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Asked: 2010-01-14 12:01:13 +0800 CST

GPL VirtualBox in Ubuntu Server. Questions about setting up Ubuntu guest OS's

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I want to have one Ubuntu Server containing virtual machines who are also running Ubuntu Server. I want to use the GPL version of VirtualBox for this and I have some questions:

  • Is it important that I run linux-virtual for a kernel adapted for running as virtual?
  • I want the guest OS's to use a virtual network interface which gets its address from my DHCP-server just as a normal computer would. Is it hard to set that up? How do I do it?
  • I do not want to run the GUI for VirtualBox, I want to use the command line as the server hasn't got X installed. Does this make it much harder for me?
virtualization ubuntu virtualbox

2 Answers

  1. Congratulations on deciding to wander down the wonderful path of virtualization.

    • You do not have to run linux-virtual kernel. VirtualBox compiles its own kernel module to handle virtualization. See here.
    • See Host-Only networking in the VirtualBox Manual. It is not very hard to set up but you do need to understand how networks and routing works.
    • It doesn't make it too much harder. VirtualBox uses a program called VBoxHeadless to run a VM without a GUI and the command VBoxManage to set configuration options.

    Running VirtualBox without a GUI works very well - I have a server which runs 3 VMs and has for over a year with no bug hiccups - besides the downtime that I need to take in order to upgrade VirtualBox on the host machine. I used a CentOS host machine with Ubuntu and Windows guests.

    For a full tutorial on using VBoxHeadless with Ubuntu check out HowToForge.

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  2. I think, Bridged mode would be better to use you networked dhcp. In plus, you could add another Vm easily by this method.

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