2004-2010 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 10.3 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 10.4 Details about hardware virtualization . . . Glossary 302 8 1 First steps Welcome to Oracle VM VirtualBox! VirtualBox is a cross-platform virtualization application. What does that mean? For one thing, it installs on your existing Intel or AMD-based

2004-2011 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 155 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

2004-2011 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 154 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

2004-2010 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 153 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

2004-2010 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 150 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

2004-2012 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 10 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 167 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

2004-2011 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 163 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

2004-2015 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 156 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

2004-2015 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 9 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 156 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

2004-2012 Oracle Corporation http://www.virtualbox.org Contents 1 First steps 10 1.1 Why is virtualization useful? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.2 Some terminology . . . . . . . 169 10.3 Hardware vs. software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 10.4 Details about software virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 10.5 Details about hardware virtualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 10.6 Nested paging and VPIDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175