Notes on VirtualBox

[Derek Atkins]

Jarod Wilson <jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org> writes:

>> * Can one migrate a VM from VMware to VirtualBox?
>
> Definitely.
>
>> * Can one remotely manage a VirtualBox server?
>
> Sort of. But its really more geared towards desktop use, more similar
> to vmware workstation than vmware server. You can of course ssh to
> your server and use some of the included cli tools for management, or
> run the management gui over ssh x11 forwarding.
>
>> * What are the performance comparrisons between VMware and VB?
>
> I don't have any hard numbers, but they generally feel fairly
> comparable to one another in my past use. (I actually use kvm just
> about everywhere now, save on my mac, where I do still run virtualbox
> for my fairly modest virtual machine needs there).
>
>> * Can one set the order in which VMs start at system boot time?
>
> Last I knew, you can't have virtualbox auto-start VMs at boot time at
> all, without the aid of a 3rd-party initscript/config file, which
> doesn't integrate w/the management gui at all.
>
>> * To what granularity can one set up remote access to different VB VMs?
>>  For example, I have a server where I want to be able to do everything
>>  myself, but I want to give user X the rights to fully manage VM X (but
>>  no other), give user Y the rights to fully manage VM Y (but no other),
>>  and give user Z the rights to access the console of VMs X and Y but
>>  they cannot make other changes to the VM configuration.  I can do this
>>  with vmware-server, can I do it with VB?
>
> Don't think so. For server use like this, VMware is definitely still superior.

Okay, sounds like for my use VMware-Server is still the right choice.

Thanks for confirming.

Maybe I'll play with VB or KVM on my work system where I need to have
crash-and-burn systems for testing.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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