VirtualBox implement tips

Volume

• Use the vdi created by VboxManage if the user do not specific the volume directory, such as

  Create a 32GB “dynamic” disk:

  VBoxManage createhd --filename volume.vdi --size 32768
  

  And attach it to the VM:

   VBoxManage storageattach $VM --storagectl "SATA Controller" \
              --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium volume.vdi
  

  Attention:
  There is no any interface to create a new vdi in **go-virtualbox** library, need to patch it.
  

• Use the shared folder to attach a volume if the user specific the volume directory, such as

  VBoxManage sharedfolder add add <uuid|vmname> --name <name> --hostpath <hostpath>
  

Image

• VirtualBox boot from a iso image, which includes kernel and initrd.img
• Not sure the boot time, we may focus the boot successfully, not performance

Serial Port

• Use ttyS0 and ttyS1 to communicate between host and guest via socket, since VirtualBox only support two serial ports
• Set the serial port to use Host Pipe of VirtualBox

The following other hardware settings are available through VBoxManage modifyvm:

--uart<1-N> off|<I/O base> :

With this option you can configure virtual serial ports for the VM.

--uartmode<1-N> arg:

This setting controls how VirtualBox connects a given virtual serial port (previously configured with the --uartX setting, see above) to the host on which the virtual machine is running. As described in detail in Section 3.9, “Serial ports”, for each such port, you can specify <arg> as one of the following options:

* disconnected: Even though the serial port is shown to the guest, it has no "other end" -- like a real COM port without a cable.

* server <pipename>: On a Windows host, this tells VirtualBox to create a named pipe on the host named <pipename> and connect the virtual serial device to it. Note that Windows requires that the name of a named pipe begin with \\.\pipe\.

On a Linux host, instead of a named pipe, a local domain socket is used.

* client <pipename>: This operates just like server ..., except that the pipe (or local domain socket) is not created by VirtualBox, but assumed to exist already.

* <devicename>: If, instead of the above, the device name of a physical hardware serial port of the host is specified, the virtual serial port is connected to that hardware port. On a Windows host, the device name will be a COM port such as COM1; on a Linux host, the device name will look like /dev/ttyS0. This allows you to "wire" a real serial port to a virtual machine.

Attention:
This interface is not implemented in go-virtualbox library