Running VirtualBox On A CS Grad Or Ugrad Linux Client

INTRO

You might take a class that requests that you run VirtualBox on your own system. However, in the event your system cannot run VirtualBox, our CS Linux clients provide VirtualBox capability as well.

IMPORTANT NOTES ON USING VirtualBox ON OUR SYSTEMS

  • The easiest way to run VirtualBox on our Linux systems is to run virtualbox from a command line.
  • If you're ssh'ing into one of our systems (as opposed to running on the specific system you're sitting in front of in our computer labs), make sure you use X-forwarding or VNC. Otherwise your VirtualBox display will not show up on the system you're ssh'ing from.
  • When you first launch VirtualBox on our systems, if you receive a pop-up that there is a new version of VirtualBox available, please ignore it (close the window.) We have a specific upgrade process for our Fedora systems, and any new software versions available to our systems will happen during that process.
  • Remember, you are sharing our systems with other users, so please use the least amount of CPU & RAM as possible, to conserve resources.
  • Disk Space:
    • Another important resource to consider is disk space for your VirtualBox VM. Like CPU & RAM, please use the least amount of disk space as possible, since you share the same disks as students, faculty, instructors, and in some cases, researchers, postdocs, and staff.
    • Ugrad users have disk quotas, so, please make sure you can fit your VM into your allotted quota.
  • And finally, if you need to create a more resource-hungry VM for class and you are not required by your instructor to specifically use VirtualBox, please consider using the CS Department's general course-use VM Server instead.