10 VirtualBox Tricks and Advanced Features You Should Know About
VirtualBox is
packed with features that you may have never used, even if you
frequently use it to run virtual machines. VMware keeps many of its best
features to its paid versions, but all of VirtualBox’s features are
completely free.
Many of the features here require Guest Additions installed in your
virtual machine. This is good to do anyway, as installing the Guest
Additions package will speed up your virtual machines.
Snapshots
VirtualBox can create snapshots that save a virtual machine’s state. You
can revert to the saved state at any time by restoring a snapshot.
Snapshots are similar to leaving a virtual machine in a saved state, but
you can have multiple saved states and restore from them at any time.
To create a snapshot, click the Machine menu while the virtual machine
is running and select Take snapshot or use the Snapshots panel. You can
restore snapshots from this interface later.
Snapshots are particularly useful if you want to do something to a
virtual machine and then erase your changes. For example, if you use a
virtual machine to test software, you can create a snapshot of a clean
Windows system, then install the software and play with it. When you’re
done, you can restore the original snapshot and all traces of the
software will be erased. You don’t have to reinstall your guest
operating system or manually back up and restore a virtual machine’s
files.
Seamless Mode
Seamless mode allows you to break windows out of your guest operating
system window and place them on your host operating system’s desktop.
For example, if you use VirtualBox to run an important Windows program
on your Linux desktop, you can use Seamless mode to have that Windows
program be present on your Linux desktop.
To use this feature, install VirtualBox’s Guest Additions package inside
the virtual machine, select the View menu, and click Switch to Seamless
Mode.
3D Support
VirtualBox has basic support for 3D graphics. You’ll have to go out of
your way to enable this — the appropriate drivers aren’t installed by
default when you install Guest Additions and you must manually enable
these settings from the virtual machine’s settings window.
The 3D support won’t allow you to play the latest 3D games, but it does
allow you to enable Windows Aero desktop effects in the virtual machine
and play older 3D games that aren’t too demanding.
USB Devices
You can connect USB devices to your computer and expose them to the
virtual machine as if they were connected directly. This feature can be
used with USB drives and a variety of other devices. As long as USB
support is enabled in the virtual machine’s settings window, you can
click the Devices tab, point to USB Devices, and select the USB devices
you want to connect.
Shared Folders
VirtualBox allows you to set up “shared folders” that both the host
operating system and guest operating system can access. To do this,
VirtualBox essentially takes a folder on the host operating system and
uses network file sharing to make it accessible inside the virtual
machine. Configure shared folders from the virtual machine’s settings
window and then access or mount them as you’d mount normal network
shares.
Shared Clipboard and Drag and Drop
Copy and paste and drag and drop don’t work between the guest and host
operating systems by default. However, VirtualBox allows you to share
your clipboard between your guest operating system and host operating
system, making copy-and-paste work properly. You can also use drag and
drop to easily move files back and forth. Both of these features reduce
the friction of using software inside a virtual machine, but they’re
disabled by default.
Cloning Virtual Machines
VirtualBox allows you to clone a virtual machine, creating a copy of it.
If you try to copy-paste the files manually, you’ll end up with
problems because both virtual machines will use the same identifier
number for their virtual disks. When you clone a virtual machine,
VirtualBox will ensure they don’t conflict with each other.
Port Forwarding
Virtual machines are normally isolated from the network. If you’d like
to run server software inside a virtual machine, you’ll probably want
to set up port forwarding so
the server software is reachable from outside of the virtual machine.
You’ll find this option in the Network settings pane, under Advanced.
You could also opt to connect the virtual machine directly to the
network instead of using NAT, but NAT with port forwarding may be a
better way to only allow specific ports through without changing your
network settings too much.
Importing and Exporting VM Appliances
Appliances are virtual machines with preinstalled operating systems. You
can create your own appliances or download appliances in OVF format and
import them into VirtualBox. This is particularly useful for Linux
virtual machines and other systems that can be distributed freely,
although you could also create your own appliances and distribute them
throughout your organization.
Remote Display
VirtualBox allows you to enable remote display for a virtual machine,
allowing you to run a virtual machine on a headless server or other
remote system and access it from another computer. VirtualBox does this
with “VRDP,” which is backwards compatible with Microsoft’s RDP
protocol. This means you can use the Remote Desktop Connection program
in Windows or any other RDP viewer to access your virtual machine
remotely without the need for any VirtualBox-specific software.
You can also enlarge a virtual machine’s disks in VirtualBox. VirtualBox doesn’t expose this option in its interface, requiring you to use the VBoxManage command instead.
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