This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added: USB: improved support for recent Linux hosts VMM: fixed guru meditation for PAE guests on non-PAE hosts (AMD-V) VMM: fixed guru meditation on Mac OS X hosts when using VT-x VMM: allow running up to 1023 VMs on 64-bit hosts (used to be 127) VMM: several FreeBSD guest related fixes (bugs #2342, #2341, #2761) VMM: fixed guru meditation when installing Suse Enterprise Server 10U2 (VT-x only; bug #3039) VMM: fixed guru meditation when booting Novell Netware 4.11 (VT-x only; bug #2898) VMM: fixed VERR_ADDRESS_TOO_BIG error on some Mac OS X systems when starting a VM VMM: clear MSR_K6_EFER_SVME after probing for AMD-V (bug #3058) VMM: fixed guru meditation during Windows 7 boot with more than 2 GB guest RAM (VT-x, nested paging only) VMM: fixed hang during OS/2 MCP2 boot (AMD-V and VT-x only) VMM: fixed loop during OpenBSD 4.0 boot (VT-x only) VMM: fixed random crashes related to FPU/XMM with 64 bits guests on 32 bits hosts VMM: fixed occasional XMM state corruption with 64 bits guests GUI: raised the RAM limit for new VMs to 75% of the host memory GUI: added Windows 7 as operating system type VBoxSDL: fixed -fixed fixedmode parameter (bug #3067) Clipboard: stability fixes (Linux and Solaris hosts only, bug #2675 and #3003) 3D support: fixed VM crashes for certain guest applications (bugs #2781, #2797, #2972, #3089) LsiLogic: improved support for Windows guests (still experimental) VGA: fixed a 2.1.0 regression where guest screen resize events were not properly handled (bug #2783) VGA: significant performance improvements when using VT-x/AMD-V on Mac OS X hosts VGA: better handling for VRAM offset changes (fixes GRUB2 and Dos DOOM display issues) VGA: custom VESA modes with invalid widths are now rounded up to correct ones (bug #2895) IDE: fixed ATAPI passthrough support (Linux hosts only; bug #2795) Networking: fixed kernel panics due to NULL pointer dereference in Linux kernels < 2.6.20 (Linux hosts only; bug #2827) Networking: fixed intermittend BSODs when using the new host interface (Windows hosts only; bugs #2832, #2937, #2929) Networking: fixed several issues with displaying hostif NICs in the GUI (Windows hosts only; bugs 2814, #2842) Networking: fixed the issue with displaying hostif NICs without assigned IP addresses (Linux hosts only; bug #2780) Networking: fixed the issue with sent packets coming back to internal network when using hostif (Linux hosts only; bug #3056). NAT: fixed port forwarding (Windows hosts only; bug #2808) NAT: fixed booting from the builtin TFTP server (bug #1959) NAT: fixed occasional crashes (bug #2709) SATA: vendor product data (VPD) is now configurable SATA: raw disk partitions were not recognized (2.1.0 regression, Windows host only, bug #2778) SATA: fixed timeouts in the guest when using raw VMDK files (Linux host only, bug #2796) SATA: huge speed up during certain I/O operations like formatting a drive SATA/IDE: fixed possible crash/errors during VM shutdown VRDP: fixed loading of libpam.so.1 from the host (Solaris hosts only) VRDP: fixed RDP client disconnects VRDP: fixed VRDP server misbehavior after a broken client connection VBoxManage showvminfo: fixed assertion for running VMs (bug #2773) VBoxManage convertfromraw: added parameter checking and made it default to creating VDI files; fixed and documented format parameter (bug #2776) VBoxManage clonehd: fixed garbled output image when creating VDI files (bug #2813) VBoxManage guestproperty: fixed property enumeration (incorrect parameters/exception) VHD: fixed error when attaching certain container files (bug #2768) Solaris hosts: added support for serial ports (bug #1849) Solaris hosts: fix for Japanese keyboards (bug #2847) Solaris hosts: 32-bit and 64-bit versions now available as a single, unified package Linux hosts: don’t depend on libcap1 anymore (bug #2859) Linux hosts: compile fixes for 2.6.29-rc1 Linux hosts: don’t drop any capability if the VM was started by root (2.1.0 regression) Mac OS X hosts: save the state of running or paused VMs when the host machine’s battery reaches critical level Mac OS X hosts: improved window resizing of the VM window Mac OS X hosts: added GUI option to disable the dock icon realtime preview in the GUI to decrease the host CPU load when the guest is doing 3D Mac OS X hosts: polished realtime preview dock icon Windows Additions: fixed guest property and logging OS type detection for Windows 2008 and Windows 7 Beta Windows Additions: added support for Windows 7 Beta (bugs #2995, #3015) Windows Additions: fixed Windows 2000 guest freeze when accessing files on shared folders (bug #2764) Windows Additions: fixed Ctrl-Alt-Del handling when using VBoxGINA Windows Additions Installer: Added /extract switch to only extract (not install) the files to a directory (can be specified with /D=path) Linux installer and Additions: added support for the Linux From Scratch distribution (bug #1587) and recent Gentoo versions (bug #2938) Additions: added experimental support for X.Org Server 1.6 RC on Linux guests Linux Additions: fixed bug which prevented to properly set fmode on mapped shared folders (bug #1776) Linux Additions: fixed appending of files on shared folders (bug #1612) Linux Additions: ignore noauto option when mounting a shared folder (bug #2498) Linux Additions: fixed a driver issue preventing X11 from compiling keymaps (bug #2793 and #2905) X11 Additions: workaround in the mouse driver for a server crash when the driver is loaded manually (bug #2397)
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:
* Windows hosts: fixed host crashes/hangs on certain 32 bits Windows systems when running Linux guests (bugs #1606, #2269, #2763) * Windows hosts: fixed network component BSOD issue (bugs #3168, #2916) * Windows hosts: fixed installation issues (bugs #2517, #1730, #3130) * Linux hosts: fixed occasional kernel oopses (bug #2556) * Linux hosts: fixed module dependency for shipped modules (bug #3115) * Linux hosts: moved the udev rules for USB forward so that they don’t override existing system rules (bug #3143) * Linux hosts: fixed the issue with guest not being able to communicate with each other when attached via TAP interfaces (bug #3215) * Linux hosts: give up probing for USB gracefully if dbus or hal are not available (bug #3136) * Linux hosts: fixed warnings in installer when SELinux was disabled (bug #3098) * Linux hosts: VirtualBox sometimes failed to start if it had been started using sudo previously (bug #3270) * Solaris hosts: fixed high CPU load while running many guests in parallel * Solaris hosts: fixed inability to start more than 128 VMs * VMM: fixed performance regression for Windows guests (bug #3172) * VMM: ignore CPU stepping when restoring a saved state/snapshot * REM: fixed inability to use gdb to debug programs in Linux guests with software virtualization (bug #3245) * GUI: fixed dead key handling on Solaris hosts (bug #3256) * GUI: in the shutdown dialog, disable the action send the shutdown signal if the guest is currently not using ACPI * GUI: suppress additional key release events sent by X11 hosts when keys are auto-repeated (bug #1296) * API: restore case insensitive OS type name lookup (bug #3087) * VBoxHeadless: really don’t start X11 services (clipboard service, 3D acceleration; Solaris & Darwin hosts only; bug #3199) * NAT: fixed occasional crashes when the guest is doing traceroute (non-Windows hosts; bug #3200) * NAT: fixed crashes under high load (bug #3110) * NAT: fixed truncated downloads (Windows hosts only, bug #3257) * NAT: don’t intercept TFTP packages with a destination address different from the builtin TFTP server (bug #3112) * USB: several fixes for USB passthrough on Linux hosts * USB: reduced host CPU utilization if EHCI is active * VRDP: fixed VRDP server black screen after a client reconnect (bug #1989) * VRDP: modified rdesktop client (rdesktop-vrdp) now uses NumLock state synchronization (bug #3253) * LsiLogic: make FreeBSD guests work (bug #3174) * ATA: fixed deadlock when pausing VM due to problems with the virtual disk (e.g. disk full, iSCSI target unavailable) * iSCSI: fixed possible crash when pausing the VM * 3D support: added missing GL_MAX_TEXTURE_COORDS_ARB (bug #3246) * Windows Additions: fixed ERROR (e0000101) error during installation (bug #1923) * Windows Additions: fixed Windows Explorer hang when browsing shared folders with 64 bit guests (bug #2225) * Windows Additions: fixed guest screen distortions during a video mode change * Windows Additions: fixed the Network drive not connected message for mapped shared folders drives after the guest startup (bug #3157) * Linux Additions: fixed occasional file corruption when writing files in O_APPEND mode to a shared folder (bug #2844) * Linux Additions: the mouse driver was not properly set up on X.Org release candidates (bug #3212) * Linux Additions: fixed installer to work with openSUSE 11.1 (bug #3213) * Linux Additions: disable dynamic resizing if the X server is configured for fixed resolutions * Linux/Solaris Additions: handle virtual resolutions properly which are larger than the actual guest resolution (bug #3096)
This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:
- OVF (Open Virtualization Format) appliance import and export
- Host-only networking mode
- Hypervisor optimizations with significant performance gains for high context switching rates
- VT-x/AMD-V are enabled by default for newly created virtual machines
- USB (OHCI & EHCI) is enabled by default for newly created virtual machines (Qt GUI only)
- Experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts
- Shared folders for Solaris and OpenSolaris guests
- OpenGL 3d acceleration for Linux guests
- Experimental support for OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) hosts running both the 64-bit and the 32-bit kernel
In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:
- VMM: FreeBSD guest related fix for V86 flags (bug #2342)
- VMM: Fixed guru meditation when booting an AsteriskNow Linux VM (bug #2342)
- VMM: Fixed PGMPOOLKIND_FREE guru meditation (bugs #3356, #3431)
- VMM: Fixed Windows XP boot hang (guest PAE + nested paging only)
- VMM: Allow mixing of VT-x/AMD-V and software virtualization
- VMM: fixed extremely slow safe mode booting in e.g. Windows 2008 (VT-x/AMD-V only)
- VMM: significant speedup of certain Grub boot loaders (e.g. Solaris) (VT-x/AMD-V only)
- VMM: real-mode IOPL fix for DOS guests (VT-x only)
- VMM: fixed VT-x detection with certain BIOSes that enable VT-x, but don't set the lock bit in MSR_IA32_FEATURE_CONTROL
- NAT: Truncated downloads with NAT (ftp) (bug #3257)
- NAT: Blocked UDP packets cause crash (bug #3426)
- USB: further reduced host CPU utilization for OHCI and EHCI; the "VBoxInternal/Devices/usb-ohci/0/Config/FrameRate" CFG key is no longer necessary and no longer supported
- VRDP: fixed hangs when VRDP server is enabled or disabled in runtime
- X11 guests: show the guest mouse pointer at the right position if the virtual desktop is larger than the guest resolution (bug #2306)
- Solaris guests: added xpg4/xcu4 dependency to the guest additions installer (bug #3524)
- Linux hosts: do proper reference counting to prevent unloading the vboxnetflt module as long as this code is in use
- Linux installers: fixes for Slackware, Arch Linux and Linux from Scratch systems
- Windows installers: Combined installer executable which contains both (32- and 64-bit) architectures
- VBoxManage: less cryptic command-line error messages
- VBoxManage: 'list vm' commands now default to compact format
- Hard disks: improved immutable disk support to auto-reset diff file at VM startup
- GUI: enable the audio adapter by default for new VMs
- GUI: warn if VT-x/AMD-V is not operational when starting a 64 bits guest
- GUI: deactivate 64 bits guest support when the host CPU does not support VT-x/AMD-V
- GUI: removed floppy icon from the status bar
- GUI: show build revision in about dialog
- GUI: fixed sticky status bar text
- GUI/Mac OS X: fixed disabled close button
- GUI: improved error dialogs
- 3D support: added opengl select/feedback support (bug #2920)
- 3D support: close opengl subsystem for terminated guest applications (bug #3243)
- 3D support: fixed VM hangs when starting guests with 3D acceleration enabled (bug #3437)
- PXE: fixed boot hangs when hardware virtualization is used (bug #2536)
This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:
• OVF (Open Virtualization Format) appliance import and export (see chapter 3.8, Importing and exporting virtual machines, page 55)
• Host-only networking mode (see chapter 6.7, Host-only networking, page 87)
• Hypervisor optimizations with significant performance gains for high context switching rates
• Raised the memory limit for VMs on 64-bit hosts to 16GB
• VT-x/AMD-V are enabled by default for newly created virtual machines
• USB (OHCI & EHCI) is enabled by default for newly created virtual machines (Qt GUI only)
• Experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts
• Shared folders for Solaris and OpenSolaris guests
• OpenGL 3d acceleration for Linux and Solaris guests (see chapter 4.8, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL), page 69)
• Experimental support for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) hosts running both the 64-bit and the 32-bit kernel
• Added C API in addition to C++, Java, Python and Web Services
In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:
• VMM: FreeBSD guest related fix for V86 flags (bug #2342) 14812 Change log
• VMM: Fixed guru meditation when booting an AsteriskNow Linux VM (bug #2342)
• VMM: Fixed PGMPOOLKIND_FREE guru meditation (bugs #3356, #3431)
• VMM: Fixed Windows XP boot hang (guest PAE + nested paging only)
• VMM: Allow mixing of VT-x/AMD-V and software virtualization
• VMM: fixed extremely slow safe mode booting in e.g. Windows 2008 (VT-x/AMD-V only)
• VMM: significant speedup of certain Grub boot loaders (e.g. Solaris) (VT-x/AMD-V only)
• VMM: real-mode IOPL fix for DOS guests (VT-x only)
• VMM: fixed VT-x detection with certain BIOSes that enable VT-x, but don’t set the lock bit in MSR_IA32_FEATURE_CONTROL
• VMM: fixed hibernation issues on Windows XP hosts (VT-x only; bug #1794)
• VMM: properly emulate RDMSR from the TSC MSR, should fix some NetBSD guests
• NAT: fixed truncated downloads (ftp) (bug #3257)
• NAT: blocked UDP packets caused a crash (bug #3426)
• IDE: fixed hard disk upgrade from XML-1.2 settings (bug #1518)
• Hard disks: refuse to start the VM if a disk image is not writable
• USB: further reduced host CPU utilization for OHCI and EHCI; the “VBoxInternal/Devices/usb-ohci/0/Config/FrameRate” CFG key is no longer necessary and no longer supported
• USB: Fixed BSOD on the host with certain USB devices (Windows hosts only; bug #1654)
• E1000: properly handle cable disconnects (bug #3421)
• VRDP: fixed hangs when VRDP server is enabled or disabled in runtime
• X11 guests: prevented setting the locale in vboxmouse, as this caused problems with Turkish locales (bug #3563)
• X11 guests: show the guest mouse pointer at the right position if the virtual desktop is larger than the guest resolution (bug #2306)
• Linux additions: fixed typo when detecting Xorg 1.6 (bug #3555) 14912 Change log
• Solaris guests: added xpg4/xcu4 dependency to the guest additions installer (bug #3524)
• Windows guests: bind the VBoxMouse.sys filter driver to the correct guest point-ing device (bug #1324)
• Windows hosts: fixed BSOD when starting a VM with enabled host interface (bug #3414)
• Linux hosts: do proper reference counting to prevent unloading the vboxnetflt module as long as this code is in use (bug #3104)
• Linux hosts: do not leave zombies of VBoxSysInfo.sh (bug #3586)
• Linux installers: fixes for Slackware, Arch Linux and Linux from Scratch systems
• Windows installers: Combined installer executable which contains both (32- and 64-bit) architectures.
• VBoxManage: less cryptic command-line error messages
• VBoxManage: ’list vms’ commands now default to compact format
• VBoxManage: ’controlvm dvdattach’ did not work if the image was attached before
• VBoxManage showvminfo: don’t spam the release log if the additions don’t support statistics information (bug #3457)
• Hard disks: improved immutable disk support to auto-reset diff file at VM startup (related to bug #2772)
• GUI: enable the audio adapter by default for new VMs
• GUI: warn if VT-x/AMD-V is not operational when starting a 64 bits guest
• GUI: deactivate 64 bits guest support when the host CPU does not support VT-x/AMD-V
• GUI: removed floppy icon from the status bar
• GUI: show build revision in about dialog
• GUI: fixed sticky status bar text
• GUI: improved error dialogs
• GUI: fail with an appropriate error message when trying to boot a read-only disk image (bug #1745)
• GUI/Mac OS X: fixed disabled close button 15012 Change log
• 3D support: added opengl select/feedback support (bug #2920)
• 3D support: close opengl subsystem for terminated guest applications (bug #3243)
• 3D support: fixed VM hangs when starting guests with 3D acceleration enabled (bug #3437)
• PXE: fixed boot hangs when hardware virtualization is used (bug #2536)
• LsiLogic: fixed problems with Solaris guests
Changelog:
Host and guest clipboard: fixed a number of issues affecting hosts and guests running the X window system.
Guest Additions: make sure the virtual mouse autodetection works on first reboot after installing the Additions on X.Org server 1.5 and later.
Guest Additions: properly report process identity number of running services
Guest Additions: clean up properly if the X Window server terminates
Linux Additions: fixed installation path for OpenGL libraries in some 64-bit guests (bug #3693)
Solaris Additions: fixed installation to work when X.Org is not installed on the guest
Solaris Additions: fixed a bug that could panic the guest when unmounting a busy shared folder
Windows Additions: fixed mouse pointer integration of some Windows guests (2.2.0 regression, bug #3734)
Windows Additions: fixed installation on Windows Server 2008 Core (bug #2628)
Main: do not try to use older versions of D-Bus (Linux hosts only, bug #3732)
VMM: fixed out-of-memory conditions on Windows hosts (bug #3657)
VMM: fixed occasional hangs when attaching USB devices during VM startup (2.2.0 regression; bugs #3787)
VMM: fixed guru meditation related to memory management (software virtualization only)
Virtual disks: fix possible data corruption when writing to diff images, incorrect detection of redundant writes
GUI: reworked network settings dialog
GUI: properly show the detailed settings dialog of NAT networks (bug #3702)
GUI: HostKey could not be changed (2.2.0 regression, bug #3689)
GUI: fixed memory textfield size (Windows hosts only; bug #3679)
GUI: fixed crash when selecting a shared folder path (Windows hosts only; bugs #3694, #3751, #3756)
VBoxManage modifyhd --compact: implemented again for VDI files, and now supports relative paths (bug #2180, #2833)
VBoxManage snapshot discard: made it work again (2.1.0 regression; bug #3714)
NAT: on some Windows host, the guest didn’t receive a DHCP lease (bug #3655)
NAT: fixed release assertion during poll() (bug #3667)
Clipboard: fixed random crahes (X11 hosts only, bug #3723)
Shared Folders: fixed incorrect permissions for Solaris guests
Shared Folders: fixed wrong file sizes with Solaris guests
CBindings: fixed possible memory leak while releasing the IVirtualBox and ISession Objects
Solaris hosts: fixed host-only network interface incompatibility with nwam/dhcpagent (bug #3754)
Windows installer: fixed several install and uninstall issues (bugs #3659, #3686, #1730, #3711, #3373, #3382, #3701, #3685, #3710)
Mac OS X hosts: preliminary support for Snow Leopard
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added: - Windows Installer: fixed a potential hang during installation - Windows Installer: fixed several problems (bug #3892) - Solaris hosts: make it work with Solaris build 114 or later (bug #3981) - Solaris hosts: fixed a bug serial port character handling found during loopback (bug #3120) - Linux hosts: adapted vboxdrv.sh to the latest changes in VBoxManage list runningvms (bug #4034) - Windows hosts: fixed a crash caused by host-only/bridged networking - Mac OS X hosts: fixed access to host DVD with passthrough disabled (bug #4077) - Guest Additions: fixed problems with KDE 4 not recognizing mouse clicks - Windows Additions: fixed incorrect 8-bit guest color depth in Windows 7 guests - GUI: warn if VT-x/AMD-V could not be enabled for guests that require this setting (bug #4055) - VMM: fixed occassional crash due to insuffient memory - VMM: fixed hanging 64 bits Solaris guests - VMM: restore from a saved state occassionally failed (bugs #3984 and #2742) - Clipboard: fixed a deadlock while shutting down the shared clipboard on X11 hosts (bug #4020) - OVF: fixed potential hang during import - OVF: fixed potential crashes during import/export on Win64 hosts - VBoxManage modifyhd --compact: fixed bug which could lead to crashes and image corruption (bug #3864) - VBoxManage metrics collect: now flushes the output stream. - VHD: made VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid work for .vhd files (bug #3443) - VHD: some .vhd files could not be cloned (bug #4080) - VMDK: fixed creating snapshots - NAT: improvement of TCP connection establisment (bug #2987) - NAT: fixed order of DNS servers in DHCP lease (bug #4091) - NAT: fixed DHCP lease for multiple name servers (bug #3692) - NAT: fixed a potential segfault if the host lost its connectivity (bug #3964) - Shared Folders: deny access to parent directories on Windows hosts (bug #4090) - Shared Folders: make rm/rmdir work with Solaris guests on Windows hosts - Networking: fixed the problem with blocked receiving thread when a broadcast packet arrives too early to be handled by uninitialized e1000 adapter. - Networking: fixed the problem that caused host freezes/crashes when using bridged mode with host’s interface having RX checksum offloading on (bug #3926 and related). Fixes problems with TX offloading as well (bug #3870) - PXE boot: Added support for PRO/1000 MT Server adapter. - Python bindings: fixed keyword conflict - SCSI: fixed occasional crashes on Win64 - Serial: allow to redirect the serial port to a raw file (bug #1023) - VRDP: fixed a rare incorrect screen update
This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:
• Guest SMP with up to 32 virtual CPUs (VT-x and AMD-V only)
• Windows guests: ability to use Direct3D 8/9 applications / games (experimental)
• Support for OpenGL 2.0 for Windows, Linux and Solaris guests
In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:
• Virtual mouse device: eliminated micro-movements of the virtual mouse which were confusing some applications (bug #3782)
• Solaris hosts: allow suspend/resume on the host when a VM is running (bug #3826)
• Solaris hosts: tighten the restriction for contiguous physical memory under certain conditions
• VMM: fixed occassional guru meditation when loading a saved state (VT-x only)
• VMM: eliminated IO-APIC overhead with 32 bits guests (VT-x only, some Intel CPUs don’t support this feature (most do); bug #638)
• VMM: fixed 64 bits CentOS guest hangs during early boot (AMD-V only; bug #3927)
• VMM: performance improvements for certain PAE guests (e.g. Linux 2.6.29+ kernels)
• GUI: added mini toolbar for fullscreen and seamless mode (Thanks to Huihong Luo)
• GUI: redesigned settings dialogs
• GUI: allow to create/remove one host-only network adapters
• GUI: display estimated time for long running operations (e.g. OVF import/export)
• GUI: Fixed rare hangs when open the OVF import/export wizards (bug #4157)
• VRDP: support Windows 7 RDP client
• Networking: fixed another problem with TX checksum offloading with Linux kernels up to version 2.6.18
• VHD: properly write empty sectors when cloning of VHD images (bug #4080)
• VHD: fixed crash when discarding snapshots of a VHD image
• VBoxManage: fixed incorrect partition table processing when creating VMDK files giving raw partition access (bug #3510)
• OVF: several OVF 1.0 compatibility fixes
• Shared Folders: sometimes a file was created using the wrong permissions (2.2.0 regression; bug #3785)
• Shared Folders: allow to change file attributes from Linux guests and use the correct file mode when creating files
• Shared Folders: fixed incorrect file timestamps, when using Windows guest on a Linux host (bug #3404)
• Linux guests: new daemon vboxadd-service to handle time syncronization and guest property lookup
• Linux guests: implemented guest properties (OS info, logged in users, basic network information)
• Windows host installer: VirtualBox Python API can now be installed automatically (requires Python and Win32 Extensions installed)
• USB: Support for high-speed isochronous endpoints has been added. In addition, read-ahead buffering is performed for input endpoints (currently Linux hosts only). This should allow additional devices to work, notably webcams.
• NAT: allow to configure socket and internal parameters
• Registration dialog uses Sun Online accounts now.
InnoTek VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.
Some of the features of VirtualBox are:
* Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes it easy to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you can start a virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine from the command line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a full Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don?t have to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.
* Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The configuration settings of virtual machines are stored entirely in XML and are independent of the local machines. Virtual machine definitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.
* Guest Additions for Windows and Linux. VirtualBox has special software that can be installed inside Windows and Linux virtual machines to improve performance and make integration much more seamless. Among the features provided by these Guest Additions are mouse pointer integration and arbitrary screen solutions (e.g. by resizing the guest window).
Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows and Linux 32-bit hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added: - VMM: fixed network regressions (guest hangs during network IO) (bug #4343) - VMM: guest SMP performance improvements - VMM: fixed hangs and poor performance with Kaspersky Internet Security (VT-x/AMD-V only; bug #1778) - VMM: fixed crashes when executing certain Linux guests (software virtualization only; bugs #2696 & #3868) - ACPI: fixed Windows 2000 kernel hangs with IO-APIC enabled (bug #4348) - APIC: fixed high idle load for certain Linux guests (3.0 regression) - BIOS: properly handle Ctrl-Alt-Del in real mode - iSCSI: fixed configuration parsing (bug #4236) - OVF: fix potential confusion when exporting networks - OVF: compatibility fix (bug #4452) - NAT: fixed crashes under certain circumstances (bug #4330) - 3D support: fixed dynamic linking on Solaris/OpenSolaris guests (bug #4399) - 3D support: fixed incorrect context/window tracking for multithreaded apps - Shared Folders: fixed loading from saved state (bug #1595) - Shared Folders: host file permissions set to 0400 with Windows guest (bug #4381) - X11 host and guest clipboard: fixed a number of issues, including bug #4380 and #4344 - X11 Additions: fixed some issues with seamless windows in X11 guests (bug #3727) - Windows Additions: added VBoxServiceNT for NT4 guests (for time synchronization and guest properties) - Windows Additions: fixed version lookup - Linux hosts: workaround for buggy graphics drivers showing a black VM window on recent distributions (bug #4335) - Linux hosts: fixed typo in kernel module startup script (bug #4388) - Installer: support Pardus Linux - Solaris hosts: several installer fixes - Solaris host: fixed a preemption issue causing VMs to never start on Solaris 10 (bug #4328). - Solaris guest: fixed mouse integration for OpenSolaris 2009.06 (bug #4365) - Windows hosts: fixed high CPU usage after resuming the host (bug #2978) - OVF: accept ovf:/disk/ specifiers with a single slash in addition to ovf://disk/ (bug #4452) - Fixed a settings file conversion bug which sometimes caused hardware acceleration to be enabled for virtual machines that had no explicit configuration in the XML.
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added: • VMM: 64 bits guest stability fixes (AMD-V only; bugs #3923 & #3666) • VMM: SMP stability fixes (AMD-V only) • VMM: SMP performance improvement (esp. for Solaris guests) • VMM: eliminated several bugs which could lead to a host reboot • VMM: fixed OS/2 ACP2 boot floppy hang (VT-x only) • VMM: small performance improvement for OpenSolaris guests (AMD-V only) • VMM: fixed CentOS/Xen reboot (software virtualization only; bug #4509) • SATA: fixed hangs / BSOD during Windows XP installation (bug #4342) • SATA: mark the ports as non hotpluggable (bug #3920) • 3D support: fix deadlocks and context/window tracking for multithreaded applications (bug #3922) • 3D support: fix memory leaks when terminating OpenGL guest applications • 3D support: fix crash in Call of Duty • NAT: using two or more NAT adapters in one VM was broken (3.0.0 regression) • NAT: fixed network communication corruptions (bugs #4499, #4540, #4591, #4604) • NAT: fixed passive ftp access to host server (bug #4427) • iSCSI: fixed cloning to/from iSCSI disks • GUI: fixed path separator handling for the OVF export on Windows (bug #4354) • GUI: the mini toolbar was only shown on the first host display (bug #4654) • GUI: added a VM option to display the mini toolbar on top • GUI: don’t crash when adding plus configuring host-only network interfaces • Shared Folders: fixed selection of a drive root directory as a shared folder host path in VirtualBox (Windows host only) • USB: fixed a bug that may have rendered USB device filter settings inactive (3.0.2 regression, bug #4668) • Guest Additions: report the Guest Additions version to the guest properties (bug #3415) • Mac OS X hosts: fix creation of VMDK files giving raw partition access (bug #1461) • Mac OS X hosts: improved support for Snow Leopard • Linux hosts: fixed problems leading to wrong colors or transparency in host windows with some graphics drivers (bug #3095) • Linux hosts: hardware detection fallbacks if the hal service fails to find any DVD drives. • Linux and Solaris hosts: Work around color handling problems in Qt (bug #4353) • Solaris Installer: fixed incorrect netmask for Host-only interface (bug #4590) • Solaris Installer: added package dependency for Python and Python-devel (bug #4570) • X11 guests: prevent windows from being skipped in seamless mode KDE guests (bugs #1681 and #3574) • X11 guests: fixed screen corruption in X11 guests when large amounts of video RAM were allocated (bug #4430) • X11 guests: some fixes when switching between host and guest-drawn mouse pointers. • X11 guests: fixed an issue which caused seamless mode to stop working as it should (the main issue listed in bug #2238).
Changelog This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added: • VMM: fixed IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 guests (AMD-V only; bug #4392) • VMM: fixed a Guru meditation under certain circumstances when enabling a disabled device (bug #4510) • VMM: fixed a Guru meditation when booting certain Arch Linux guests (software virtualization only; bug #2149) • VMM: fixed hangs with 64 bits Solaris & OpenSolaris guests (bug #2258) • VMM: fixed decreasing rdtsc values (AMD-V & VT-x only; bug #2869) • VMM: small Solaris/OpenSolaris performance improvements (VT-x only) • VMM: cpuid change to correct reported virtual CPU id in Linux • VMM: NetBSD 5.0.1 CD hangs during boot (VT-x only; bug #3947) • Solaris hosts: fixed a potential host system deadlock when CPUs were onlined or offlined • Python WS: fixed issue with certain enumerations constants having wrong value in Python webservices bindings • Python API: several threading and platform issues fixed • Python shell: added exportVM command • Python shell: improvments and bugfixes • Python shell: corrected detection of home directory in remote case • OVF: fixed XML comment handling that could lead to parser errors • Main: fixed a rare parsing problem with port numbers of USB device filters in machine settings XML • Main: restrict guest RAM size to 1.5 GB (32 bits Windows hosts only) • GUI: fixed rare crash when removing the last disk from the media manager (bug #4795) • Linux hosts: don’t crash on Linux PAE kernel < 2.6.11 (in particular RHEL/CentOS 4); disable VT-x on Linux kernels < 2.6.13 (bug #1842) • Linux/Solaris hosts: correctly detect keyboards with less keys than usual (bug #4799) • Serial: fixed host mode (Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X hosts; bug #4672) • VRDP: Remote USB Protocol version 3 • SATA: fixed hangs and BSODs introduced with 3.0.4 (#4695, #4739, #4710) • SATA: fixed a bug which prevented Windows 7 from detecting more than one hard disk • iSCSI: fix logging out when the target has dropped the connection, fix negotiation of parameters, fix command resend when the connection was dropped, fix processing SCSI status for targets which do not use phase collapse • BIOS: fixed a bug preventing to start the OS/2 boot manager (2.1.0 regression, bug #3911) • PulseAudio: don’t hang during VM termination if the connection to the server was unexpectedly terminated (bug #3100) • Mouse: fixed weird mouse behaviour with SMP (Solaris) guests • HostOnly Network: fixed failure in CreateHostOnlyNetworkInterface() on Linux (no GUID) • HostOnly Network: fixed wrong DHCP server startup while hostonly interface bringup on Linux • HostOnly Network: fixed incorrect factory and default MAC address on Solaris • DHCP: fixed a bug in the DHCP server where it allocated one IP address less than the configured range • E1000: fixed receiving of multicast packets • E1000: fixed up/down link notification after resuming a VM • NAT: fixed ethernet address corruptions (bug #4839) • NAT: fixed hangs, dropped packets and retransmission problems (bug #4343) • Bridged Network: fixed packet queue issue which might cause DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE bsod for windows hosts (bug #4821) • Windows Additions: fixed a bug in VBoxGINA which prevented selecting the right domain when logging in the first time • Windows host installer: should now also work on unicode systems (like Korean, bug #3707) • Shared clipboard: do not send zero-terminated text to X11 guests and hosts (bug #4712) • Shared clipboard: use a less CPU intensive way of checking for new data on X11 guests and hosts (bug #4092) • Mac OS X hosts: prevent password dialogs in 32Bit Snow Leopard • Solaris hosts: worked around an issue that caused the host to hang (bug #4486) • Guest Additions: do not hide the host mouse cursor when restoring a saved state (bug #4700) • Windows guests: fixed issues with the display of the mouse cursor image (bugs #2603, #2660 and #4817) • SUSE 11 guests: fixed Guest Additions installation (bug #4506) • Guest Additions: support Fedora 12 Alpha guests (bugs #4731, #4733 and #4734)
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added: VMM: fixed IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 guests (AMD-V only; bug #4392) VMM: fixed a Guru meditation under certain circumstances when enabling a disabled device (bug #4510) VMM: fixed a Guru meditation when booting certain Arch Linux guests (software virtualization only; bug #2149) VMM: fixed hangs with 64 bits Solaris & OpenSolaris guests (bug #2258) VMM: fixed decreasing rdtsc values (AMD-V & VT-x only; bug #2869) VMM: small Solaris/OpenSolaris performance improvements (VT-x only) VMM: cpuid change to correct reported virtual CPU id in Linux VMM: NetBSD 5.0.1 CD hangs during boot (VT-x only; bug #3947) Solaris hosts: worked around an issue that caused the host to hang (bug #4486) Solaris hosts: fixed a rare host system deadlock when using bridged networking Solaris hosts: fixed a potential host system deadlock when CPUs were onlined or offlined Solaris hosts installer: added missing dependency for UTF-8 package (bug #4899) Linux hosts: don't crash on Linux PAE kernels < 2.6.11 (in particular RHEL/CentOS 4); disable VT-x on Linux kernels < 2.6.13 (bug #1842) Linux/Solaris hosts: correctly detect keyboards with fewer keys than usual (bug #4799) Mac OS X hosts: prevent password dialogs in 32 bits Snow Leopard Python WS: fixed issue with certain enumerations constants having wrong values in Python webservices bindings Python API: several threading and platform issues fixed Python shell: added exportVM command Python shell: various improvements and bugfixes Python shell: corrected detection of home directory in remote case OVF: fixed XML comment handling that could lead to parser errors Main: fixed a rare parsing problem with port numbers of USB device filters in machine settings XML Main: restrict guest RAM size to 1.5 GB (32 bits Windows hosts only) Main: fixed possible hang during guest reboot (bug #3792) GUI: fixed rare crash when removing the last disk from the media manager (bug #4795) VBoxManage: fixed guestproperty for Mac OS X hosts (bug #3806) VBoxManage: fixed setting guest properties with --flags or -flags Webservice: fixed a severe memory leak, at least on platforms using XPCOM Serial: fixed host mode (Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X hosts; bug #4672) VRDP: Remote USB Protocol version 3 SATA: fixed hangs and BSODs introduced with 3.0.4 (bugs #4695, #4739, #4710) SATA: fixed a bug which prevented Windows 7 from detecting more than one hard disk SATA/SCSI: fixed rare random guest crashes and hangs SCSI: fixed problem with Fedora 11 refusing to boot after kernel update iSCSI: fix logging out when the target has dropped the connection, fix negotiation of simparameters, fix command resend when the connection was dropped, fix processing SCSI status for targets which do not use phase collapse BIOS: fixed a bug that caused the OS/2 boot manager to fail (2.1.0 regression, bug #3911) PulseAudio: don't hang during VM termination if the connection to the server was unexpectedly terminated (bug #3100) Mouse: fixed weird mouse behaviour with SMP (Solaris) guests (bug #4538) HostOnly Network: fixed failure in CreateHostOnlyNetworkInterface() on Linux (no GUID) HostOnly Network: fixed wrong DHCP server startup while hostonly interface bringup on Linux HostOnly Network: fixed incorrect factory and default MAC address on Solaris HostOnly Network: fixed the problem with listing host-only interfaces on Mac OS X when all physical interfaces are down (bugs #4698, #4790) DHCP: fixed a bug in the DHCP server where it allocated one IP address less than the configured range E1000: fixed receiving of multicast packets E1000: fixed up/down link notification after resuming a VM NAT: fixed ethernet address corruptions (bug #4839) NAT: fixed hangs, dropped packets and retransmission problems (bug #4343) Bridged Network: fixed packet queue issue which might cause DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE BSOD for Windows hosts (bug #4821) Windows Additions: fixed a bug in VBoxGINA which prevented selecting the right domain when logging in the first time Windows host installer: should now also work on unicode systems (like Korean, bug #3707) Windows host installer: check for sufficient disk space Shared clipboard: do not send zero-terminated text to X11 guests and hosts (bug #4712) Shared clipboard: use a less CPU intensive way of checking for new data on X11 guests and hosts (bug #4092) Guest Additions: do not hide the host mouse cursor when restoring a saved state (bug #4700) Windows guests: fixed issues with the display of the mouse cursor image (bugs #2603, #2660 and #4817) SUSE 11 guests: fixed Guest Additions installation (bug #4506) Guest Additions: support Fedora 12 Alpha guests (bugs #4731, #4733 and #4734)
Changes in VirtualBox 3.0.6 (released 2009-09-09): * VMM: fixed IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003 guests (AMD-V only; bug #4392) * VMM: fixed a Guru meditation under certain circumstances when enabling a disabled device (bug #4510) * VMM: fixed a Guru meditation when booting certain Arch Linux guests (software virtualization only; bug #2149) * VMM: fixed hangs with 64 bits Solaris & OpenSolaris guests (bug #2258) * VMM: fixed decreasing rdtsc values (AMD-V & VT-x only; bug #2869) * VMM: small Solaris/OpenSolaris performance improvements (VT-x only) * VMM: cpuid change to correct reported virtual CPU id in Linux * VMM: NetBSD 5.0.1 CD hangs during boot (VT-x only; bug #3947) * Solaris hosts: worked around an issue that caused the host to hang (bug #4486) * Solaris hosts: fixed a rare host system deadlock when using bridged networking * Solaris hosts: fixed a potential host system deadlock when CPUs were onlined or offlined * Solaris hosts installer: added missing dependency for UTF-8 package (bug #4899) * Linux hosts: don't crash on Linux PAE kernels < 2.6.11 (in particular RHEL/CentOS 4); disable VT-x on Linux kernels < 2.6.13 (bug #1842) * Linux/Solaris hosts: correctly detect keyboards with fewer keys than usual (bug #4799) * Mac OS X hosts: prevent password dialogs in 32 bits Snow Leopard * Python WS: fixed issue with certain enumerations constants having wrong values in Python webservices bindings * Python API: several threading and platform issues fixed * Python shell: added exportVM command * Python shell: various improvements and bugfixes * Python shell: corrected detection of home directory in remote case * OVF: fixed XML comment handling that could lead to parser errors * Main: fixed a rare parsing problem with port numbers of USB device filters in machine settings XML * Main: restrict guest RAM size to 1.5 GB (32 bits Windows hosts only) * Main: fixed possible hang during guest reboot (bug #3792) * GUI: fixed rare crash when removing the last disk from the media manager (bug #4795) * VBoxManage: fixed guestproperty for Mac OS X hosts (bug #3806) * VBoxManage: fixed setting guest properties with --flags or -flags * Webservice: fixed a severe memory leak, at least on platforms using XPCOM * Serial: fixed host mode (Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X hosts; bug #4672) * VRDP: Remote USB Protocol version 3 * SATA: fixed hangs and BSODs introduced with 3.0.4 (bugs #4695, #4739, #4710) * SATA: fixed a bug which prevented Windows 7 from detecting more than one hard disk * SATA/SCSI: fixed rare random guest crashes and hangs * SCSI: fixed problem with Fedora 11 refusing to boot after kernel update * iSCSI: fix logging out when the target has dropped the connection, fix negotiation of simparameters, fix command resend when the connection was dropped, fix processing SCSI status for targets which do not use phase collapse * BIOS: fixed a bug that caused the OS/2 boot manager to fail (2.1.0 regression, bug #3911) * PulseAudio: don't hang during VM termination if the connection to the server was unexpectedly terminated (bug #3100) * Mouse: fixed weird mouse behaviour with SMP (Solaris) guests (bug #4538) * HostOnly Network: fixed failure in CreateHostOnlyNetworkInterface() on Linux (no GUID) * HostOnly Network: fixed wrong DHCP server startup while hostonly interface bringup on Linux * HostOnly Network: fixed incorrect factory and default MAC address on Solaris * HostOnly Network: fixed the problem with listing host-only interfaces on Mac OS X when all physical interfaces are down (bugs #4698, #4790) * DHCP: fixed a bug in the DHCP server where it allocated one IP address less than the configured range * E1000: fixed receiving of multicast packets * E1000: fixed up/down link notification after resuming a VM * NAT: fixed ethernet address corruptions (bug #4839) * NAT: fixed hangs, dropped packets and retransmission problems (bug #4343) * Bridged Network: fixed packet queue issue which might cause DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE BSOD for Windows hosts (bug #4821) * Windows Additions: fixed a bug in VBoxGINA which prevented selecting the right domain when logging in the first time * Windows host installer: should now also work on unicode systems (like Korean, bug #3707) * Windows host installer: check for sufficient disk space * Shared clipboard: do not send zero-terminated text to X11 guests and hosts (bug #4712) * Shared clipboard: use a less CPU intensive way of checking for new data on X11 guests and hosts (bug #4092) * Guest Additions: do not hide the host mouse cursor when restoring a saved state (bug #4700) * Windows guests: fixed issues with the display of the mouse cursor image (bugs #2603, #2660 and #4817) * SUSE 11 guests: fixed Guest Additions installation (bug #4506) * Guest Additions: support Fedora 12 Alpha guests (bugs #4731, #4733 and #4734)
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:
* VMM: reduced IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 guests; requires 64 bits support (VT-x only; bug #4392)
* VMM: fixed double timer interrupt delivery on old Linux kernels using IO-APIC (caused guest time to run at double speed; bug #3135)
* VMM: reinitialize VT-x and AMD-V after host suspend or hibernate; some BIOSes forget this (Windows hosts only; bug #5421)
* VMM: fix loading of saved state when RAM preallocation is enabled
* BIOS: ignore unknown shutdown codes instead of causing a guru meditation (bug #5389)
* GUI: never start a VM on a single click into the selector window (bug #2676)
* Serial: reduce the probability of lost bytes if the host end is connected to a raw file
* VMDK: fix handling of split image variants and fix a 3.0.10 regression (bug #5355)
* VRDP: fixed occasional VRDP server crash
* Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, some guests were able to send / receive packets (E1000; bug #5366)
* Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, the PCNet card received some spurious packets which might confuse the guest (bug #4496)
* Shared folders: fixed changing case of file names (bug #2520)
* Windows Additions: fix crash in seamless mode (contributed by Huihong Luo)
* Linux Additions: fix writing to files opened in O_APPEND mode (bug #3805)
* Solaris Additions: fix regression in guest additions driver which among other things caused lost guest property updates and periodic error messages being written to the system log