VirtualBox | Karim de Fombelle

This post will go through the main elements to install a Linux image on VirtualBox to get a real Linux system on your host.

Install Linux on VirtualBox

Install Oracle VirtualBox from https://www.virtualbox.org/
Download a Linux image: Fedora, Rocky Linux, CentOS
Create a new VM based on this image: in VitualBox select New and pick the .iso of your choice

Configure Linux

Add a sudoer

Set user as sudoer as depicted on https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-add-user-to-sudoers-in-centos/.
Add username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL at the end of /etc/sudoers
You can edit via visudo as root (sudo -i to get a root prompt).

Change Hostname

cf. https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/change-hostname-on-centos-7/. hostnamectl set-hostname fedora.local

Install VirtualBox Guest Addition

It enables features like file sharing and copy/paste from/to your host.

Start the VM.
In Menu select Devices>Insert Guest Additions CD Image.
Configure a Shared folder with Auto-mount and Make Permanent ticked.

Grant rights for you user on the vboxsf group to access the shared folder sudo usermod -aG vboxsf $USER
Configure Shared clipboard as Bidirectional.

(Optional) Configure Linux Further

Install handy packages

install netstat, ifconfig sudo yum install net-tools -y
install lsof sudo yum install lsof -y
install bcc-tools

“Kernel headers not found” error, cf. https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/568358/538394 yum install "kernel-devel-uname-r == $(uname -r)"
configure .bashrc sudo yum install bcc-tools

install bzip2 sudo yum install bzip2 -y

Configure .bashrc

.bashrc
# Source global definitions
export BCC_BIN=/usr/share/bcc/tools
export PATH=$BCC_BIN:$PATH
alias psudo="sudo env \"PATH=$PATH\""

ssh

Let’s check first ssh is up and running or start it now

systemctl status sshd
systemctl enable sshd --now #start and register as auto-start ssh for next VM boot

ssh can be configured using Bridged Adapter or NAT. Note service called ssh or sshd according your Linuc distribution.

Most credit from here.

Using Bridged Adapter

systemctl start sshd https://www.golinuxcloud.com/ssh-into-virtualbox-vm

Using NAT

To ssh in the guest machine on 127.0.0.1:2222

FAQ

Ubuntu tips

https://askubuntu.com/a/1119250 sudo su cd /media mkdir cdrom mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom cd cdrom sh VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

“Kernel headers not found” yum install “kernel-devel-uname-r == $(uname -r)” https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/568358/538394

Autoboot of Network Interface

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 > ONBOOT=yes nmcli conn up or systemctl restart network.service https://emcorrales.com/blog/how-to-enable-internet-access-on-centos7-virtualbox This will ensure you can ssh in your box.