Vagrant documentation confusing to me - virtualbox

I am trying to create custom vagrant box file. I plan to use VirtualBox and I am reading this documentation: https://docs.vagrantup.com/v2/virtualbox/boxes.html
When the doc says,"VirtualBox Guest Additions must be installed so that things such as shared folders can function. Installing guest additions also usually improves performance since the guest OS can make some optimizations by knowing it is running within VirtualBox.
Before installing the guest additions, you'll need the linux kernel headers and the basic developer tools ...", but it doesn't say if this is to be done on the guest OS or host OS where I installed vargant and VirtualBox.
So I am guessing that I need to install a VM on VirtualBox and install the "VirtualBox Guest Addtitions" on this VM. Am I right?

The guest additions need to be installed on the guest OS. The host operating system only needs Virtualbox and vagrant installed. There are various descriptions out there for different operating systems and versions. It depends a bit on what your guest os looks like, so without a hint on what guest OS you are installing, I cannot provide more information.
Just FYI: You can use the boxes from vagrantcloud.com as a base, boot it and install softwareon top, exporting it to create "your" base box. In most cases, this works pretty well and you don't need to set up a whole new box. Take a look at the featured boxes, e.g. from chef. Chef boxes are the most basic setup one can create with really just the OS and the things vagrant need (ssh key, guest additions and so on).
I got a repo where I take a chef box and add some of my standard software stack (using chef) and export it as a new box. Have a look at Sgoettschkes/va for more information.

Related

copy paste and cut text from host to guest in vmware workstation 15 player

I googled before and found that by turning on the "Enable copy and paste" under Guest Isolation, I can copy/cut/paste text from guest to host and vice versa. But I don't see "Guest Isolation" after clicking on Player->Manage->virtual machine settings->option. I have tried to install the VMware tools and I seem to have successfully installed it, but still no use. Is this feature only available in VMware pro?
For Ubuntu (Guest OS), you need to install open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop.
sudo apt install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop
Some versions of vmware-tools are buggy (copy&paste does not work). Try an older version (they can be downloaded for free from vmware.com).
Note that newer Linux distributions already include the vmware-tools. They may not be installed by default (see this answer).

VirtualBox Shared Folder Not Accessible Inside Guest

I have been following this guide: https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#sf_mount_auto
I am running ubuntu 16 with a Windows 2016 VM guest, the VM name is "WindowsServer2016". I need to create a shared folder that is in my home: /home/heatdeath/For_Virtual (is the name of the folder in Ubuntu that I want to share)
In virtualbox I have added the folder to the shared folder, and enabled auto-mount. Yet when I go into the Windows VM, and look under networks, there is no shared folder.
So instead of auto-mounting, I try manually by using
net use x: \\vboxsvr\For_Virtual
And I get the error:
System error 53 had occured
The network path was not found
I also tried vboxsrv.
Kinda at my wits end with this, done alot of research and nothing new turns up. Any help appreciated
Indeed difficult & frustrating to solve, if you don't know.
My Linux distro didn't include VBoxAdditions.iso
I finally found it at http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/
under the version of virtualbox installed.
First, make sure that you belong to the vboxsf and vboxusers groups, and usb if you want to use usb access. (It might be a bit different on your distro)
Just download the iso to a convenient location
(I use the same folder for all the msw sources),
and select it via the cd/dvd option in virtualbox.
Then start the guest session, and in the menu at the bottom of the guest window, make sure that the iso is selected, and start it from the guest file manager.
When finished installing, select reboot.
After, all the defined shared folders appear automatically as virtual optical disks just after the virtual hard disk and the virtual optical installation disk.
BTW, I tried to get help on the virtualbox forum, just getting a rude response.
I finally found the answer with an internet search.

Are any changes made to the host Operating System upon installing any package in virtualbox?

My host OS is windows and I installed CentOS in virtualbox. Will the packages that I install in the virtual box, be accessible/modified in windows?
Are any changes made to the host Operating System upon installing any package in virtualbox?
No.
Will the packages that I install in the virtual box, be accessible/modified in windows?
You should also be able to read and write files in the guest file system's disk image from the host system. With the caveat that the guest probably needs to be "off" while you do that, otherwise there is a risk of either corrupting the guest file system or seeing an inconsistent guest file system state from the host.
Installing packages in the guest does not modify the host operating system ... if that is what you were asking.

Vagrant, VirtualBox built-in or no?

Trying to get set up with Vagrant but getting the error:
The "VBoxManage" command or one of its dependencies could not be found.
Please verify VirtualBox is properly installed. You can verify everything
is okay by running "VBoxManage --version" and verifying that the VirtualBox
version is outputted.
Just confused because the Vagrant documentation states:
"The getting started guide will use Vagrant with VirtualBox, since it is free, available on every major platform, and built-in to Vagrant."
Don't want to install VirtualBox separately if its supposed to be included when I installed Vagrant. Running OSX 10.8 if it's relevant, guessing I just need to install VirtualBox? If that's the case, what do they mean in the documentation when they say it's "built-in"?
Installing VirtualBox is required if you plan on using VirtualBox with Vagrant. I'm guessing they meant that the VirtualBox integration is built-in?
Recently, they've abstracted out the VirtualBox specific code and are working on allowing for multiple providers. I believe VMWare is now supported in addition to VirtualBox.
I had this message but my problem was different. I use Vmware_fusion as the provider. Vagrant was not able to detect what provider I am using.It assumed that I am using VirtualBox. Had this issue fixed by calling vagrant up provider flag. Here is the full command
vagrant up --provider vmware_fusion

Looking for Virtual PC or VMware Guest O/S with Linux already installed

I wanted to play around with Linux and do some testing. I've tried installing Linux on a Virtual PC (2004) guest but couldn't get it to work.
I figured with all the folks out there proselytizing about Linux maybe someone had made an guess file that I could just download and open up in Virtual PC (ideally) or VmWare.
PS - I asked question on ExpertsExchange about 2 years ago and all I got was people telling me I should use VMware (but not suggestions of where to find a pre-made Guest record.)
The VMWare library of pre-installed guests is at http://www.vmware.com/appliances/ - it seems to be currently down for maintenance though.
VMware player: http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
Vmware images: http://www.vmware.com/appliances/
The appliances website was down for me, but you can download premade images of various operating systems and run them using the vmware player or vmware server.
Ubuntu 8.04: http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1224
Also, just look at the popular section on the right-hand side. I have found that when you want to use Linux, vmware is the way to go. I have had issues trying to install it on virtual pc, but that might have changed since I tried it back in 2006 with Fedora.
The VMWare appliance site is down as I write this but there is a very useful appliance that is about 60K that allows you to mount an ISO as a VM.
This is great because you don't have to install the distribution in a VM. You can load up the ISO into the VM every time as new or simply reload a suspended image.
When you feel comfortable - try installing the version of Linux in the VM.
You could also simply burn an ISO to a CD/DVD and boot it up to play with it - no install required.
You should also take a look at Sun's VirtualBox VM manager. Its free and pretty good.
Try http://elasticserver.com/
They have a a la carte approach for linux VM's.
Virtual Hosted Linux is a pain. If you MUST do this, then use Sun's VirtualBox - it starts up faster and really is easier to use than anything else .. You can get Ready To Use VDI images from VirtualBoxImages too... But, if you just wanna 'play around' with linux, then why not boot up a LiveCD ..