I recently set out to upgrade a virtual host server from VMware Server to Oracle’s VirtualBox. The upgrade was a huge success. This is one of several articles where I talk about various aspects of that upgrade, hopefully helping others along the way. You might want to go back and read the introductory article Virtualization Revisited.

Installing Ubuntu Server 10.10 is very fast and straightforward – maybe 10 minutes tops. There’s no shortage of coverage of the install procedure so I won’t bother with it again.

But in case you’re not familiar, I’ll mention that the Ubuntu installer will offer to configure the server with a selection of packages right off the bat. Like many others, I prefer to do those configurations myself in order to tailor the instance exactly to my needs. I make an exception with Open SSH so I that can reach the server from the comfort of my desk by the time it’s booted itself for the first time.

So let’s assume you’ve just finished the IPL, popped the install media, booted for the first time and logged in. The very first thing to do is catch up on any pending updates.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

For the sake of completeness, if anything is shown as kept back you should probably do a distribution upgrade followed by a reboot. If not, skip ahead.

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Next I install Lugaru’s epsilon editor, a very capable emacs-like editor that I run on all my boxes. Believe me: there’s great value in having one editor that behaves in exactly the same way no matter what keyboard’s under your fingers! I’ve been a Lugaru customer since the 80s and I’m pleased to recommend their rock-solid product. Go test fly their unrestricted trial-ware. Anyway, the epsilon installation needs to build a few things and installing this bit first allows that (as well as other routine software builds that might be needed in the future) to simply happen.

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

To The Business At Hand: Installing VirtualBox

Download the key and register the repository for VirtualBox. The key has changed recently, so what you see here might be different from other articles.

$ wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

The key fingerprint is

7B0F AB3A 13B9 0743 5925 D9C9 5442 2A4B 98AB 5139
Oracle Corporation (VirtualBox archive signing key) info@virtualbox.org

Edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list to add the following lines, which simply adds the appropriate repository.

# VirtualBox 3.2.10 VirtualBox for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian maverick non-free

Make your system aware of the newly added repository.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Now you’re ready for the actual VirtualBox install.

$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-3.2

Finally, add any users that will need to run VirtualBox to the vboxusers group.

Don’t forget the -a flag in the command! This is especially important if you’re manipulating your administrator account. (The flag indicates that the group should be added to the the account, rather than replacing any/all existing groups.)

$ sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers <username>

And that’s all there is to it!

[ed. Appended later…]

There have been a couple of comments in email about networking setup. “You must not be making your VMs visible to your LAN. There’s nothing mentioned about bridge adapters…”

In fact I am using bridged adapters in my VMs! Last time I looked at VirtualBox it was quite the pain to set up that way. When I came to that part I just gave it a WTF and tried to simply bridge eth0. It works just fine!

Thanks for asking.