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<glossary id="Glossary">

<glossdiv>

<title>A</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>ACPI</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, an industry

specification for BIOS and hardware extensions to configure PC

hardware and perform power management. Windows 2000 and higher as well

as Linux 2.4 and higher support ACPI. Windows can only enable or

disable ACPI support at installation time.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>AHCI</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Advanced Host Controller Interface, the interface that supports

SATA devices such as hard disks. See <xref

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

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>AMD-V</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>The hardware virtualization features built into modern AMD

processors. See <xref linkend="hwvirt" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>API</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Application Programming Interface.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>APIC</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller, a newer version of

the original PC PIC (programmable interrupt controller). Most modern

CPUs contain an on-chip APIC ("local APIC"). Many systems also contain

an I/O APIC (input output APIC) as a separate chip which provides more

than 16 IRQs. Windows 2000 and higher use a different kernel if they

detect an I/O APIC during installation. Therefore an I/O APIC must not

be removed after installation.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>ATA</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Advanced Technology Attachment, an industry standard for hard

disk interfaces (synonymous with IDE). See <xref

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

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>B</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>BIOS</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Basic Input/Output System, the firmware built into most personal

computers which is responsible of initializing the hardware after the

computer has been turned on and then booting an operating system.

VirtualBox ships with its own virtual BIOS that runs when a virtual

machine is started.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>C</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>COM</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Microsoft Component Object Model, a programming infrastructure

for modular software. COM allows applications to provide application

programming interfaces which can be accessed from various other

programming languages and applications. VirtualBox makes use of COM

both internally and externally to provide a comprehensive API to 3rd

party developers.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>D</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>DHCP</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. This allows a networking

device in a network to acquire its IP address (and other networking

details) automatically, in order to avoid having to configure all

devices in a network with fixed IP addresses. VirtualBox has a

built-in DHCP server that delivers an IP addresses to a virtual

machine when networking is configured to NAT; see <xref

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

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>DKMS</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Dynamic Kernel Module Support. A framework that simplifies

installing and updating external kernel modules on Linux machines; see

<xref linkend="externalkernelmodules" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>E</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>EFI</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Extensible Firmware Interface, a firmware built into computers

which is designed to replace the aging BIOS. Originally designed by

Intel, most modern operating systems can now boot on computers which

have EFI instead of a BIOS built into them; see <xref

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

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>EHCI</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Enhanced Host Controller Interface, the interface that

implements the USB 2.0 standard.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>G</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>GUI</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Graphical User Interface. Commonly used as an antonym to a

"command line interface", in the context of VirtualBox, we sometimes

refer to the main graphical

<computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput> program as the "GUI", to

differentiate it from the <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>

interface.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>GUID</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>See UUID.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>I</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>IDE</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Integrated Drive Electronics, an industry standard for hard disk

interfaces. See <xref linkend="harddiskcontrollers" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>I/O APIC</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>See APIC.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>iSCSI</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Internet SCSI; see <xref linkend="storage-iscsi" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>M</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>MAC</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Media Access Control, a part of an Ethernet network card. A MAC

address is a 6-byte number which identifies a network card. It is

typically written in hexadecimal notation where the bytes are

separated by colons, such as

<computeroutput>00:17:3A:5E:CB:08</computeroutput>.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>N</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>NAT</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Network Address Translation. A technique to share networking

interfaces by which an interface modifies the source and/or target IP

addresses of network packets according to specific rules. Commonly

employed by routers and firewalls to shield an internal network from

the Internet, VirtualBox can use NAT to easily share a host's physical

networking hardware with its virtual machines. See <xref

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

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>O</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>OVF</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Open Virtualization Format, a cross-platform industry standard

to exchange virtual appliances between virtualization products; see

<xref linkend="ovf" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>P</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>PAE</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Physical Address Extension. This allows accessing more than 4 GB

of RAM even in 32-bit environments; see <xref

linkend="settings-general-advanced" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>PIC</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>See APIC.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>PXE</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Preboot Execution Environment, an industry standard for booting

PC systems from remote network locations. It includes DHCP for IP

configuration and TFTP for file transfer. Using UNDI, a hardware

independent driver stack for accessing the network card from bootstrap

code is available.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>R</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>RDP</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Remote Desktop Protocol, a protocol developed by Microsoft as an

extension to the ITU T.128 and T.124 video conferencing protocol. With

RDP, a PC system can be controlled from a remote location using a

network connection over which data is transferred in both directions.

Typically graphics updates and audio are sent from the remote machine

and keyboard and mouse input events are sent from the client.

VirtualBox contains an enhanced implementation of the relevant

standards called "VirtualBox RDP" (VRDP), which is largely compatible

with Microsoft's RDP implementation. See <xref linkend="vrdp" /> for

details.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>S</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>SAS</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Serial Attached SCSI, an industry standard for hard disk

interfaces. See <xref linkend="harddiskcontrollers" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>SATA</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Serial ATA, an industry standard for hard disk interfaces. See

<xref linkend="harddiskcontrollers" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>SCSI</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Small Computer System Interface. An industry standard for data

transfer between devices, especially for storage. See <xref

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

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>SMP</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Symmetrical Multiprocessing, meaning that the resources of a

computer are shared between several processors. These can either be

several processor chips or, as is more common with modern hardware,

multiple CPU cores in one processor.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>U</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>UUID</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>A Universally Unique Identifier -- often also called GUID

(Globally Unique Identifier) -- is a string of numbers and letters

which can be computed dynamically and is guaranteed to be unique.

Generally, it is used as a global handle to identify entities.

VirtualBox makes use of UUIDs to identify VMs, Virtual Disk Images

(VDI files) and other entities.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>V</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VM</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Virtual Machine -- a virtual computer that VirtualBox allows you

to run on top of your actual hardware. See <xref

linkend="virtintro" /> for details.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VRDP</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>See RDP.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>VT-x</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>The hardware virtualization features built into modern Intel

processors. See <xref linkend="hwvirt" />.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

<glossdiv>

<title>X</title>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>XML</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>The eXtensible Markup Language, a metastandard for all kinds of

textual information. XML only specifies how data in the document is

organized generally and does not prescribe how to semantically

organize content.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

<glossentry>

<glossterm>XPCOM</glossterm>

<glossdef>

<para>Mozilla Cross Platform Component Object Model, a programming

infrastructure developed by the Mozilla browser project which is

similar to Microsoft COM and allows applications to provide a modular

programming interface. VirtualBox makes use of XPCOM on Linux both

internally and externally to provide a comprehensive API to

third-party developers.</para>

</glossdef>

</glossentry>

</glossdiv>

</glossary>