What is a virtual machine monitor?
A hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) is computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called a host machine, and each virtual machine is called a guest machine. The hypervisor presents the guest operating systems with a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of the guest operating systems.
VirtualBox
The hypervisor we have chosen to work with is Oracle VM VirtualBox, which is a free and open-source hosted hypervisor for x86 virtualization, developed by Oracle Corporation.
Creating a new virtual machine (VM)
- Visit Virtualbox's webpage for download and installation.
- Open Virtualbox and create a new virtual machine by clicking the "New" button.
- A new window will then open. You may here specify the name of your new virtual machine, what type of OS you would like to install and the location. In this guide we will install the Linux distribution Ubuntu.
The next step is to set the memory size allocated to the virtual machine. Exatly how much RAM to allocate depends on the tasks you're using it to perform. The more memory you allocate, the smoother and more powerful it will be. However, a good rule of thumb recommendation is to not exceed 50% of your total memory.
The memory allocated will only be utilized when the VM is beeing run. You can also easily change the assigned amount of RAM to your VM at any time later.
- Select the virtual hard drive for the new machine to use. If this is the first VM created with VirtualBox, the creation of a new virtual hard drive is needed. The hard disk type really only matters if you're planning to use the same virtual hard disk with another virtualization provider. We will therefore leave it at the recommend VDI. More information about which types are supported by other virtual disk softwares is found here.
- How the hard disk file should grow depends on preferences. Summarized is dynamically allocated a bit slower during writing operations, as it filles up as you write, while the fixed size is slower to set up, but does not spend resources allocating while writing. The disk size depends on how much data you are planning on storing inside your VM, but should at least exceed the recommended amount.
Install Ubuntu
- We now need to install the the Ubuntu OS onto our new virtual machine.