Changes between Initial Version and Version 1 of VirtualBox

Timestamp:

Apr 3, 2009, 11:41:51 AM (15 years ago)

Author:

davea

Comment:

--

VirtualBox

@@ +1 @@
+!VirtualBox looks certainly promising.
+
+= Logistic" advantages =
+
+1) One order of magnitude lighter, both its installation package (~35 MB) and
+its installed size (~60 MB). Compare with the 500+ MB of VMWare Server 2.0,
+that increase in some 150 extra MB when installed.  
+
+2) License. Its OSE (Open
+Source Edition) is published under the GPL v.2, but even the non-libre version
+-PUEL, Personal Use and Evaluation License,
+http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox_PUEL- could be used for our purposes,
+but that's something to be checked by someone who actually knows something
+about licensing, unlike myself. 
+
+3) Faster and "less painful" installation
+process, partly due to its lighter weight. No license number required, hence
+less hassle for the user.
+
+= Technical points =
+
+
+The interaction with the VM is made possible even from the command line, in
+particular from the single command !VBoxManage (extensive doc available at
+http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.1.4/UserManual.pdf ).  Of
+particular interest for us are the following VBoxManager's arguments:
+    - startvm
+    - controlvm  pause|resume|reset|poweroff|savestate ...
+    - snapshot
+    - vmstatistics
+    - createvm
+    - registervm
+
+All the functionalities exposed by this command are also available throughout
+a C++ COM/XPCOM based API, as well as Python bindings.  More on this later.
+
+
+Following the capabilities enumeration introduced by Kevin, !VirtualBox would
+compare to his analysis based on VMWare Server as follows:
+
+1) Manage the Image.  Covered by the "snapshot" command 
+
+2) Boot the virtual machine. Covered by "startvm" 
+
+3) Copy files host -> guest *Not* directly supported by the !VirtualBox API.
+
+We'd need to resource to external solutions
+
+such as a properly configured SSH server on the Appliance.  
+
+4) Run a program on the guest. Same as 3) 
+
+5) Pause and unpause the guest. Covered by "controlvm pause/resume" 
+
+6) Retrieve files from the guest.  See 3) and 4), same situation.
+
+7) Shutdown the guest Covered by "controlvm poweroff"
+
+
+= Tackling the interaction with the appliance =
+
+
+A straightforward solution could be the configure the appliance to have a
+running ssh server, setup for public-key authentication such that communication
+with the host system is seamless. Moreover, this approach is complementary to
+whatever interaction support there might already be, such as the one provided
+by VIX: shell access to the appliance could provide us with certain information
+that would be impossible or just inconvenient to get ahold otherwise. Anything
+having to do with the running environment (ulimits, environment variables, etc)
+come to mind.
+
+= Bindings  =
+
+
+Both VMWare Server and !VirtualBox make available C/C++ APIs, as well as Python,
+with different levels of support -in case of VMWare, it's an unsupported
+project-.  !VirtualBox's API is based on COM/XPCOM, and it's possible to
+implement a unified windows/linux approach based on the former technology. The
+actual code implementing the VBoxManage command is a very good reference (
+http://www.virtualbox.org/browser/trunk/src/VBox/Frontends/VBoxManage )
+Therefore, implementing a "hypervisor abstraction layer" is in principle
+feasible, with a common win/linux codebase both for VIX and !VirtualBox API.
+I'll be providing code snippets towards this goal in the following days.
+Interestingly enough, a working wrapper prototype could be implemented without
+much effort by taking advantage of the aforementioned VBoxManage command. That
+of course is somewhat "hackish", but nevertheless a convenient tool to have.
+
+= Interacting with the VM Appliance =
+
+Another very nice feature of !VirtualBox is the possibility to interact with the
+running appliance through a Remote Desktop connection, which can be properly
+secured both in term of authentication and encrypted traffic (that is to say,
+these features are already supported by !VirtualBox).
+ 
+
+= Conclussions  =
+
+VirtualBox provides several appealing features, as powerful as those provided
+by VMWare at a lower cost -both in terms of inconveniences for the user and
+licensing-. However, it lacks support for direct interacting with the guest
+appliance: there are no equivalents to VIX's CopyFileFromGuestToHost,
+RunProgramInGuest, etc. related to the seven points summarizing the
+requirements. This inconvenience can nevertheless be addressed as mentioned
+with certain additional benefits and no apparent drawbacks.
+
+= To-Do  =
+
+ - Compare performance 
+ - Implement a working prototype based on the VirtualBox API
+ - ... such that it works with no of minimal code changes both in windows and linux
+ - Demostrate it with a custom appliance implementing the ssh based  communication mechanism
+