Virtualbox OSE for Debian

Table of Contents

1. Guest utilities
2. Different versions
3. 64-bit guests
4. How to provide networking to virtual machines
4.1. Mechanism
5. Incompatibilities
6. See also

1. Guest utilities

The guest utilities are provided as separate Debian packages. These packages contain all features virtualbox-ose offers for Debian guests. Guest utilities for operating systems not offering virtualbox-ose packages have to be downloaded from the internet. The upstream provided ISO images cannot be distributed with this package for licensing reasons. The same holds for the externally provided WineD3D extensions.

2. Different versions

The Open Source Edition of VirtualBox contains most but not all features of the closed-source VirtualBox product that is distributed under different terms and available from the Virtualbox homepage. Missing are:

  • Remote Display Protocol (RDP) Server

    This component implements a complete RDP server on top of the virtual hardware and allows users to connect to a virtual machine remotely using any RDP compatible client.

  • USB support

    VirtualBox implements a virtual USB controller and supports passing through USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 devices to virtual machines.

  • USB over RDP

    This is a combination of the RDP server and USB support allowing users to make USB devices available to virtual machines running remotely.

  • iSCSI initiator

    VirtualBox contains a builtin iSCSI initiator making it possible to use iSCSI targets as virtual disks without the guest requiring support for iSCSI.

3. 64-bit guests

Starting with version 2.0.0 VirtualBox also supports 64-bit guest operating systems, under the following conditions:
  • You need a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization support and a 64-bit host operating system.
  • You must run a 64-bit version of VirtualBox on that OS. This can then run both 32-bit and 64-bit VMs; a 32-bit VirtualBox can only run 32-bit VMs, regardless of the hardware.
  • You must enable hardware virtualization; software virtualization is not supported for 64-bit VMs.
There is no specific setting to enable 64-bit support for a guest. However, you should enable the I/O APIC for virtual machines that you intend to use in 64-bit mode.

4. How to provide networking to virtual machines

4.1. Mechanism

VirtualBox can use three alternative mechanisms to provide Ethernet networking to its virtual machines:b

4.1.1. NAT

This is the easiest to use type of setup: The virtual ethernet interface is connected to a virtual NAT router including a DHCP server that is implemented within the VirtualBox host software.

This is the default mode. It usually does not require any extra configuration on the host.

4.1.2. Internal network

In this mode, there is only connectivity within an emulated network shared between two or more virtual machines running in the same VirtualBox instance.

4.1.3. Host interface

The virtual ethernet interface is connected to a real device on the host filtering out its traffic.

5. Incompatibilities

Unfortunately, the configuration files between version version 1.4.0-svn4130 and 1.5.0 the configuration files are incompatible. In order to fix this issue please delete the complete <Uart> section in any ~/.VirtualBox/Machines/NAME/NAME.xml files.

When upgrading from a pre 2.0.0 version to virtualbox might complaing about a missing format attribute in the HardDisk tag of ~/.VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml. Manually adding 'format="vdi"' solves this.

A bug appeared in in kernel 2.6.29 RC5 that broke virtualbox-ose. The fix was added in 2.6.29.1. If you happen to use 2.6.29 and epxerience problems starting your VMs please upgrade. In Debian all linux-image-2.6.29 versions starting with Debian version 2.6.29-2 are fine.

6. See also

Additional and updated information may be found on