Non-free here means Oracle has not released the source code. The non-free components, such as support for USB 2.0 devices, the VRDP server, and PXE boot for Intel network cards, were outsourced into the Extension Pack. For Linux users, Oracle continues to provide repositories for various Linux distributions. As of version 4.0, Oracle has now merged these two versions in a binary, which you can download from the VirtualBox website. The OSE often was available in the various Linux distro repositories, so users could easily install via their package repositories. Up to version 4.0 of VirtualBox, both a commercial and an open source edition (OSE) existed. In the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP, Figure 1), VirtualBox also has a built-in graphical interface to all the virtual machines: an RDP client is sufficient to access the VMs on the network regardless of the guest operating system.įigure 1: Thanks to VRDP support, you can access the virtual machine consoles in your browser with phpVirtualBox. VirtualBox does not place heavy demands on the hardware it does not require Intel VTX/AMD-V or a special Linux kernel, although it still offers great performance, thanks to its own guest extensions. Installing VirtualBox is easy on any platform because it usually only involves running a setup program or installing a package on the system. For example, the program is available free for the major platforms (e.g., Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Solaris), and it supports a wide number of guest systems, including exotics such as DOS/WIN 3.1 and OS/2. VirtualBox offers a number of advantages compared with other virtualization solutions. With the tools presented in this article, users can control VirtualBox VMs on the server remotely and conveniently.

Although a command-line option is available, it offers very few of the comforts to which you’ve become accustomed. Management of virtual machines is via a GUI that only works locally and cannot be used on the network. Oracle’s free VirtualBox virtualization solution is intended for use on the desktop.

Php virtualbox interface