So everybody and their mother has a virtualization product now. Too bad all the vendors could not standardize on the same key (or key combinations) that releases the mouse from a virtual machine’s (VM) console window. Until that day happens (don’t hold your breath) this post will be my listing of known host key or key combinations by vendor and product for when your mouse is stuck in a VM.

Please leave a comment on any products I have not included and I’ll update the list.

Updated 10.03.08 – corrected key combination for Mac versions and created separate rows for VMware Fusion and Parallels Workstation

One of the posts I used as a research reference was Common Virtualization Keyboard Shortcuts from x86virtualization.com. Check out this post for a complete listing all keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft and VMware products besides the one for escaping the mouse from the VM console.

A lot more will be known about the open source, bare metal installed xVM Server after Sun’s scheduled event today, but for now some quick pre release screen shots and general information is available at xvmserver.org. xVM Server promises to be a free virtualization platform alternative based on Xen and Solaris technologies that can be managed via a web interface. Judging by the growing popularity of Sun’s desktop virtualization product, xVM Virtualbox, the availability of xVM Server should be an exciting new option for administrators looking to consolidate physical data centers today.

Taken directly from the xvmserver.org site, the following is some quick information: (more…)

It’s the week before VMworld and a lot is happening outside of VMware. I’ve already posted about Microsoft’s Virtualization Launch stealing the spot light before VMworld, and now Sun has announced it’s intentions to do the same. In fact, after allowing just enough time for the hype from the event in Bellevue, WA on Monday to fade, Sun plans on announcing it’s xVM Portfolio on Wednesday (September 10). Although not quite the party that Microsoft and VMware are throwing, Sun’s live web presentation and chat scheduled for 9 a.m. PST should be exciting as they are introducing the bigger picture for Sun xVM, and how Sun xVM Ops Center, Sun xVM Server, Sun xVM VDI, and Sun xVM VirtualBox fit together.

More information on Sun’s virtualization products is available on the xVM web page. Taken from this page, here is a brief summary of the products in the xVM Portfolio.

Personally I am very interested in the (more…)

I’m writing this post with a smile from ear to ear. I’m happy because virtualization and Internet streaming video technologiy worked together to allow me to watch the Georgia Bulldogs season opener against Georgia Southern. I’m smiling because I watched the game inside a VirtualBox Windows XP virtual machine (VM) hosted on Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop, and I did not think it would work. Not only does it work, and I mean smooth video with minimal disruptions (I used a wireless connection too), but it worked in Seemless Mode. I’m smiling from ear to ear because the Bulldogs won 45 - 21.

The football game’s broadcast was only available via the pay per view ESPN Gameplan or on ESPN360.com. I was familiar with the Gameplan package through my cable provider but I had never used ESPN360.com to watch a game. After I learned ESPN360.com was free to use for customers with AT&T high speed (and other high speed providers) I decided to give it a try. Although the media player plug in can work with both Internet Explorer and Firefox, it still requires a Windows operating system. Since I run Ubuntu at home I decided I would give it a try with my VirtualBox XP guest.

The image in this post is a screenshot of my Ubuntu desktop and the Internet Exporer 7 window in VirtualBox Seemless mode. (more…)

VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation, VMware Player, Virtual PC, Virtualbox, and Parrallels all have various supported and unsupported abilities to run 3-D games and applications in guest operating systems. I’m sure there are other platforms with this ability too. Not that any of us have the time to “test enhanced graphics applications” on virtual infrastructure, but it would be convenient to have a centralized list of known working games. Although, I have not tested any of the actual games, I do use a Virtualbox XP VM to provide my sons web based gaming at family sites like Playhouse Disney and Nickolodeon. To be honest I was surprised when even these Flash and ActiveX based games worked (I’m guessing that’s what kind of games they are).

Here are some general assumptions (based on what I understand about Sun xVM Virtualbox, VMware Fusion, and VMware Workstation’s current capabilities) about using 3-D in virtual machines. (more…)

I was banging my head against my desk trying to make shared folders work in VirtualBox 1.64 on my WinXP notebook inside an Ubuntu 8.04 guest. I kept getting a “protocol error” failure.

Here’s the scenario I was working with:

• I created a Windows folder on my notebook to share to the guests - f:\shared2vms
• I added the folder to the shared folders properties of the Ubuntu VM and named it shared2vms
• I created a folder at /home/username/shared2vms to be the mount point of the VirtualBox shared folder in the Ubuntu guest

For a Linux guest in VirtualBox the command to use the shared folder is “mount -t vboxsf [shared folder name] [mount point]”

So, the command I was using

#sudo mount -t vboxsf shared2vms /home/user/shared2vms

After some creative Google -ing I luckily found this Virtualbox.org forum thread that solved the issue - (more…)

Rick Vanover keeps posting great articles about the various features of Sun’s xVM VirtualBox over at TechTarget’s Server Virtualization Blog. Picking up where I left off on my previous summary post of Rick’s work, check out the following new VirtualBox features articles. (more…)

Download pre-built, complete Linux virtual machines for Sun xVM Virtualbox from veeDee-Eyes.com. More from the web site:

“About:
veeDee-Eyes.com was created to provide users with complete, functional Open Source Virtual Computers.
We download the distribution ISOs. Try and follow the installation instructions. We attempt to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions. VirtualBox VDIs that have the Guest Additions installed are noted on the VDI page.

Build Notes:
Unless noted in the “Build Notes” there are

• No additional packages added.
• No update performed.
• Only default options are used when ever possible

The goal is to create a CLEAN virtual computer. You get exactly what the creators of the “Operating System” designed in a STANDARD installation. From there you can make it your own.”

To use these VDI files you just need to do the following: (more…)

I already commented about Rick Vanover’s series of articles on Sun’s xVM VirtualBox, but I decided to make a more detailed how to tutorial on using the headless RDP features. This tutorial explains a step by step process for remotely creating virtual machine hardware, installing the VM operating system, and managing the VM using the VBoxHeadless console command. This post uses the steps from the VirtualBox User Manual found in Section 7.4 titled Remote Virtual Machines (VRDP support)

The following information is copied from the User Manual and provides a good general overview of the goal of this tutorial:

“VirtualBox therefore comes with yet another front-end that produces no visible out-put on the host at all, but instead only delivers VRDP data. With VirtualBox 1.6, this “headless server” is now aptly called VBoxHeadless. (In previous versions, it was called VBoxVRDP. For the sake of backwards compatibility, the VirtualBox installation still installs an executable with that name as well.)

To start a virtual machine with VBoxHeadless, you have two options:

• You can use VBoxManage startvm -type vrdp. The extra -type option causes the VirtualBox core to use VBoxHeadless as the front-end to the internal virtualization engine.

• The recommended way, however, is to use VBoxHeadless directly, as follows:

VBoxHeadless -startvm

This is the recommended way, because when starting the headless interface through VBoxManage, you will not be able to view or log messages that VBoxHeadless may have output on the console. Especially in case of startup errors, such output might be desirable for problem diagnosis.”

Although using the VboxHeadless command is simple, it is a series of console commands. This can be considered inconvenient to many administrators that are used to the point and click functionality of VMware’s products. In my opinion, it would nice to see VirtualBox release a web gui or a toolkit of scripts that can automate these commands. The VirtualBox user community has published some scripts for basic headless VM administration, but I could not find any scripts that actually create new VMs.

Read on for the tutorial.

(more…)

I have already posted about Sun xVM VirtualBox as a great open source alternative to VMware Workstation. ZDNet also wrote a comparison article of VirtualBox and and VMware Server that I reported on here at VM /ETC. I’ve been using VirtualBox as a free virtualization solution (replace VMware Server 1.5) on my notebook since Sun’s version 1.6 was released. So, when Rick Vanover began his series of posts on the SearchServerVirtualization Blog about VirtualBox I was more than interested. This post is a summary of (and links to) Rick’s posts with some of my personal experiences and opinions thrown in.

Networking Features

In my opinion, one of the biggest adjustments between VMware’s products and VirtualBox is having to
(more…)

Jason Perlow of blogs.zdnet.com has written a great feature comparison post of the 2 best multi-platform, free virtualization products in my opinion - Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.6 and VMware Server 2.0 Beta 2.

Personally, I used to run VMware Server 1.x on my XP notebook until I was tempted to try VMware’s first beta of version 2.0. Although not an officially supported OS for any version of VMware Server, my use of Server on XP was for basic research and test purposes, and I chose the free version over VMware Workstation. Like most, after the switch to 2.0 beta 1 I experienced frustration with the web interface. Now, since I discovered Sun’s xVM VirtualBox 1.6 seamless feature and the ability to run virtual machines created in VMware’s .vmdk format, I have switched. I am extremely happy with VirtualBox, and I even consider it to be a closer open-source replacement for VMware Workstation with features that rival the still in beta version of Workstation 6.5. I also use VirtualBox 1.6 on both 64 bit and 32 bit Ubuntu at home.

Jason’s comparison focuses on using the products in a true virtualization host capacity, and he provides some interesting performance analysis. (more…)

Innotek VirtualBox is a free, open-source alternative to VMware workstation. Aquired by Sun Microsystems earlier this year, VirtualBox has quickly become one of the leading developer platforms for the desktop with current features that rival even VMware’s latest version 6.5 currently in beta testing. I have used VirtualBox in the past, but because I had not used it in over almost over a year I was not aware of the latest features in the most recent releases. The feature that specifically caught my attention was the seamless window integration of Microsoft Windows virtual machines. Like VMware Workstation and Fusion’s Unity feature, VirtualBox allows Windows applications in the VM to pop out of the VM session making it available from the host operating system’s desktop.

Quoting from Sun’s announcement: (more…)