VirtualBox – Pinter Computing

Nested VirtualBox virtual machine on a VirtualBox virtual machine

Posted on April 27, 2018April 27, 2018 by Laszlo Pinter

There can be reasons when we want to run a VirtualBox virtual machine on another VirtualBox virtual machine.

I am setting up a Windows virtual machine to interview job candidates and want to run a small Ubuntu virtual machine on the Windows virtual machine. It is not recommended for performance reasons, but I want to set up a base interview machine that I can wipe and recreate any time for the next candidate.

Besides the performance hit there is one more rule: the nested guest operating system needs to be 32 bit.

Even if you have a 64 bit workstation, and run a 64 bit guest operating system on it, the VirtualBox on the guest operating system can only host 32 bit guest-guest operating systems, because for a 64 bit operating system to run, the host machine needs to have the CPU Extension feature turned on. Currently only physical CPUs have the CPU Extension feature, so even a 64 bit guest virtual machine cannot provide it.

To set up the 32 bit nested virtual machine

Download ISO image of the 32 bit version of Ubuntu from http://releases.ubuntu.com/artful/
Start VirtualBox
Click the New icon to create a new virtual machine
Select Linux (32 bit)
Accept the default memory and hard drive settings

Start the virtual machine the first time

Select the new virtual machine
Click the Start button
Browse to the downloaded 32 bit Ubuntu ISO image
Follow the prompts to set up the operating system

Resize the VirtualBox image hard drive

Posted on April 26, 2018April 26, 2018 by Laszlo Pinter

When your VirtualBox virtual machine’s hard drive fills up Virtual Box does not provide a user interface to extend it. If you run VirtualBox on a Macintosh workstation

Stop the virtual machine
On a Macintosh workstation, the virtual machine image files are located at ~/VirtualBox VMs
The name of the subdirectory and the image file matches the name of the machine
Open a terminal window

Navigate to the VirtualBox application directory

$ cd /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/Resources/VirtualBoxVM.app/Contents/MacOS

Check the current size of the hard drive. Place a backslash in front of every space character in the path.
```
VBoxManage showhdinfo ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/Win\ 10/Win\ 10.vdi
```
Resize the drive. Place a backslash in front of every space character in the path, and specify the size in megabytes, so 100 GB is approximately 100000 MB
```
VBoxManage modifyhd --resize 100000 ~/VirtualBox\ VMs/Win\ 10/Win\ 10.vdi
```
UMG/Win\ 10\ UMG.vdi
0%…10%…20%…30%…40%…50%…60%…70%…80%…90%…100%
Check the size again to make sure the resizing succeeded.

Extend the volume on the enlarged partition

Windows 10 virtual machine

Start the virtual machine
Click the Start button and the Gear icon to start the control panel
Type admin into the search box and select Administrative Tools
Double-click Computer Management
Select Disk Management
Right-click the partition and select Extend Volume…
Click Next on every page of the wizard to extend the volume to the maximum available size.

Git Bash and Command Prompt cannot see the VirtualBox shared folder on Windows 10 guest

Posted on December 1, 2017May 21, 2018 by Laszlo Pinter

When you start a Windows 10 guest machine in VirtualBox on your workstation, you can set up shared folders to seamlessly copy files between your workstation and the Windows 10 guest machine.

The shared folder appears in Windows Explorer as a mapped network location.

For more on this see Configure the Windows virtual machine in VirtualBox

On a Windows 7 guest machine the Git Bash, Command Prompt, and PowerShell windows all can see the mapped E: network drive, so you can change the working directory with

cd E:

and execute commands in the shared folders.

On a Windows 10 guest machine, only the PowerShell window can see the shared folder as a mapped network drive, E:

Command prompt will display the error message

The system cannot find the drive specified

When you try to start the Git Bash window with Git Bash Here, nothing happens.

If you start Git Bash from the menu and try to change the working directory to the E: drive, you get the error message

bash: cd: /e: No such file or directory

Map the shared drive

If you need to use the Command prompt or the Bash terminal, you can temporarily map the shared folder

Open the Command Prompt on the Windows 10 guest machine
Execute the command

net use x: \\vboxsvr\Users

Automate the drive mapping

Mapped drives are user-specific so if you want to use a mapped drive as an Administrator, you have to map is as Administrator.

Enable the visibility of the mapped drives

Start Regedit
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Create a DWORD value EnableLinkedConnections with the value 1
Restart the computer

Create the automated process to map the drive of the host computer

Create a new batch file in your Documents folder: map_drive.bat
```
net use x: \\vboxsvr\Users
```
Create a new scheduled task: Map the Mac file system to X
1. Set the user account to SYSTEM
2. Run with highest privileges
3. Configure for Windows 10
4. Set the trigger to startup
5. Create a new action

To use the Bash terminal

Open the Bash terminal in a directory on the C: drive
Change to the shared directory with
```
cd /x/...
```

To use the command prompt

Open the command prompt
Change to the shared directory with
```
x:
cd ...
```

Configure the Ubuntu virtual machine in VirtualBox

Posted on October 3, 2017October 6, 2017 by Laszlo Pinter

Enable shared folders on the virtual machines

To be able to use shared folders between the host ( your workstation ) and the virtual machine.

Start the Ubuntu virtual machine in Virtual Box,
Select the virtual machine window on your workstation,
In the Devices menu of Virtual Box select Insert Guest Additions CD image…
Click the Run button,
Enter your admin password and click Authenticate,
Select the terminal window and press Enter,
Restart the virtual machine for the change to take effect,
In Ubuntu
1. Open a terminal window,
2. In the upper left corner of the desktop click the Search icon,
3. Type terminal into the search box,
4. Select the Terminal icon.
In the Terminal window create a directory for the mount point
```
mkdir ~/host-share
sudo chmod 777 ~/host-share
```
Mount the Shared Windows location. Get the Machine Folder name from the virtual machine’s Shared Folders tab in VirtualBox

(If you shared the root of a Windows C: drive, the name is “C_DRIVE”.)
```
sudo mount -t vboxsf -o uid=$UID,gid=$(id -g) MY_MACHINE_FOLDER_NAME ~/host-share
```

Source: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VirtualBox/SharedFolders

Make the mounting permanent

Create the folder /opt/scripts

Create a new file in the new folder mount_host_share

#!/bin/sh
# Mount the Host Share to see the host computer's file system
echo MY_PASSWORD | sudo -S mount -t vboxsf -o uid=1000,gid=1000 MY_MACHINE_FOLDER_NAME ~/host-share

Make the file executable
```
chmod +x /opt/scripts/mount_host_share
```
On the Ubuntu desktop click the Search icon and type startup, and click the Startup Applications icon
On the Startup Applications Preferences window click Add,
Enter the Name and this Command, and click Save
```
/opt/scripts/mount_host_share
```

The shared drive appears in the File manager.

Relax the password requirement

The virtual machine is already protected by the operating system of the host, your workstation, so it is not necessary to enter the password every time you want to switch to the guest machine. To remove the password requirement

Click the System Settings icon in the sidebar,
Uncheck the Waking from suspend and Returning from blank screen checkboxes.

Configure the Windows virtual machine in VirtualBox

Posted on October 3, 2017December 1, 2017 by Laszlo Pinter

Enable shared folders on the virtual machine

To be able to use shared folders between the host ( your workstation ) and the Windows virtual machine.

Start the Windows virtual machine in VirtualBox,
Select the virtual machine window on your workstation,
In the Devices menu of VirtualBox select Insert Guest Additions CD image…
In the virtual machine start Windows Explorer,
Open the VirtualBox Guest Additions CD,
Start VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe,
On the User Account Control popup click Yes,
Click Next on the setup page,
Click Next on the path selection page,
Click the Install button,
Save all your documents on the virtual machine, and allow the reboot of the virtual machine for the changes to take effect.

The shared folders will be available in the virtual machine’s Windows Explorer under Network locations as the E: drive

Important

Refresh

When an application copies or deletes files and folders in the displayed shared folder, click the Refresh button to see the new state of the directory. Windows usually does not refresh the view of the shared folder.

Command window

On a Windows 10 guest machine, the Git Bash and Command Prompt windows cannot see the mapped shared folders. To execute commands in shared folders, use the PowerShell window. For more see Git Bash and Command Prompt cannot see the VirtualBox shared folder on Windows 10 guest

VirtualBox installation and configuration on Windows

Posted on October 3, 2017October 3, 2017 by Laszlo Pinter

Download Virtual Box from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and follow the instructions to install it.

At the time of writing this was the section where the installer files were referenced

virtual-box-01-download

Run the downloaded installer file and accept all default values.

The installer starts the Virtual Box application.You can close it, we will use other tools to start it in the future.

To be able to launch 64-bit guest operating systems turn off Hyper-V in Windows Features

In the Windows search box enter Windows Features and select Turn Windows Features on or off,
Uncheck Hyper-V and click OK,
Reboot the computer for the setting to take effect.

Create a virtual machine

To create a new virtual machine

Download the OS image from the manufacturer’s web site.

Ubuntu desktop: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop
Ubuntu server: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server

Start the VirtualBox application
Click the New icon
Enter a name, select the operating system type and version, and set the memory size,
Set the initial size of the virtual hard disk
Select the virtual machine icon and click the Start button,
Click the Browse icon and select the OS image file in the Downloads directory,
Click the Start button

Configure VirtualBox for each virtual machine

Networking

To share the connectivity of the host computer with the virtual machine, mainly if you use VPN

In Virtual box click Settings
Select Network
Attach the network adapter to NAT

Copy and paste

To enable copy and paste between the virtual machine and the host ( your workstation )

On the General tab of the Settings page select the Bidirectional shared clipboard

Shared Folders

Specify the shared folder on your workstation

In the VirtualBox menu select Preferences
On the Shared Folders tab click the + icon
To share the entire system drive, select the C: drive of your workstation

Configure the virtual machine OS

To configure the virtual machine operating system in VirtualBox, see Virtual machine configuration on the VirtualBox page.

VirtualBox installation and configuration on Macintosh

Posted on October 3, 2017October 3, 2017 by Laszlo Pinter

Download VirtualBox from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads and follow the instructions to install it.

At the time of writing, this was the section where the installer files were referenced

virtual-box-01-download

Run the downloaded installer file and accept all default values.

The installer starts the application.

Create a virtual machine

To create a new virtual machine

Download the OS image from the manufacturer’s website.

Ubuntu: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Start the VirtualBox application
Click the New icon
Click the Expert Mode button
Enter the name, select the operating system type and version, and set the memory size,
Set the initial size of the virtual hard disk, and click the Create button,
Select the virtual machine icon and click the Start button
Click the Browse icon and select the OS image file in the Downloads directory,
Click the Start button,

Configure VirtualBox for each virtual machine

Networking

To share the connectivity of the host computer with the virtual machine, mainly if you use VPN

In VirtualBox select the virtual machine icon and click Settings
Select Network
Attach the network adapter to NAT

If your company use automated software installation and updates, set up a second network connection using the Bridged Adapter. This way the virtual machine will get an independent IP address in the same IP address range as the host machine.

Select the Adapter 2 tab,
Select the Enable Network Adapter checkbox,
Select the Bridged Adapter in the Attached to drop-down,
In the Name drop-down list select the fastest network connection of the host machine.

Copy and paste

To enable copy and paste between the virtual machine and the host ( your workstation )

On the General tab of the Settings page select the Bidirectional shared clipboard

Shared Folders

Specify the shared folder on your workstation

In the VirtualBox menu select Preferences
On the Shared Folders tab click the + icon
Select your home folder on your workstation

Configure the virtual machine OS

To configure the virtual machine operating system in VirtualBox, see Virtual machine configuration on the VirtualBox page.

Send CTRL-ALT-DELETE to a Windows Virtual Box computer from a Macintosh

Posted on June 14, 2017October 6, 2017 by Laszlo Pinter

When you start a Windows 7 or equivalent server machine, to log in, you need to press CTRL-ALT-DELETE on the keyboard to get the login page. To send Control-Alt-Delete to a Windows virtual machine in Virtual Box from a Macintosh

on a Macintosh laptop press the fn – Command – Delete back keys

on a Macintosh desktop press the Command – Delete forward keys.