Sun Microsystems 3.0.0 User Manual
2 Installation
2.3.5 Starting VirtualBox on Linux
The easiest way to start a VirtualBox program is by running the program of your choice
(VirtualBox, VBoxManage, VBoxSDL or VBoxHeadless) from a terminal. These
are symbolic links to VBox.sh that start the required program for you.
(VirtualBox, VBoxManage, VBoxSDL or VBoxHeadless) from a terminal. These
are symbolic links to VBox.sh that start the required program for you.
The following detailed instructions should only be of interest if you wish to exe-
cute VirtualBox without installing it first. You should start by compiling the vboxdrv
kernel module (see above) and inserting it into the Linux kernel. VirtualBox consists
of a service daemon (VBoxSVC) and several application programs. The daemon is
automatically started if necessary. All VirtualBox applications will communicate with
the daemon through Unix local domain sockets. There can be multiple daemon in-
stances under different user accounts and applications can only communicate with
the daemon running under the user account as the application. The local domain
socket resides in a subdirectory of your system’s directory for temporary files called
.vbox-<username>-ipc
kernel module (see above) and inserting it into the Linux kernel. VirtualBox consists
of a service daemon (VBoxSVC) and several application programs. The daemon is
automatically started if necessary. All VirtualBox applications will communicate with
the daemon through Unix local domain sockets. There can be multiple daemon in-
stances under different user accounts and applications can only communicate with
the daemon running under the user account as the application. The local domain
socket resides in a subdirectory of your system’s directory for temporary files called
.vbox-<username>-ipc
. In case of communication problems or server startup
problems, you may try to remove this directory.
All VirtualBox applications (VirtualBox, VBoxSDL, VBoxManage and VBoxHeadless)
require the VirtualBox directory to be in the library path:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP"
2.4 Installing on Solaris hosts
For the various versions of Solaris that we support as host operating systems, please
refer to chapter
refer to chapter
, page
If you have a previously installed instance of VirtualBox on your Solaris host, please
uninstall it first before installing a new instance. Refer to chapter
page
for uninstall instructions.
2.4.1 Performing the installation
VirtualBox is available as a standard Solaris package. Download the VirtualBox SunOS
package which includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of VirtualBox. The installa-
tion must be performed as root and from the global zone
package which includes both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of VirtualBox. The installa-
tion must be performed as root and from the global zone
as the VirtualBox installer loads
kernel drivers which cannot be done from non-global zones. To verify which zone you
are currently in, execute the zonename command. Execute the following commands:
are currently in, execute the zonename command. Execute the following commands:
gunzip -cd VirtualBox-3.0.0-SunOS-x86.tar.gz | tar xvf -
Starting with VirtualBox 1.6.2 we ship the VirtualBox kernel interface module (vbi).
The purpose of this module is to shield the VirtualBox kernel driver from changes to the
SunOS kernel. If you do not have vbi already installed (check for the existence of the
file /platform/i86pc/kernel/misc/vbi) install it by executing the command:
SunOS kernel. If you do not have vbi already installed (check for the existence of the
file /platform/i86pc/kernel/misc/vbi) install it by executing the command:
pkgadd -G -d VirtualBoxKern-3.0.0-SunOS.pkg
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