One of the really cool aspects of VirtualBox is that it can also work as a virtual machine server. With that you can run an instance of a virtual machine from a remote location. Of course you have to have the piece of software to connect to VirtualBox. On Linux one very handy tool for that is rdesktop. In this article I am going to show you how to connect to a VirtualBox machine using rdesktop.

So far I have covered VirtualDesk fairly extensively so far. The VirtualBox “cannon” includes:

Installing and configuraing VirtualBox for virtual OSes.

Installing Windows XP as a virtual machine in VirtualBox.

Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience.

A new way of thinking, thanks for virtual machines.

Install VirtualBox Guest Additions in Windows 7.

Install VirtualBox with USB support.

Before you read this particular article, you might want to go through the above series so you have a better understanding of VirtualBox.

Configuring your virtual machine

Before you even try to connect to a virtual machine (with any software) you first have to set up your virtual machine so that it will allow connections to be made. VirtualBox uses the VRDP protocol for remote connections. What you need to do is go into the settings of the virtual machine and enable this. NOTE: You have to do this on a VM by VM basis. Just because you enable VRDP on one virtual machine does not mean it will be enabled on all VMs.

Let’s work with a Windows 7 virtual machine. Windows 7 (or Vista) is a special instance because you have to actually enable remote connections within the operating system as well as within VirtualBox. With Windows XP or most instances of Linux, you will not have to do anything beyond enabling VRDP in VirtualBox.

To enable VRDP open up VirtualBox and click on the virtual machine you want to connect to. Now click the Settings button. NOTE: If the settings button is grayed out you need to start that virtual machine and then power it off. If you just save the state of the virtual machine you can not change the settings.

Figure 1

Once inside the settings window click on the Remote Desktop “tab” (see Figure 1).

In this section you will need to click the checkbox for “Enable VRDP Server”. Once that is checked you can configure the options to suit your needs (the defaults work fine for Windows 7) and then click OK when you are finished.

Now it’s time to boot up your Windows 7 virtual machine. When Windows 7 is up and running click on the Start menu and enter “Remote” (no quotes) in the Search area. You will see a few entries in the results. Of those entries click  “Allow remote access to your computer”.  When this new window opens (see Figure 2) you need to check “Allow Remote Assistance connections to this computer” and then check the middle option under the Remote Desktop section.

After you have taken care of this, click OK and you are ready to connect. Time to go over to your remote Linux machine.

Installing and using rdesktop

Installing rdesktop is simple:

1. Open up a terminal window (you’ll need one open anyway).
2. Enter the command sudo apt-get install rdesktop.
3. Enter your sudo command.
4. What rdesktop install.

After rdesktop is installed, you’re ready. To connect to the remote virtual machine you will enter a command like this:

rdesktop -u USER -p PASSWORD -g RESOLUTION -a COLORDEPTH ADDRESS

Where:

• USER is the username of the HOST.
• PASSWORD is the password for the user on the HOST.
• RESOLUTION is the resolution you want to use.
• COLORDEPTH is the amount of colors use (16 or 24).
• ADDRESS is the location of the server housing the virtual machine (including the port).

So the command I use to connect is:

rdesktop -u jlwallen -p password -g 1224x1024 -a 16 192.168.1.100:3389

You will know right away if your connection worked because the virtual machine will open in a new window.

And that’s all it takes. You can use this virtual machine as if it were on your local machine.

Final thoughts

VirtualBox continues to show itself to be one of the most flexible, useful tools available. By employing a simple tool like rdesktop, you can now connect to a centralized virtual machine server with ease.

Related posts

• VirtualBox a Vmware alternative (9)
• Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes (15)
• Install VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows 7 (6)
• Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience (5)
• Installing An Operating System With Virtual PC 2007 (2)

Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes.

Installing Windows XP as a virtual machine in VirtualBox.

Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience.

A new way of thinking thanks to virtual machines.

Although the Guest Additions tool has been covered already, if you’ve tried using Windows 7 in VirtualBox you will have most likely encountered some issues. The main issue is that Guest Additions isn’t supported. That doesn’t mean it can not be installed. It can, you just have to trick Windows 7 in order to do so. In this article I will show you just how to do so.

The basic installation

The first thing you need to do is get Windows 7 installed as a virtual machine. You can follow the directions for installing Windows XP. The only difference will be selecting the version of Windows you will be installing. Even though Windows 7 is not yet officially supported, there is an entry for the latest Microsoft OS in the dropdown.

After Windows 7 is installed you might notice (depending upon your hardware) that you can not see the task bar. This is because, without the Guest Additions, VirtualBox can not handle the proper resolution for Windows 7. So, it’s obvious you will need this tool.

The trick

The trick for installing Guest Additions in Window 7 is to trick it into thinking it’s being installed in Vista. While Vista is running click on the Devices menu and select Install Guest Additions. You will go through the same steps as you would for installing the Guest Additions on Windows XP at this point. The difference is the actual installer won’t start up. This is where it gets a bit tricky.

The process of installing the Guest Additions will have downloaded a mountable file on your system. If you click on the Windows 7 Start Menu and then click on Computer you will see that file listed along with Local Disk and Floppy Drive (even if you don’t have a floppy drive). Right click the VirtualBox Guest Additions entry (it will probably be labeled as “D”) and select Open.

In the resulting window you will see a number of files. Among these files you will see listed entries for both x86 and 64bit. These files are called:

VBoxWindowsAdditions-amd64

VBoxWindowsAdditions-x86

Figure 1

Which file you use will depend upon what hardware you are using. Right click the one you want to use and select Troubleshoot Compatibility (see Figure 1). This will walk you through a Wizard that will attempt to solve the problem. Most likely it won’t, so you will have to do so manually. When the wizard has finished you will have two options: Try Recommended Settings and Troubleshoot Program. Select Troubleshoot Program and then, in the new window, select the first entry which is

Figure 2

“The program worked in earlier versions of Windows but won’t install or run now.” After you select this option click the Next button and then select Vista from the list (see Figure 2). Once you have selected that option click Next and then, in the resulting window, click the “Start the Program” button. This will actually start the process of installing the Guest Additions for Windows 7. You can now finish this install as you would any other.

Final thoughts

I am confident when Windows 7 is finally released this process won’t be necessary. But if you need to test out Windows 7 now, this is the way to go.

Related posts

• VirtualBox a Vmware alternative (9)
• Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes (15)
• Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience (5)
• Connect to a remote virtual machine with rdesktop (5)
• WinShake Adds Aero Peek And Share To Windows Vista and XP (2)

Recently, however, I have adopted a new way of working with all of the various operating systems I have to deal with. Virtual Machines. By using virtual machines I have the best of all possible worlds at my fingertips. Let’s take a peek at exactly how I am doing this and why.

VirtualBox

You will remember a while back I covered VirtualBox. If you missed those articles, here they are:

• Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes.
• Installing Windows XP as a virtual machine in VirtualBox.
• Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience.

Once you have read through the above articles you will be familiar enough with VirtualBox that you will understand the concepts of this article better.

Why I chose Virtual Machines over standard methods

As I stated earlier, I am constantly having to install, re-install, uninstall, etc various operating systems. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to keep an installation for testing as I install another operating system. This is all fine and good and dual booting certainly has its pros and cons. But ultimately being able to save a machine state and close the OS has advantages that dual booting simply can not touch. Here are some obvious reason to use virtual machines over standard methods:

Cost: Instead of having to burn through CDs/DVDs you can download ISO images directly to your drive and install a virtual machine from there. You will also require less hard disk space since the Virtual Machine will use dynamic-sized virtual drives.

Time: No more rebooting into a different OS. Save your OS state and shut it down. The next time you need that OS start the VM and it will return in the exact same state it was in when you saved it.

Efficiency: While you’re installing a new virtual machine you can continue working on the same PC. The installation of the VM happens within its own window allowing you to go about your business.

Testing: I often test a lot of software and sometimes in the testing I can fubar an perfectly good installation. Saving states allows you to go back to a previously saved state prior to the fubar’ing.

Stability: I use a laptop for my Windows work. That laptop has Vista Home Premium installed. Yeah. Needless to say I am constantly having to baby that OS to keep it running right. Prior to using Virtual Machines I would have to reboot from Linux to Windows and hope that the Vista install was still working properly. Now, thanks to Virtual Machines, I just fire up the VM from the last working saved state and all is well. I am still working within a much more familiar (and stable IMHO) host operating system – Ubuntu.

Space saving: Prior to employing virtual machines my office was littered with PCs. Now it’s free and clear (and the office is much cooler without all of those PCs taking up space), because all of my “machines” are housed in one simple environment.

Drawbacks

There is but one real drawback to this setup. You have to have a machine powerful enough to dedicate the resources to the virtual machines. My laptop has 3 gigs of RAM. When running Vista on its own you would think it was a machine from a decade ago. Using VMs I can run a host OS and a couple of guests without seeing much of a decline is performance. Now I will suggest not using KDE 4 as your guest desktop. Stick with either GNOME or a lighter weight desktop so to save resources for more important work.

Final thoughts

I hope this article has helped you understand why virtual machines are the way to go when you need multiple OSes for multiple reasons. I have not had a single problem since employing VMs for all of my testing purposes. I hope you find yourself having the same experience. Have you employed Virtual Machines for your work? If so, tell us why.

Related posts

• Installing a Windows XP as a virtual machine on VirtualBox (12)
• VirtualBox a Vmware alternative (9)
• Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes (15)
• Install VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows 7 (6)
• Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience (5)

In my default setup of Windows XP, on my particular Ubuntu 9.04 box, the installation of Windows XP rendered a perfectly usable desktop with 32 bit colors in 800×600 resolution. This resolution, of course, is not ideal for some situations (such as Full Screen mode). In order to get a higher resolution, along with other features, you have to install Guest Additions. This is a simple process that can be done quickly and yields a much better user experience than the default. So…let’s get to the installation.

Figure 1

Before you attempt to do the installation of the guest additions you have to have your virtual machine up and running. Once that VM is running you will see three menu entries at the top of the window: Machine, Devices, and Help. You want to click on the Devices entry and then click the Install Guest Additions entry (see Figure 1).

What you will see is a warning message instructing you that the Guest Additions CD image could not be found. Fear not, this is normal. Click Yes in order to download the image and then Download to confirm. You will see a progress bar at the bottom left of your VM window.

When that download has finished you will be asked if you want to Mount the image. Click the Mount button to reveal the Sun xVM setup wizard. Click Next in the welcome screen which will take you to the license agreement window. Click the I Agree button (and read the license if you feel so inclined.)

Figure 2

What you are now doing is a fairly straightforward Windows application-like installation. The only “gotcha” during installation will be a warning that the software did not pass the Windows Logo testing. Ignore this warning and click Continue Anyway. Your screen will flicker for a second – don’t worry.

You will see this warning another time when it attempts to install software for the pointing devices.

After that warning the installation will complete and, in typical Windows fashion, you will be required to reboot your virtual machine. Do this. When the reboot completes you will find your virtual machine much easier to work with. Now:

• You no longer have to capture the mouse pointer.
• You can set your resolution to a much higher level.
• You can now copy and paste between guest and host operating systems.
• You can run Windows in seamless mode.

Seamless mode

Figure 3

Seamless mode is a very interesting trick. What this does is take the elements of Windows out of the VM window and layer them on top of your Linux desktop.

As you can see, in Figure 3, with seamless mode activated all Windows applications have their own window. So in this instance Internet Explorer appears to be running on Linux by itself. And the Windows task bar is resting nicely on top of the GNOME panel.

You toggle between seamless and non-seamless mode by pressing the Hot Key and the “L” key. The default Hot Key is the right Ctrl key.

Final thoughts

This is truly some exciting work. With the help of VirtualBox you can, effectively, have your cake and eat it too (as the saying goes.) Work with Windows applications inside of Linux without needing the help of Wine.

Related posts

• VirtualBox a Vmware alternative (9)
• Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes (15)
• Where do I find Linux software? (9)
• Installing a Windows XP as a virtual machine on VirtualBox (12)
• Install VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows 7 (6)

Now I am using the open source version of VirtualBox so no USB support is included. Outside of that – everything should work exactly as expected.

Figure 1

Before you actually read this article make sure you have read through the first article and have VirtualBox installed.Once installed you can fire up VirtualBox and you will see a window similar to that in Figure 1. The only difference being that in my example there is already a virtual machine installed. And even though the currently installed VM is Windows XP, we can still install another XP instance. You can have as many instances of a single OS as you want so long as you have the room for it.

With that said, let’s begin the process.

The first thing to do is to click the New button which will start up the Wizard. This wizard, just like the setup wizard shown in the original article, is very user-friendly and makes for installing a virtual machine a breeze.

The first screen is just a welcome screen – click the Next button to move on to the first real interactive screen.

Figure 2

OS Name/Type

The first screen (shown in Figure 2) will require you to give the VM a name and select the operating system. Since I already have a VM called Windows XP I will name this new version something different.

After you have configured the name and the OS type click the Next button to move on.

Virtual Memory

The next screen requires you to select the amount of memory you want to dedicate to your Virtual Machine. Use caution with this setting. You have to still have enough memory left for your host operating system to run. By default VirtualBox will offer you the minimum required to run the virtual machine. This is fine if you don’t plan on doing much with the VM. If, however, you plan on running particular applications that are memory intensive, you should bump up the virtual memory a bit.

Hard Drive

This next screen was explained in detail in the original article – refer back to that for details. Once you have finished that section, you are ready to finalize your virtual machine and begin installation. Click Finish and you’re ready.

Powering it on

Now put your OS cd into the CD drive, select the virtual machine you want to use, and click the Start button. The first thing you will see is an information box instructing you how to capture and rekease your cursor. This is important to know, otherwise you will find yourself not being able to use your mouse outside of VirtualBox. To capture the cursor in VirtualBox you just click the mouse inside of the machine window. To release the cursor you hit the Ctrl key on the right side of your keyboard. That’s it. Click through that warning and you’re ready to rock.

Figure 3

What happens now is pretty much a standard installation of Windows. This will generally take about the same amount of time a normal installation will take. When you are finished you will have a working install of Windows XP (as shown in Figure 3).

You will notice XP is inside of a window. Within that window is a menu with three choices. One of those menus you will use quite often is the Machine menu. Of course you can not get to it if the virtual machine has captured your cursor. If you are working within your VM, and you want to get to that menu, click the right Ctrl key and your cursor is released.

From the Machine menu you can do a number of things such as:

• Change the view mode to full screen.
• Take a snapshot of the current state of your virtual machine.
• Pause your virtual machine.
• Shutdown your virtual machine.
• Close your virtual machine.

Figure 4

Instead of going through the standard process of shutting down Windows XP the easiest method of shutdown is to first Pause the virtual machine and then Close the virtual machine. When you pause the VM the screen will turn gray (see Figure 4) and you can then close that machine.

When you click Close you will see another window asking if you want to just close the machine or if you want to save the machine state before you close it. If you haven’t saved the machine recently go ahead and select save machine state.

Now when you start that Virtual Machine back up it will start up in the same state it was when you closed it. Imagine starting up Windows XP in less than 5 seconds! That is what you will experience when starting a virtual machine from a saved state.

When all of your machines are closed you can then exit VirtualBox from the File menu of the main window.

Final thoughts

I hope your experience with VirtualBox is as good as mine. I have used a number of virtual machine software – from costly proprietary to free open source and I have to say that VirtualBox is one of the best.

Related posts

• VirtualBox a Vmware alternative (9)
• Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes (15)
• Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience (5)
• A new way of thinking thanks to virtual machines (8)
• Yoggie PICO Personal Mobile Security Computer (3)

VirtualBox is easy to install – as easy as any other Linux application found within your distributions’ repositories. For this article we will be using Ubuntu Desktop 9.04. There will be no need to add any repository information.

Installing VirtualBox

As already stated, you will find VirtualBox within the repository of the Ubuntu distribution. So to install VirtualBox open up the Add/Remove Applications utility (found in the Applications menu), do a search for “virtualbox” (no quotes), select the correct results, and click the Apply to install the software.

After Virtualbox is installed there is one thing you must take care of. Without adding your user to the vboxusers group you will never be able to run VirtualBox as a standard user.

Adding the user to the group

Figure 1

This is actually quite easy. Go to the System menu and click on the Administration submenu. From that submenu select the Users and Groups entry. In the window that opens (see Figure 1) you will click the Manage Groups button. But before you click that button select a user and then click the Unlock button. This will give you administrative rights for this tool (you will have to enter your user password).

When this new window opens scroll all the way down until you see the vboxusers group. Select that group and then click

Figure 2

Properties. In this new window (see Figure 2) select the user you want to add to the group and then select OK.

You can now close out the Groups and the Users tools. You are ready to start using Virtualbox.

Starting VirtualBox

You will find the VirtualBox listing in the Accessories submenu of the Applications menu. Click on that and VirtualBox will start.

Before you can actually start installing a virtual machine you have to take care of some administrative tasks. Never fear, though, this is all handled by a very easy to use Wizard that will walk you through every step of the way. The only instance you might get tripped up is Virtual Hard

Figure 3

Disk step. Before VirtualBox can install an OS it has to have a virtual hard drive. This will happen around step 4 of the wizard (see Figure 3). In order to create a new virtual hard drive you have to click the New button. This will then take you into a completely different wizard. Again, this wizard is very simple and walks you through step by step.

Once you have created a virtual hard drive you will be taken back to the same screen as you were in for step 4. The only difference is your virtual hard drive will now be listed. You can now click Next to move on. The final screen will give you all of the information you have configured and you can then click Finish.

You are now ready to create a virtual machine. In my next article we will discuss the process of of creating a virtual machine.

Final thoughts

VirtualBox is an outstanding tool with almost limitless possibility for any administrator, developer, or computer user. It’s simplicity is only outshined by its possibilities.

Related posts

• VirtualBox a Vmware alternative (9)
• Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience (5)
• Installing An Operating System With Virtual PC 2007 (2)
• Installing a Windows XP as a virtual machine on VirtualBox (12)
• Install VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows 7 (6)

I would advise to begin by downloading the excellent user manual which should answer most questions about installing and configuring guest systems using Virtualbox. It takes some time to read through the 108 pages of the manual but it is well worth it to understand the functionality.

Just download the 10 megabyte file from the VirtualBox website or as a torrent and install the software. Installation is really easy in Windows (just a double-click) but a little bit more complicated in Linux. Check the user manual for a detailed instruction for Linux.

I do not want to explain a detailed instruction to setup a new guest system because the user manual explains everything in such great detail that it does not feel necessary at all. You basically create a new virtual machine and assign a name, ram and hard drive space to it and select a source for the installation of the guest system. The source can be from hard drive or cd for instance, just make sure you have the source at hand.

Related posts

• Create and edit vector graphics for free (10)
• Manage your Tasks with Task Coach (3)
• KompoZer, a free, open-source and half-decent WYSIWYG web editor (3)
• Installing and configuring VirtualBox for virtual OSes (15)
• Install Guest Additions for a better VirtualBox experience (5)