VirtualBox: key concepts and features

Key Concepts

·        Host operating system

·        Guest Operating System

·        Guest Additions

·        Virtual Machine (VM)

the special environment that VirtualBox creates for a guest OS while it is running.

Virtual Networking

VirtualBox provides up to 8 virtual PCI Ethernet cards. for each virtual machine.

Networking Modes

·        Network Address Translation (NAT)

It is the default value, it is used when no services are hosted. Services will be reachable with 127.0.0.1:port

·        Bridged Networking

It provides direct external access to the VMs. VMs will user the host physical network adapter directly.

·        Internal Networking

It is used to create a network containing the host and a set of virtual machines, without the need for the host's physical network interface. Every internal network is identified simply by its name, once there is more than one active virtual network card with the same internal network ID, the VirtuaBox support driver will automatically "wire" the cards and act as a network switch.

·        Host-only Networking

A virtual network interface is created on the host, it provides the connectivity among virtual machines and the host. A service hosted in a VM could use a Host-only Networking to talk to a database hosted in another VM, then use a bridged networking to expose services.

Remote Display (VRDP) Support

VirtualBox Remote Display Protocol (VRDP) is a backwards-compatible extension to Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

VBoxManage

Command-line interface to VirtualBox.

Importing and exporting Virtual Machines

VMs could be imported and exported using the Open Virtualization Format (OVF).