VirtualBox Q&A(Host OS: Windows; Guest OS: Ubuntu)

This is a Q&A post after sharing Guide for installing Ubuntu in VirtualBox on Windows

1. If the resolution of the installed guest OS on the VirtualBox is too small(For example 640x480) and you cannot adjust it through System Settings -> Display, what should you do?

A: In this case, it is mostly probably you don't have the VirtualBox Guest Additions installed. You can install the Guest Additions on your guest OS by:

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-dkms

Then restart the VM and you will see the resolution you want.

2. How to share a folder from guest OS to host OS. The guest OS is Ubuntu and the host OS is Windows.

A: You need to create a folder on guest OS9Ubuntu) and then right click on the folder, goto Properties -> Local Network Share and update it like below:

Then on Windows, you need to open Map Network Drive, and type the path of the folder on the VM. The path should be \\\. Here SHARE_NAME is the Share name you give when you change the Local Network Share setting. In our example, it's Shared.

When connecting. it will prompt you to enter username and password, the username and password are your VM OS username and password respectively.

3. How to enable network communication between host OS and guest OS(Host only network)?

A: Here we cover Host Only network only, open settings of the VM OS to be set, go to Network and in Adapter 2 tab, select "Host-only Adapter" at the Attached to field.

Then you can ping the ip address of your guest OS from the host OS. If you cannot ping through it, then you need to check a few things:

On host OS, type ipconfig, you should see something like :

The IPv4 address should have the same subnet address as the guest OS IP addtess. Here Ethernet Adapter subnet addtess is 192.168.56.x. And the guest OS IP address is 192.168.56.101.

They are in the same subnet, so you can ping through it. If they are not in the same subnet, then you cannot ping throught it. So make sure you Host only Ethernet adapter subnet address is the same as guest OS subnet address.

You can update the Host only Ethernet adapter address at VirtualBox-> File -> Preference ->Network:

4. How to install 64 bit OS on VirtualBox?

A. First you need to have a 64 bit processor and it supports hardware virtualization. Then you can follow the tutorial Want to install 64 bit OS on VirtualBox?

5. Set up static IP address

A. When want to use static IP address, you can edit the /etc/network/interfaces file. Initially, the interfaces may contain something like below:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Now assume you have another ethernet interface eth1, and you want to make its IP as 192.168.56.150, you can add below lines in the inetrfaces file.

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.56.150
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.56.1
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 192.168.56.1

And ensure that the IP address is in the same subdomain as the gateway. Then restart the system and you will find that your eth1 interface will have the desired IP address.