Running Windows in Windows

You can download an .ova appliance for VirtualBox here https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virtual-machines , unzip it, then open it in VistualBox , create a "shared" folder to exchange files with your host....

a very powerful and safe way to experiment without risking the health of your main Windows installation.

The images last only for 3 months, that's good enough for me :)


I see that also a Hyper-V image is available...

VirtualBox and Hyper-V on Windows 10 PRO

I have recently installed Windows PRO. During installation of Hyper-V, it duly warns you that you will no longer be able to use VirtualBox. Which is true, because when I start a VM in VirtualBOx I get the message:


WHvCapabilityCodeHypervisorPresent is FALSE! Make sure you have enabled the 'Windows Hypervisor Platform' feature. (VERR_NEM_NOT_AVAILABLE).
VT-x is not available (VERR_VMX_NO_VMX).


Apparently all you need to do to re-enable VirtualBox is:


open CMD as Administrator
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

reboot your machine

To restore Hyper-V you simply run:
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype on
or
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto


I haven't tested yet but it should work IMHO



bcdedit is this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/bcdedit-command-line-options

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2
path                    \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  fr-FR
inherit                 {globalsettings}
badmemoryaccess         Yes
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {b32f6aed-59a4-11e8-b3f7-b9390bbf0244}
displayorder            {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10
locale                  fr-FR
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence        {b32f6aef-59a4-11e8-b3f7-b9390bbf0244}
displaymessageoverride  Recovery
recoveryenabled         Yes
badmemoryaccess         Yes
isolatedcontext         Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \WINDOWS
resumeobject            {b32f6aed-59a4-11e8-b3f7-b9390bbf0244}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard
hypervisorlaunchtype    Auto

Centos 7 gnome-shell high CPU on VirtualBox

top shows very high CPU usage. and UI is very very slow.

googling around, they say it's probably doing "software" rendering. it makes sense because CPU goes higher when I move something on the screen

in /var/log/Xorg.0.log I find this:

(EE) Failed to load module "vboxvideo" (module does not exist, 0)
(II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI2 capable
(EE) AIGLX: reverting to software rendering


To investigate, I run
sudo glxinfo
sudo lshw -C video
sudo yum list | grep libnvidia
sudo yum list | grep libegl


the output of glxinfo is

name of display: :0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: Chromium
server glx version string: 1.3 Chromium
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, 
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
client glx vendor string: Chromium
client glx version string: 1.3 Chromium
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, 
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
GLX version: 1.3
GLX extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, 
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
OpenGL vendor string: Humper
OpenGL renderer string: Chromium
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Chromium 1.9
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.30 - Build 10.18.15.4248
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_ARB_draw_buffers, GL_ARB_fragment_program, 
    GL_ARB_fragment_shader, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_multitexture, 
    GL_ARB_occlusion_query, GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object, 
    GL_ARB_point_parameters, GL_ARB_point_sprite, GL_ARB_shader_objects, 
    GL_ARB_shading_language_100, GL_ARB_shadow, GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp, 
    GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_ARB_texture_cube_map, 
    GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, 
    GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3, 
    GL_ARB_texture_float, GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat, 
    GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two, GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, 
    GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, 
    GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_vertex_shader, GL_ARB_window_pos, 
    GL_CR_bounding_box, GL_CR_cursor_position, GL_CR_head_spu_name, 
    GL_CR_performance_info, GL_CR_print_string, GL_CR_readback_barrier_size, 
    GL_CR_saveframe, GL_CR_server_id_sharing, GL_CR_server_matrix, 
    GL_CR_state_parameter, GL_CR_synchronization, GL_CR_tile_info, 
    GL_CR_tilesort_info, GL_CR_window_size, GL_EXT_blend_color, 
    GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate, 
    GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint, 
    GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, 
    GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit, GL_EXT_framebuffer_object, 
    GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays, GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_EXT_shadow_funcs, 
    GL_EXT_stencil_two_side, GL_EXT_stencil_two_side, GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, 
    GL_EXT_texture3D, GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc, 
    GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_add, 
    GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, 
    GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias, GL_EXT_texture_rectangle, GL_EXT_texture_sRGB, 
    GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_NV_texgen_reflection, 
    GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap, GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp

1 GLX Visuals
    visual  x   bf lv rg d st  colorbuffer  sr ax dp st accumbuffer  ms  cav
  id dep cl sp  sz l  ci b ro  r  g  b  a F gb bf th cl  r  g  b  a ns b eat
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0x021 24 tc  0  32  0 r  y y   8  8  8  8 .  .  0 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None

1 GLXFBConfigs:
    visual  x   bf lv rg d st  colorbuffer  sr ax dp st accumbuffer  ms  cav
  id dep cl sp  sz l  ci b ro  r  g  b  a F gb bf th cl  r  g  b  a ns b eat
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0x021 24 tc  0  32  0 r  y .   8  8  8  8 .  .  0 24  8  0  0  0  0  1 1 None

On VirtualBox, 3D acceleration is enabled.

So far no clue... the world of Linux Video drivers is amazingly complex... too complex for a simple human like me...

Installing VirtualBox Guest Additions on Centos7

Apparently in latest VB releases the Guest Additions have to be built directly on the image.

This of course is a pain, because OOTB the Centos7 image doesn't contain the development tools. SO you get a message like "building the main Guest Additions module Failed"


https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/37866/how-to-solve-building-the-main-guest-additions-module-failed


this fixed the problem:

sudo yum install gcc kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

sudo su -
cd /run/media/centos/VBox_GAs_5.2.12/
./autorun.sh

VirtualBox Centos7 high CPU for VBoxClient process

The issue is reported here https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=83507

Occasionally the VBoxClient eats 100% CPU forever - which affects greatly also the host performance - and the only way to stop it is to shut down the VM.

I have: disabled drag-and-drop, disabled shared folder and simply "kill -9" the process - this seems to cause no side effects.

VirtualBox shared folder on Linux Centos guest and Windows host

my main Linux user is "centos".

in VirtualBox, right-click on your VM, Settings, Shared Folder, create an entry with Folder Path = d:\pierre\pvshared and Folder Name = pvshared , check "auto-mount" and "make permanent"

Make sure you have the latest VBoxAdditions installed:

cd /run/media/centos/VBOXADDITIONS_5.1.30_118389/
sudo ./autorun.sh

#group vboxsf should already exist, so this should fail:
sudo groupadd vboxsf
sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf centos

reboot!

login again with your user (centos)

id
uid=1000(centos) gid=1000(centos) groups=1000(centos),983(vboxsf) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023

cd /media/sf_pvshared
touch pippo.txt

you should see the file pippo.txt on your d:\pierre\pvshared folder in Windows

I have also done

sudo chmod 777 /media/sf_pvshared

but I don't think it's required once the centos user is assigned to vboxsf group

CentOS VM in VirtualBox connection to Internet

Panic, my new CentOS VM was unable to connect to internet, no clue what I had done wrong.

Eventually this post gave me the solution https://superuser.com/a/1053605/95314


This is how the Network section is setup (pardon my German)

sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s3

I am adding

DNS1=8.8.8.8
DNS2=8.8.4.4

and changing this to yes

ONBOOT=yes



and "sudo reboot now"

Now I can happily ping google.com

Using Oracle pre-built VM for Oracle VM Manager and Server

No need to install from scratch, you can use these 2 prebuilt VMs:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/vm/template-1482544.html

I download and "import appliance" OracleVMManager3.2.4-b524.ova into VirtualBox. Check that you have 4 GB ram and accept EULA.

Could not start the machine Oracle VM Manager 3.2.4-b524 because the following physical network interfaces were not found:
eth0 (adapter 1)
You can either change the machine's network settings or stop the machine.


"change network settings" and use "host only network". Assign static IP 10.0.0.50, netmask 255.255.255.0, gateway 10.0.0.1, DNS server 10.0.0.1, hostname = ovmm.my.company.com (maybe also 192.168.56.1 could do for gateway and dns)

OVM should start.

Open firefox, log into https://localhost:7002/ovm/console with admin/Welcome1

If your screen gets locked, remember that ovm password is Welcome1.

Now you can import appliance OracleVMServer3.2.4-b525.ova in VirtualBox.

Could not start the machine Oracle VM Server 3.2.4-b525 because the following physical network interfaces were not found:
eth0 (adapter 1), eth1 (adapter 2)
You can either change the machine's network settings or stop the machine.


assign "host only" in the vm settings.

Assign static IP 10.0.0.51, netmask 255.255.255.0, gateway 10.0.0.1, DNS server 10.0.0.1, hostname = ovms1.my.company.com

one the OVM Server is up, you can connect from the OVM Manager opening a terminal windowd : ssh root@10.0.0.51 (pw is ovsroot)

In reality one should use IPs in the range 192.168.56.*



References

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/systems/hands-on-labs/deploy-rac-ovm-cluster-2101019.html?msgid=3-9568010570#2 cool lab on how to setup a OVMManager/Server environment.

Vagrant up fails on Windows 10 with VBoxManage.exe creating the host-only adapter

Bringing machine 'admin' up with 'virtualbox' provider...
==> admin: Clearing any previously set network interfaces...
There was an error while executing `VBoxManage`, a CLI used by Vagrant
for controlling VirtualBox. The command and stderr is shown below.

Command: ["hostonlyif", "create"]

Stderr: 0%...
Progress state: E_FAIL
VBoxManage.exe: error: Failed to create the host-only adapter
VBoxManage.exe: error: Code E_FAIL (0x80004005) - Unspecified error (extended info not available)
VBoxManage.exe: error: Context: "int __cdecl handleCreate(struct HandlerArg *,int,int *)" at line 66 of file VBoxManageHostonly.cpp

Just upgrade to latest vagrant an VirtualBox 5.0.2, it worked for me... even if they say VBOX 5.0.2 is not officially supported... I have no other choice...

Installing Oracle SoaSuite 11g pre-built VM on A Mac Pro (OS-X)

Unfortunately all the instructions on the Oracle site are FOR WINDOWS ONLY (bleah).

On a Mac, installing Virtual Box Manager is just as easy. Download the 6 files (7z split file). Here comes the tricky part, 7Zip is not supported on a Mac. I personally PURCHASED for 2 CHF the "Keka" application, and it was very easy to unpack the 6 files into a oel6-64bit-soasuite-11gr1-ps6-otn.ova file. A free alternative is "The Unarchiver", I have installed it but not tested.

At this point, in Finder, right-click on the oel6-64bit-soasuite-11gr1-ps6-otn.ova file, choose "Open with..." and then "Virtual Box (default)".

I "Start" the VM image, and get an error message about the missing support for USB 2.0. I just remove this option from the VM settings and all runs smoothly (this is explained also in the pre-built VM box instructions).

Login as oracle/oracle and enjoy. You can use also Mac's own terminal to connect: "ssh -X oracle@localhost -p 2222"

Using the -X switch will allow you to use the pre-installed firefox on the VM.... so you avoid fastidious settings on your host machine.

Run firefox, then enter:

http://10.0.2.15:7001/console

or

http://soabpm-vm.site:7001/console

If you find X11 too slow (it was slow on my machine), you can access from the host machine browser:

sudo vi /private/etc/hosts

add this line:

127.0.0.1 soabpm-vm soabpm-vm.site localhost

then enter http://soabpm-vm.site:7001/console/ in your browser, and login as weblogic/welcome1. OSB console available at http://soabpm-vm.site:7001/sbconsole/

eventually also exclude from the proxy settings the 127.0.0.1 and localhost...

VirtualBox: Running a 64 bit host RHEL OS on a 32 bit Windows machine

My VBOX is a

facter | more

architecture => x86_64
hardwareisa => x86_64
hardwaremodel => x86_64
kernelrelease => 2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64
kernelversion => 2.6.32

processor0 => Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3437U CPU @ 1.90GHz

so it clearly expects a 64 bit OS and 64 bit Processor.

My CPU is clearly up to the task, but the host OS is clearly not (Windows 7 32 bit)

Contrary to popular belief, it can be made to work, as long as you are allowed to enable VT-D hardware virtualization in your BIOS (most likely you will have to provide a password).

This is documented here http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html and here http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch10.html#hwvirt.

I have managed to make it work on my laptop, but it has crashed several times with a BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. This seems to happen whenever I hibernate my computer while the Vistual Machine is up and running.

Once more I really regret having to use a Windows guest OS to work...

VirtualBox: setting a home for Virtual Boxes

Sadly, when you install VirtualBox on Linux, by default it chooses your /home/oracle home (my user is oracle) to store the VMs. I hate having stuff installed in my home.

In /home/oracle/.VirtualBox/VirtualBox.xml there is an entry
SystemProperties defaultMachineFolder="/home/oracle/VirtualBox VMs"
You can change this by running VirtualBox and changing preferences (File/Preferences); it's irritating because this requires to open a graphic session, which is not scriptable.



Since in my home partition I have little space, every attempt to create a VM dies with:
vagrant up VBoxManage: error: Could not create the clone medium VERR_DISK_FULL

Another way is to create a symbolic link (mmmmmm) /home/oracle/VirtualBox VMs -> /oracle/VirtualBox VMs
(besides, who chose a folder name containing SPACES???? Are you working at Microsoft or what?)

or also you manually hack the VirtualBox.xml

So far, my experience with Vagrant and VirtualBox has not been very good. These tools still need to be ironed to make them fool (me) proof.

Like, the idea of Vagrant to put all its stuff in a .vagrant.d (initial .) is moronic, it took me a while to find out this hidden repository. I assume you can change this by setting VAGRANT_HOME (see http://emptysquare.net/blog/moving-virtualbox-and-vagrant-to-an-external-drive/ ). It would be so much better if one could choose these settings during an installation phase.

libSDL-1.2.so.0()(64bit) is needed by VirtualBox

trying to install VirtualBox on a RHEL 5.6, I get this error:


sudo rpm -i /opt/oracle/software/VirtualBox-4.2-4.2.12_84980_el5-1.x86_64.rpm
warning: /opt/oracle/software/VirtualBox-4.2-4.2.12_84980_el5-1.x86_64.rpm: Header V4 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 98ab5139
error: Failed dependencies:
        libSDL-1.2.so.0()(64bit) is needed by VirtualBox-4.2-4.2.12_84980_el5-1.x86_64
yum provides */libSDL-1.2.so.0
yum search SDL       
yum install SDL

Error Downloading Packages:
  SDL-1.2.10-8.el5.x86_64: failure: SDL-1.2.10-8.el5.x86_64.rpm from ol5_latest: [Errno 256] No more mirrors to try.
  SDL-1.2.10-8.el5.i386: failure: SDL-1.2.10-8.el5.i386.rpm from ol5_latest: [Errno 256] No more mirrors to try.
download it from
http://pkgs.org/centos-5-rhel-5/centos-rhel-x86_64/SDL-1.2.10-9.el5.x86_64.rpm/download/
http://pkgs.org/centos-5-rhel-5/centos-rhel-i386/SDL-1.2.10-9.el5.i386.rpm/download/
(choose binary package)

sudo rpm -i SDL-1.2.10-9.el5.i386.rpm
sudo rpm -i SDL-1.2.10-9.el5.x86_64.rpm

VirtualBox high (50%) CPU on Windows 7

THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR ME: Select the 2 VirtualBox processes in task manager, set affinity, and leave only CPU0 checked.
THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR ME: : Settings / System / Acceleration / disable "Enable Nested Paging"
The only thing which works here is running 2 Virtual boxes at the same time. Weird.

here lots of tips.
I can't believe such a common major issue still goes on for several years, release after release. I am very unimpressed.

Accessing your VirtualBox from putty

This video shows how



in a nutshell, don't use the default NAT network configuration, but rather the Bridged Adapter:

SOASuite 11.1.6 , BPM and VirtualBox

Starting point:
https://blogs.oracle.com/SOA/entry/oracle_soa_suite_bpm_suite

Virtual Box available here:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html

I download and install this
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.14/VirtualBox-4.1.14-77440-Win.exe

Then I go to the SOASuite image page
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/soasuite/learnmore/vmsoa-172279.html

Specific installation instructions here

Open oel5u5-64bit-soabpm-11gr1-ps5-2-0-M.7z.001 with 7zip and extract it.
You should get a oel5u5-64bit-soabpm-11gr1-ps5-2-0-M.ova of some 15 GB

Passwords are:
weblogic/welcome1 (all other passwords are welcome1)
oracle/oracle, root/oracle