This practical book unveils the robust capabilities and easy-to-use graphical interface of VirtualBox to help you to effectively administer and use virtual machines in a home/office environment. You begin by creating your first virtual machine on a Windows/Linux guest operating system and installing guest additions. The book then goes on to discuss the various formats that VirtualBox supports and how it interacts with other formats. The comprehensive instructions will help you to work with all the networking modes offered by VirtualBox. Virtual appliances will be explained in detail–how they help to reduce installation time for virtual machines and run them from VirtualBox.
By the end of this book you will be able to run your own headless VirtualBox server, to create, manage, and run virtual machines in that server from a remote PC.
Deploy and manage a cost-effective virtual environment using VirtualBox
Get up and running with VirtualBox to start working with your own virtual machines
Effectively administer and use virtual machines in a home/office environment
Analyze virtual machines with the most commonly used software tools
Create your first virtual machine with VirtualBox on Windows/Linux with step-by-step instructions and screenshots
What you will learn from this book
Download and install VirtualBox in a Windows/Linux environment
Create your virtual machine on VirtualBox, using Ubuntu Linux Desktop/Windows XP as the “guest” operating system
Share folders and pass information between the host and the guest operating systems
Explore the Hardware 3D Acceleration feature available in Windows and Linux guests
Revert the state of a virtual machine using snapshots
Architect a virtual machine using fixed and dynamically expanding hard drive images and choose the appropriate hard disk controller
Clone hard disks using the Virtual Media Manager
Connect a virtual machine to the Internet and a local network using the default NAT mode
Illustrations for using WordPress, Drupal, and File Server virtual appliances
Set up a headless server and create, manage, and run virtual machines in that server from a remote PC
