changing Removable Media
1.8.5 Resizing the Machine's Window
1.8.6 Saving the State of the Machine

1.9 Using VM Groups

1.10 Snapshots

1.10.1 Taking, Restoring, and Deleting Snapshots
1.10.2 Snapshot Contents

1.11 Virtual Machine Configuration

1.12 Removing and Moving Virtual Machines

1.13 Cloning Virtual Machines

1.14 Importing and Exporting Virtual Machines

1.14.1 About the OVF Format
1.14.2 Importing an Appliance in OVF Format
1.14.3 Exporting an Appliance in OVF Format
1.14.4 Exporting an Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
1.14.5 Importing an Instance from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
1.14.6 The Cloud Profile Manager

1.15 Global Settings

1.16 Alternative Front-Ends

1.17 Soft Keyboard

1.17.1 Using the Soft Keyboard
1.17.2 Creating a Custom Keyboard Layout

2 Installation Details

2.1 Installing on Windows Hosts

2.1.1 Prerequisites
2.1.2 Performing the Installation
2.1.3 Uninstallation
2.1.4 Unattended Installation
2.1.5 Public Properties

2.2 Installing on Mac OS X Hosts

2.2.1 Performing the Installation
2.2.2 Uninstallation
2.2.3 Unattended Installation

2.3 Installing on Linux Hosts

2.3.1 Prerequisites
2.3.2 The Oracle VM VirtualBox Kernel Modules
2.3.3 Performing the Installation
2.3.4 The vboxusers Group
2.3.5 Starting Oracle VM VirtualBox on Linux

2.4 Installing on Oracle Solaris Hosts

2.4.1 Performing the Installation
2.4.2 The vboxuser Group
2.4.3 Starting Oracle VM VirtualBox on Oracle Solaris
2.4.4 Uninstallation
2.4.5 Unattended Installation
2.4.6 Configuring a Zone for Running Oracle VM VirtualBox

3 Configuring Virtual Machines

3.1 Supported Guest Operating Systems

3.1.1 Mac OS X Guests
3.1.2 64-bit Guests

3.2 Unattended Guest Installation

3.2.1 An Example of Unattended Guest Installation

3.3 Emulated Hardware

3.4 General Settings

3.4.1 Basic Tab
3.4.2 Advanced Tab
3.4.3 Description Tab
3.4.4 Disk Encryption Tab

3.5 System Settings

3.5.1 Motherboard Tab
3.5.2 Processor Tab
3.5.3 Acceleration Tab

3.6 Display Settings

3.6.1 Screen Tab
3.6.2 Remote Display Tab
3.6.3 Recording Tab

3.7 Storage Settings

3.8 Audio Settings

3.9 Network Settings

3.10 Serial Ports

3.11 USB Support

3.11.1 USB Settings
3.11.2 Implementation Notes for Windows and Linux Hosts

3.12 Shared Folders

3.13 User Interface

3.14 Alternative Firmware (EFI)

3.14.1 Video Modes in EFI
3.14.2 Specifying Boot Arguments

4 Guest Additions

4.1 Introduction to Guest Additions

4.2 Installing and Maintaining Guest Additions

4.2.1 Guest Additions for Windows
4.2.2 Guest Additions for Linux
4.2.3 Guest Additions for Oracle Solaris
4.2.4 Guest Additions for OS/2

4.3 Shared Folders

4.3.1 Manual Mounting
4.3.2 Automatic Mounting

4.4 Drag and Drop

4.4.1 Supported Formats
4.4.2 Known Limitations

4.5 Hardware-Accelerated Graphics

4.5.1 Hardware 3D Acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)
4.5.2 Hardware 2D Video Acceleration for Windows Guests

4.6 Seamless Windows

4.7 Guest Properties

4.7.1 Using Guest Properties to Wait on VM Events

4.8 Guest Control File Manager

4.8.1 Using the Guest Control File Manager

4.9 Guest Control of Applications

4.10 Memory Overcommitment

4.10.1 Memory Ballooning
4.10.2 Page Fusion

5 Virtual Storage

5.1 Hard Disk Controllers

5.2 Disk Image Files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD)

5.3 The Virtual Media Manager

5.4 Special Image Write Modes

5.5 Differencing Images

5.6 Cloning Disk Images

5.7 Host Input/Output Caching

5.8 Limiting Bandwidth for Disk Images

5.9 CD/DVD Support

5.10 iSCSI Servers

5.11 vboximg-mount: A Utility for FUSE Mounting a Virtual Disk Image

5.11.1 Viewing Detailed Information About a Virtual Disk Image
5.11.2 Mounting a Virtual Disk Image

6 Virtual Networking

6.1 Virtual Networking Hardware

6.2 Introduction to Networking Modes

6.3 Network Address Translation (NAT)

6.3.1 Configuring Port Forwarding with NAT
6.3.2 PXE Booting with NAT
6.3.3 NAT Limitations

6.4 Network Address Translation Service

6.5 Bridged Networking

6.6 Internal Networking

6.7 Host-Only Networking

6.8 UDP Tunnel Networking

6.9 VDE Networking

6.10 Limiting Bandwidth for Network Input/Output

6.11 Improving Network Performance

7 VBoxManage

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Commands Overview

7.3 General Options

7.4 VBoxManage list

7.5 VBoxManage showvminfo

7.6 VBoxManage registervm/unregistervm

7.7 VBoxManage createvm

7.8 VBoxManage modifyvm

7.8.1 General Settings
7.8.2 Networking Settings
7.8.3 Miscellaneous Settings
7.8.4 Recording Settings
7.8.5 Remote Machine Settings
7.8.6 Teleporting Settings
7.8.7 Debugging Settings
7.8.8 USB Card Reader Settings
7.8.9 Autostarting VMs During Host System Boot

7.9 VBoxManage movevm

7.10 VBoxManage import

7.10.1 Import from OVF
7.10.2 Import from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

7.11 VBoxManage export

7.11.1 Export to OVF
7.11.2 Export to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

7.12 VBoxManage startvm

7.13 VBoxManage controlvm

7.14 VBoxManage discardstate

7.15 VBoxManage adoptstate

7.16 VBoxManage closemedium

7.17 VBoxManage storageattach

7.18 VBoxManage storagectl

7.19 VBoxManage bandwidthctl

7.20 VBoxManage showmediuminfo

7.21 VBoxManage createmedium

7.22 VBoxManage modifymedium

7.23 VBoxManage clonemedium

7.24 VBoxManage mediumproperty

7.25 VBoxManage encryptmedium

7.26 VBoxManage checkmediumpwd

7.27 VBoxManage convertfromraw

7.28 VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata

7.29 VBoxManage setproperty

7.30 VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove

7.31 VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove

7.32 VBoxManage guestproperty

7.33 VBoxManage guestcontrol

7.34 VBoxManage metrics

7.35 VBoxManage natnetwork

7.36 VBoxManage hostonlyif

7.37 VBoxManage usbdevsource

7.38 VBoxManage unattended

7.38.1 Synopsis
7.38.2 Description

7.39 VBoxManage snapshot

7.39.1 Synopsis
7.39.2 Description
7.39.3 Examples

7.40 VBoxManage clonevm

7.40.1 Synopsis
7.40.2 Description
7.40.3 Command Operand and Options
7.40.4 Examples
7.40.5 See Also

7.41 VBoxManage extpack

7.41.1 Synopsis
7.41.2 Description
7.41.3 Examples

7.42 VBoxManage dhcpserver

7.42.1 Synopsis
7.42.2 Description

7.43 VBoxManage debugvm

7.43.1 Synopsis
7.43.2 Description

7.44 VBoxManage cloudprofile

7.44.1 Synopsis
7.44.2 Description

7.45 VBoxManage cloud list

7.45.1 Synopsis
7.45.2 Description

7.46 VBoxManage cloud instance

7.46.1 Synopsis
7.46.2 Description

7.47 VBoxManage cloud image

7.47.1 Synopsis
7.47.2 Description

Glossary

Apr 10, 2009 I can confirm what Andy said about VirtualBox. I am also using VirtualBox Personal End User License (PEUL). It does include the Guest Additions. Unfortunately, due to the license, many companies and large enterprises might prefer to use VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE), which does not seem to include the Guest Additions.
4.2.2 Guest Additions for Linux 4.2.3 Guest Additions for Oracle Solaris 4.2.4 Guest Additions for OS/2 4.3 Shared Folders 4.3.1 Manual Mounting 4.3.2 Automatic Mounting 4.4 Drag and Drop 4.4.1 Supported Formats 4.4.2 Known Limitations 4.5 Hardware-Accelerated Graphics 4.5.1 Hardware 3D Acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9) 4.5.2 Hardware 2D.

Although VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X guests, the end user license agreement of Mac OS X does not permit the operating system to run on non-Apple hardware, and this is enforced within the operating system by calls to the Apple System Management Controller (SMC) in all Apple machines, which verifies the authenticity of the.

With the shared folders feature of Oracle VM VirtualBox, you can access files of your host system from within the guest system. This is similar to how you would use network shares in Windows networks, except that shared folders do not require networking, only the Guest Additions. Shared folders are supported with Windows 2000 or later, Linux, and Oracle Solaris guests. Oracle VM VirtualBox includes experimental support for Mac OS X and OS/2 guests.

Mac Guest Additions Virtualbox

Shared folders physically reside on the host and are then shared with the guest, which uses a special file system driver in the Guest Additions to talk to the host. For Windows guests, shared folders are implemented as a pseudo-network redirector. For Linux and Oracle Solaris guests, the Guest Additions provide a virtual file system.

To share a host folder with a virtual machine in Oracle VM VirtualBox, you must specify the path of the folder and choose a share name that the guest can use to access the shared folder. This happens on the host. In the guest you can then use the share name to connect to it and access files.

There are several ways in which shared folders can be set up for a virtual machine:

Virtualbox Guest Additions For Mac Os X Guests 2017

In the window of a running VM, you select Shared Folders from the Devices menu, or click on the folder icon on the status bar in the bottom right corner.
If a VM is not currently running, you can configure shared folders in the virtual machine's Settings dialog.
From the command line, you can create shared folders using VBoxManage, as follows:
See Section 7.31, “VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove”.

There are two types of shares:

Permanent shares, that are saved with the VM settings.
Transient shares, that are added at runtime and disappear when the VM is powered off. These can be created using a checkbox in the VirtualBox Manager, or by using the --transient option of the VBoxManage sharedfolder add command.

Shared folders can either be read-write or read-only. This means that the guest is either allowed to both read and write, or just read files on the host. By default, shared folders are read-write. Read-only folders can be created using a checkbox in the VirtualBox Manager, or with the --readonly option of the VBoxManage sharedfolder add command.

Oracle VM VirtualBox shared folders also support symbolic links, also called symlinks, under the following conditions:

The host operating system must support symlinks. For example, a Mac OS X, Linux, or Oracle Solaris host is required.
Currently only Linux and Oracle Solaris Guest Additions support symlinks.
For security reasons the guest OS is not allowed to create symlinks by default. If you trust the guest OS to not abuse the functionality, you can enable creation of symlinks for a shared folder as follows:

You can mount the shared folder from inside a VM, in the same way as you would mount an ordinary network share:

In a Windows guest, shared folders are browseable and therefore visible in Windows Explorer. To attach the host's shared folder to your Windows guest, open Windows Explorer and look for the folder in My Networking Places, Entire Network, Oracle VM VirtualBox Shared Folders. By right-clicking on a shared folder and selecting Map Network Drive from the menu that pops up, you can assign a drive letter to that shared folder.
Alternatively, on the Windows command line, use the following command:
While vboxsvr is a fixed name, note that vboxsrv would also work, replace x: with the drive letter that you want to use for the share, and sharename with the share name specified with VBoxManage.
In a Linux guest, use the following command:
To mount a shared folder during boot, add the following entry to /etc/fstab:
In a Oracle Solaris guest, use the following command:
Replace sharename, use a lowercase string, with the share name specified with VBoxManage or the VirtualBox Manager. Replace mountpoint with the path where you want the share to be mounted on the guest, such as /mnt/share. The usual mount rules apply. For example, create this directory first if it does not exist yet.
Here is an example of mounting the shared folder for the user jack on Oracle Solaris:
Beyond the standard options supplied by the mount command, the following are available:
This option sets the character set used for I/O operations. Note that on Linux guests, if the iocharset option is not specified, then the Guest Additions driver will attempt to use the character set specified by the CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT kernel option. If this option is not set either, then UTF-8 is used.
This option specifies the character set used for the shared folder name. This is UTF-8 by default.
The generic mount options, documented in the mount manual page, apply also. Especially useful are the options uid, gid and mode, as they can allow access by normal users in read/write mode, depending on the settings, even if root has mounted the filesystem.
In an OS/2 guest, use the VBoxControl command to manage shared folders. For example:
As with Windows guests, shared folders can also be accessed via UNC using VBoxSF, VBoxSvr or VBoxSrv as the server name and the shared folder name as sharename.

Oracle VM VirtualBox provides the option to mount shared folders automatically. When automatic mounting is enabled for a shared folder, the Guest Additions service will mount it for you automatically. For Windows or OS/2, a preferred drive letter can also be specified. For Linux or Oracle Solaris, a mount point directory can also be specified.

If a drive letter or mount point is not specified, or is in use already, an alternative location is found by the Guest Additions service. The service searches for an alternative location depending on the guest OS, as follows:

Windows and OS/2 guests. Search for a free drive letter, starting at Z:. If all drive letters are assigned, the folder is not mounted.
Linux and Oracle Solaris guests. Folders are mounted under the /media directory. The folder name is normalized (no spaces, slashes or colons) and is prefixed with sf_.
For example, if you have a shared folder called myfiles, it will appear as /media/sf_myfiles in the guest.
The guest properties /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/SharedFolders/MountDir and the more generic /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/SharedFolders/MountPrefix can be used to override the automatic mount directory and prefix. See Section 4.7, “Guest Properties”.

Access to an automatically mounted shared folder is granted to everyone in a Windows guest, including the guest user. For Linux and Oracle Solaris guests, access is restricted to members of the group vboxsf and the root user.