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<chapter id="installation">

<title>Installation details</title>

<para>As installation of VirtualBox varies depending on your host operating

system, we provide installation instructions in four separate chapters for

Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris, respectively.</para>

<sect1>

<title>Installing on Windows hosts</title>

<sect2>

<title>Prerequisites</title>

<para>For the various versions of Windows that we support as host

operating systems, please refer to <xref

linkend="hostossupport" />.</para>

<para>In addition, Windows Installer 1.1 or higher must be present on

your system. This should be the case if you have all recent Windows

updates installed.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Performing the installation</title>

<para>The VirtualBox installation can be started <itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>either by double-clicking on its executable file (contains

both 32- and 64-bit architectures)</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>or by entering <screen>VirtualBox.exe -extract</screen></para>

<para>on the command line. This will extract both installers into

a temporary directory in which you'll then find the usual .MSI

files. Then you can do a <screen>msiexec /i VirtualBox-&lt;version&gt;-MultiArch_&lt;x86|amd64&gt;.msi</screen>

to perform the installation.</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist></para>

<para>In either case, this will display the installation welcome dialog

and allow you to choose where to install VirtualBox to and which

components to install. In addition to the VirtualBox application, the

following components are available:<glosslist>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>USB support</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>This package contains special drivers for your Windows

host that VirtualBox requires to fully support USB devices

inside your virtual machines.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>Networking</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>This package contains extra networking drivers for your

Windows host that VirtualBox needs to support Bridged Networking

(to make your VM's virtual network cards accessible from other

machines on your physical network).</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>Python Support</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>This package contains Python scripting support for the

VirtualBox API (see <xref linkend="VirtualBoxAPI" />). For this

to work, an already working Windows Python installation on the

system is required.<footnote>

<para>See, for example, <ulink

url="http://www.python.org/download/windows/">http://www.python.org/download/windows/</ulink>.</para>

</footnote></para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glosslist></para>

<para>Depending on your Windows configuration, you may see warnings

about "unsigned drivers" or similar. Please select "Continue" on these

warnings as otherwise VirtualBox might not function correctly after

installation.</para>

<para>The installer will create a "VirtualBox" group in the Windows

"Start" menu which allows you to launch the application and access its

documentation.</para>

<para>With standard settings, VirtualBox will be installed for all users

on the local system. In case this is not wanted, you have to invoke the

installer by first extracting it by using <screen>VirtualBox.exe -extract</screen>

and then do as follows: <screen>VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ALLUSERS=2</screen>

or <screen>msiexec /i VirtualBox-&lt;version&gt;-MultiArch_&lt;x86|amd64&gt;.msi ALLUSERS=2</screen>

on the extracted .MSI files. This will install VirtualBox only for the

current user.</para>

<para>If you do not want to install all features of VirtualBox, you can

set the optional <computeroutput>ADDLOCAL</computeroutput> parameter to

explicitly name the features to be installed. The following features are

available: <glosslist>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VBoxApplication</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Main binaries of VirtualBox.<note>

<para>This feature must not be absent since it contains the

minimum set of files to have working VirtualBox

installation.</para>

</note></para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VBoxUSB</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>USB support.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VBoxNetwork</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>All networking support; includes the VBoxNetworkFlt and

VBoxNetworkAdp features (see below).</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VBoxNetworkFlt</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Bridged networking support.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VBoxNetworkAdp</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Host-only networking support.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VBoxPython</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Python support.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glosslist>For example, to only install USB support along with the

main binaries, do a: <screen>VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB</screen>

or <screen>msiexec /i VirtualBox-&lt;version&gt;-MultiArch_&lt;x86|amd64&gt;.msi ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB</screen></para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Uninstallation</title>

<para>As VirtualBox uses the standard Microsoft Windows installer,

VirtualBox can be safely uninstalled at any time by choosing the program

entry in the "Add/Remove Programs" applet in the Windows Control

Panel.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Unattended installation</title>

<para>Unattended installations can be performed using the standard MSI

support.</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1>

<title>Installing on Mac OS X hosts</title>

<sect2>

<title>Performing the installation</title>

<para>For Mac OS X hosts, VirtualBox ships in a disk image

(<computeroutput>dmg</computeroutput>) file. Perform the following

steps: <orderedlist>

<listitem>

<para>Double-click on that file to have its contents

mounted.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>A window will open telling you to double click on the

<computeroutput>VirtualBox.mpkg</computeroutput> installer file

displayed in that window.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>This will start the installer, which will allow you to

select where to install VirtualBox to.</para>

</listitem>

</orderedlist></para>

<para>After installation, you can find a VirtualBox icon in the

"Applications" folder in the Finder.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Uninstallation</title>

<para>To uninstall VirtualBox, open the disk image (dmg) file again and

double-click on the uninstall icon contained therein.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Unattended installation</title>

<para>To perform a non-interactive installation of VirtualBox you can

use the command line version of the installer application.</para>

<para>Mount the disk image (dmg) file as described in the normal

installation. Then open a terminal session and execute:</para>

<screen>sudo installer -pkg /Volumes/VirtualBox/VirtualBox.mpkg \

-target /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD</screen>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1>

<title id="install-linux-host">Installing on Linux hosts</title>

<sect2>

<title>Prerequisites</title>

<para>For the various versions of Linux that we support as host

operating systems, please refer to <xref

linkend="hostossupport" />.</para>

<para>You will need to install the following packages on your Linux

system before starting the installation (some systems will do this for

you automatically when you install VirtualBox):</para>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>Qt 4.4.0 or higher;</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>SDL 1.2.7 or higher (this graphics library is typically called

<computeroutput>libsdl</computeroutput> or similar).</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

<note>

<para>To be precise, these packages are only required if you want to

run the VirtualBox graphical user interfaces. In particular,

<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>, the graphical VirtualBox

manager, requires both Qt and SDL;

<computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput>, our simplified GUI, requires

only SDL. By contrast, if you only want to run the headless VRDP

server that comes with VirtualBox, neither Qt nor SDL are

required.</para>

</note>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="externalkernelmodules">

<title>The VirtualBox kernel module</title>

<para>VirtualBox uses a special kernel module to perform physical memory

allocation and to gain control of the processor for guest system

execution. Without this kernel module, you can still use the VirtualBox

manager to configure virtual machines, but they will not start.</para>

<para>The VirtualBox kernel module is automatically installed on your

system when you install VirtualBox. To maintain it with future kernel

updates, for recent Linux distributions -- for example Fedora Core 5 and

later, Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) and later and Mandriva 2007.1 and later --,

generally we recommend installing Dynamic Kernel Module Support

(DKMS)<footnote>

<para>See <ulink

url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support</ulink>

for an introduction.</para>

</footnote>. This framework helps with building and upgrading kernel

modules.</para>

<para>If DKMS is not already installed, execute one of the following:

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>On an Ubuntu system:</para>

<screen>sudo apt-get install dkms</screen>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>On a Fedora system:<screen>yum install dkms</screen></para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>On a Mandriva system:<screen>urpmi dkms</screen></para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist></para>

<para>If DKMS is available and installed, the VirtualBox kernel module

should always work automatically, and it will be automatically rebuilt

if your host kernel is updated.</para>

<para>Otherwise, there are only two situations in which you will need to

worry about the kernel module:<orderedlist>

<listitem>

<para>The original installation fails. This probably means that

your Linux system is not prepared for building external kernel

modules.</para>

<para>Most Linux distributions can be set up simply by installing

the right packages - normally, these will be the GNU compiler

(GCC), GNU Make (make) and packages containing header files for

your kernel - and making sure that all system updates are

installed and that the system is running the most up-to-date

kernel included in the distribution. <emphasis>The version numbers

of the header file packages must be the same as that of the kernel

you are using.</emphasis></para>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>With Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must install the

right version of the

<computeroutput>linux-headers</computeroutput> and if it

exists the <computeroutput>linux-kbuild</computeroutput>

package. Current Ubuntu releases should have the right

packages installed by default.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>In even older Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must

install the right version of the

<computeroutput>kernel-headers</computeroutput>

package.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>On Fedora and Redhat systems, the package is

<computeroutput>kernel-devel</computeroutput>.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>On SUSE and openSUSE Linux, you must install the right

versions of the <computeroutput>kernel-source</computeroutput>

and <computeroutput>kernel-syms</computeroutput>

packages.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>Alternatively, if you have built your own kernel,

<computeroutput>/usr/src/linux</computeroutput> should point

to your kernel sources. If you have not removed the files

created during the build process, then your system will

already be set up correctly.</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>The kernel of your Linux host was updated and DKMS is not

installed. In that case, the kernel module will need to be

reinstalled by executing (as root):</para>

<screen>/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup</screen>

</listitem>

</orderedlist></para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Performing the installation</title>

<para>VirtualBox is available in a number of package formats native to

various common Linux distributions (see <xref linkend="hostossupport" />

for details). In addition, there is an alternative generic installer

(.run) which should work on most Linux distributions.</para>

<sect3>

<title>Installing VirtualBox from a Debian/Ubuntu package</title>

<para>First, download the appropriate package for your distribution.

The following examples assume that you are installing to a 32-bit

Ubuntu Karmic system. Use <computeroutput>dpkg</computeroutput> to

install the Debian package:</para>

<screen>sudo dpkg -i VirtualBox-3.2_$VBOX_VERSION_STRING_Ubuntu_karmic_i386.deb</screen>

<para>You will be asked to accept the VirtualBox Personal Use and

Evaluation License. Unless you answer "yes" here, the installation

will be aborted.</para>

<para>The installer will also search for a VirtualBox kernel module

suitable for your kernel. The package includes pre-compiled modules

for the most common kernel configurations. If no suitable kernel

module is found, the installation script tries to build a module

itself. If the build process is not successful you will be shown a

warning and the package will be left unconfigured. Please have a look

at <computeroutput>/var/log/vbox-install.log</computeroutput> to find

out why the compilation failed. You may have to install the

appropriate Linux kernel headers (see <xref

linkend="externalkernelmodules" />). After correcting any problems, do

<screen>sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup</screen>This will start a

second attempt to build the module.</para>

<para>If a suitable kernel module was found in the package or the

module was successfully built, the installation script will attempt to

load that module. If this fails, please see <xref

linkend="linuxkernelmodulefailstoload" /> for further

information.</para>

<para>Once VirtualBox has been successfully installed and configured,

you can start it by selecting "VirtualBox" in your start menu or from

the command line (see <xref linkend="startingvboxonlinux" />).</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>Using the alternative installer (VirtualBox.run)</title>

<para>The alternative installer performs the following steps:</para>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>It unpacks the application files to a target directory of

choice. By default, <screen>/opt/VirtualBox/</screen> will be

used.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>It builds the VirtualBox kernel module

(<computeroutput>vboxdrv</computeroutput>) and installs it.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>It creates

<computeroutput>/etc/init.d/vboxdrv</computeroutput>, an init

script to start the VirtualBox kernel module.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>It creates a new system group called

<computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput>.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>It creates symbolic links to

<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxVRDP</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput> and

<computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> in

<computeroutput>/usr/bin</computeroutput>.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>It creates

<computeroutput>/etc/udev/60-vboxdrv.rules</computeroutput>, a

description file for udev, if that is present, which makes the

module accessible to anyone in the group

<computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput>.</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>It writes the installation directory to

<computeroutput>/etc/vbox/vbox.cfg</computeroutput>.</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

<para>The installer must be executed as root with either

<computeroutput>install</computeroutput> or

<computeroutput>uninstall</computeroutput> as the first parameter. If

you do not want the installer to ask you whether you wish to accept

the license agreement (for example, for performing unattended

installations), you can add the parameter

<computeroutput>license_accepted_unconditionally</computeroutput>.

Finally, if you want to use a directory other than the default

installation directory, add the desired path as an extra

parameter.</para>

<screen>sudo /VirtualBox.run install /opt/VirtualBox</screen>

<para>Or if you do not have the "sudo" command available, run the

following as root instead:<screen>/VirtualBox.run install /opt/VirtualBox</screen></para>

<para>After that you need to put every user which should be able to

use VirtualBox in the group

<computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput>, either through the GUI

user management tools or by running the following command as

root:</para>

<screen>sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username</screen>

<para><note>

<para>The <computeroutput>usermod</computeroutput> command of some

older Linux distributions does not support the

<computeroutput>-a</computeroutput> option (which adds the user to

the given group without affecting membership of other groups). In

this case, find out the current group memberships with the

<computeroutput>groups</computeroutput> command and add all these

groups in a comma-separated list to the command line after the

<computeroutput>-G</computeroutput> option, e.g. like this:

<computeroutput>usermod -G group1,group2,vboxusers

username</computeroutput>.</para>

</note>If any users on your system should be able to access host USB

devices from within VirtualBox guests, you should also add them to the

appropriate user group that your distribution uses for USB access,

e.g. <computeroutput>usb</computeroutput> or

<computeroutput>usbusers</computeroutput>.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>Performing a manual installation</title>

<para>If, for any reason, you cannot use the shell script installer

described previously, you can also perform a manual installation.

Invoke the installer like this:</para>

<screen>/VirtualBox.run --keep --noexec</screen>

<para>This will unpack all the files needed for installation in the

directory <computeroutput>install</computeroutput> under the current

directory. The VirtualBox application files are contained in

<computeroutput>VirtualBox.tar.bz2</computeroutput> which you can

unpack to any directory on your system. For example:</para>

<screen>sudo mkdir /opt/VirtualBox

sudo tar jxf /install/VirtualBox.tar.bz2 -C /opt/VirtualBox</screen>

<para>or as root:<screen>mkdir /opt/VirtualBox

tar jxf /install/VirtualBox.tar.bz2 -C /opt/VirtualBox</screen></para>

<para>The sources for VirtualBox's kernel module are provided in the

<computeroutput>src</computeroutput> directory. To build the module,

change to the directory and issue</para>

<screen>make</screen>

<para>If everything builds correctly, issue the following command to

install the module to the appropriate module directory:</para>

<screen>sudo make install</screen>

<para>In case you do not have sudo, switch the user account to root

and perform<screen>make install</screen></para>

<para>The VirtualBox kernel module needs a device node to operate. The

above make command will tell you how to create the device node,

depending on your Linux system. The procedure is slightly different

for a classical Linux setup with a

<computeroutput>/dev</computeroutput> directory, a system with the now

deprecated <computeroutput>devfs</computeroutput> and a modern Linux

system with <computeroutput>udev</computeroutput>.</para>

<para>On certain Linux distributions, you might experience

difficulties building the module. You will have to analyze the error

messages from the build system to diagnose the cause of the problems.

In general, make sure that the correct Linux kernel sources are used

for the build process.</para>

<para>Note that the user who is going to run VirtualBox needs read and

write permission on the VirtualBox kernel module device node

<computeroutput>/dev/vboxdrv</computeroutput>. You can either define a

<computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> group by entering<screen>groupadd vboxusers

chgrp vboxusers /dev/vboxdrv

chmod 660 /dev/vboxdrv</screen>or, alternatively, simply give all users access

(insecure, not recommended!)<screen>chmod 666 /dev/vboxdrv</screen>You

should also add any users who will be allowed to use host USB devices

in VirtualBox guests to the appropriate USB users group for your

distribution. This group is often called

<computeroutput>usb</computeroutput> or

<computeroutput>usbusers</computeroutput>.</para>

<para>Next, you will have to install the system initialization script

for the kernel module:<screen>cp /opt/VirtualBox/vboxdrv.sh /etc/init.d/vboxdrv</screen>(assuming

you installed VirtualBox to the

<computeroutput>/opt/VirtualBox</computeroutput> directory) and

activate the initialization script using the right method for your

distribution. You should create VirtualBox's configuration

file:<screen>mkdir /etc/vbox

echo INSTALL_DIR=/opt/VirtualBox &gt; /etc/vbox/vbox.cfg</screen>and, for

convenience, create the following symbolic links:</para>

<screen>ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VirtualBox

ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxSVC

ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxManage

ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxHeadless

ln -sf /opt/VirtualBox/VBox.sh /usr/bin/VBoxSDL</screen>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>Updating and uninstalling VirtualBox</title>

<para>Before updating or uninstalling VirtualBox, you must terminate

any virtual machines which are currently running and exit the

VirtualBox or VBoxSVC applications. To update VirtualBox, simply run

the installer of the updated version. To uninstall VirtualBox, invoke

the installer like this: <screen>sudo /VirtualBox.run uninstall</screen>

or as root<screen>/VirtualBox.run uninstall</screen>. Starting with

version 2.2.2, you can uninstall the .run package by invoking <screen>/opt/VirtualBox/uninstall.sh</screen>To

manually uninstall VirtualBox, simply undo the steps in the manual

installation in reverse order.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>Automatic installation of Debian packages</title>

<para>The Debian packages will request some user feedback when

installed for the first time. The debconf system is used to perform

this task. To prevent any user interaction during installation,

default values can be defined. A file

<computeroutput>vboxconf</computeroutput> can contain the following

debconf settings: <screen>virtualbox virtualbox/module-compilation-allowed boolean true

virtualbox virtualbox/delete-old-modules boolean true</screen>The first line

allows compilation of the vboxdrv kernel module if no module was found

for the current kernel. The second line allows the package to delete

any old vboxdrv kernel modules compiled by previous

installations.</para>

<para>These default settings can be applied with <screen>debconf-set-selections vboxconf</screen>

prior to the installation of the VirtualBox Debian package.</para>

<para>In addition there are some common configuration options that can

be set prior to the installation, described in <xref

linkend="linux_install_opts" />.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title>Automatic installation of .rpm packages</title>

<para>The .rpm format does not provide a configuration system

comparable to the debconf system. See <xref

linkend="linux_install_opts" /> for how to set some common

installation options provided by VirtualBox.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>

<title id="linux_install_opts">Automatic installation options</title>

<para>To configure the installation process of our .deb and .rpm

packages, a file

<computeroutput>/etc/default/virtualbox</computeroutput> is

interpreted. The automatic generation of the udev rule can be

prevented by the following setting: <screen>INSTALL_NO_UDEV=1</screen>

The creation of the group vboxusers can be prevented by <screen>INSTALL_NO_GROUP=1</screen>

If the line <screen>INSTALL_NO_VBOXDRV=1</screen> is specified, the

package installer will not try to build the

<computeroutput>vboxdrv</computeroutput> kernel module if no module

according to the current kernel was found.</para>

</sect3>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>The vboxusers group</title>

<para>The Linux installers create the system user group

<computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> during installation. Any

system user who is going to run VirtualBox must be member of that group.

A user can be made member of the group

<computeroutput>vboxusers</computeroutput> through the GUI user/group

management or at the command line with</para>

<screen>sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username</screen>

<para>Note that adding an active user to that group will require that

user to log out and back in again. This should be done manually after

successful installation of the package.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="startingvboxonlinux">

<title>Starting VirtualBox on Linux</title>

<para>The easiest way to start a VirtualBox program is by running the

program of your choice (<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput> or

<computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput>) from a terminal. These

are symbolic links to <computeroutput>VBox.sh</computeroutput> that

start the required program for you.</para>

<para>The following detailed instructions should only be of interest if

you wish to execute VirtualBox without installing it first. You should

start by compiling the <computeroutput>vboxdrv</computeroutput> kernel

module (see above) and inserting it into the Linux kernel. VirtualBox

consists of a service daemon (<computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput>)

and several application programs. The daemon is automatically started if

necessary. All VirtualBox applications will communicate with the daemon

through Unix local domain sockets. There can be multiple daemon

instances under different user accounts and applications can only

communicate with the daemon running under the user account as the

application. The local domain socket resides in a subdirectory of your

system's directory for temporary files called

<computeroutput>.vbox-&lt;username&gt;-ipc</computeroutput>. In case of

communication problems or server startup problems, you may try to remove

this directory.</para>

<para>All VirtualBox applications

(<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> and

<computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput>) require the VirtualBox

directory to be in the library path:</para>

<screen>LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. /VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP"</screen>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1>

<title id="install-solaris-host">Installing on Solaris hosts</title>

<para>For the specific versions of Solaris that we support as host

operating systems, please refer to <xref

linkend="hostossupport" />.</para>

<para>If you have a previously installed instance of VirtualBox on your

Solaris host, please uninstall it first before installing a new instance.

Refer to <xref linkend="uninstallsolhost" /> for uninstall

instructions.</para>

<sect2>

<title>Performing the installation</title>

<para>VirtualBox is available as a standard Solaris package. Download

the VirtualBox SunOS package which includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit

versions of VirtualBox. <emphasis>The installation must be performed as

root and from the global zone</emphasis> as the VirtualBox installer

loads kernel drivers which cannot be done from non-global zones. To

verify which zone you are currently in, execute the

<computeroutput>zonename</computeroutput> command. Execute the following

commands:</para>

<screen>gunzip -cd VirtualBox-$VBOX_VERSION_STRING-SunOS.tar.gz | tar xvf -</screen>

<para>Starting with VirtualBox 3.1 the VirtualBox kernel package is no

longer a separate package and has been integrated into the main package.

Install the VirtualBox package using:</para>

<screen>pkgadd -d VirtualBox-$VBOX_VERSION_STRING-SunOS.pkg</screen>

<note>

<para>If you are using Solaris Zones, to install VirtualBox only into

the current zone and not into any other zone, use

<computeroutput>pkgadd -G</computeroutput>. For more information refer

to the <computeroutput>pkgadd</computeroutput> manual; see also <xref

linkend="solariszones" />.</para>

</note>

<para>The installer will then prompt you to enter the package you wish

to install. Choose "1" or "all" and proceed. Next the installer will ask

you if you want to allow the postinstall script to be executed. Choose

"y" and proceed as it is essential to execute this script which installs

the VirtualBox kernel module. Following this confirmation the installer

will install VirtualBox and execute the postinstall setup script.</para>

<para>Once the postinstall script has been executed your installation is

now complete. You may now safely delete the uncompressed package and

<computeroutput>autoresponse</computeroutput> files from your system.

VirtualBox would be installed in

<computeroutput>/opt/VirtualBox</computeroutput>.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Starting VirtualBox on Solaris</title>

<para>The easiest way to start a VirtualBox program is by running the

program of your choice (<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>,

<computeroutput>VBoxSDL</computeroutput> or

<computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput>) from a terminal. These

are symbolic links to <computeroutput>VBox.sh</computeroutput> that

start the required program for you.</para>

<para>Alternatively, you can directly invoke the required programs from

<computeroutput>/opt/VirtualBox</computeroutput>. Using the links

provided is easier as you do not have to type the full path.</para>

<para>You can configure some elements of the

<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput> Qt GUI such as fonts and

colours by executing <computeroutput>VBoxQtconfig</computeroutput> from

the terminal.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title id="uninstallsolhost">Uninstallation</title>

<para>Uninstallation of VirtualBox on Solaris requires root permissions.

To perform the uninstallation, start a root terminal session and

execute:</para>

<screen>pkgrm SUNWvbox</screen>

<para>After confirmation, this will remove VirtualBox from your

system.</para>

<para>If you are uninstalling VirtualBox version 3.0 or lower, you need

to remove the VirtualBox kernel interface package, execute:</para>

<para><screen>pkgrm SUNWvboxkern</screen></para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Unattended installation</title>

<para>To perform a non-interactive installation of VirtualBox we have

provided a response file named

<computeroutput>autoresponse</computeroutput> that the installer will

use for responses to inputs rather than ask them from you.</para>

<para>Extract the tar.gz package as described in the normal

installation. Then open a root terminal session and execute:</para>

<screen>pkgadd -d VirtualBox-$VBOX_VERSION_STRING-SunOS-x86 -n -a autoresponse SUNWvbox</screen>

<para>To perform a non-interactive uninstallation, open a root terminal

session and execute:</para>

<screen>pkgrm -n -a /opt/VirtualBox/autoresponse SUNWvbox</screen>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title id="solariszones">Configuring a zone for running

VirtualBox</title>

<para>Starting with VirtualBox 1.6 it is possible to run VirtualBox from

within Solaris zones. For an introduction of Solaris zones, please refer

to <ulink

url="http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/solaris_zones.jsp">http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/features/articles/solaris_zones.jsp</ulink>.</para>

<para>Assuming that VirtualBox has already been installed into your

zone, you need to give the zone access to VirtualBox's device node. This

is done by performing the following steps. Start a root terminal and

execute:</para>

<screen>zonecfg -z vboxzone</screen>

<para>Inside the <computeroutput>zonecfg</computeroutput> prompt add the

<computeroutput>device</computeroutput> resource and

<computeroutput>match</computeroutput> properties to the zone. Here's

how it can be done:</para>

<screen>zonecfg:vboxzone&gt;add device

zonecfg:vboxzone:device&gt;set match=/dev/vboxdrv

zonecfg:vboxzone:device&gt;end

zonecfg:vboxzone&gt;verify

zonecfg:vboxzone&gt;exit</screen>

<para>If you are running VirtualBox 2.2.0 or above on Solaris 11 or

Nevada hosts, you should add a device for

<computeroutput>/dev/vboxusbmon</computeroutput> too, similar to what

was shown above. This does not apply to Solaris 10 hosts due to lack of

USB support.</para>

<para>Replace "vboxzone" with the name of the zone in which you intend

to run VirtualBox. Next reboot the zone using

<computeroutput>zoneadm</computeroutput> and you should be able to run

VirtualBox from within the configured zone.</para>

</sect2>

</sect1>

</chapter>