21.5. FreeBSD as a Guest on VirtualBox™
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## 21.5. FreeBSD as a Guest on VirtualBox™

FreeBSD works well as a guest in VirtualBox™. The virtualization software is available for most common operating systems, including FreeBSD itself.

The VirtualBox™ guest additions provide support for:

- Clipboard sharing.

- Mouse pointer integration.

- Host time synchronization.

- Window scaling.

- Seamless mode.

### Note:

These commands are run in the FreeBSD guest.

First, install the emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions package or port in the FreeBSD guest. This will install the port:

    # cd /usr/ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose-additions && make install clean

Add these lines to `/etc/rc.conf`:

    vboxguest_enable="YES"
    vboxservice_enable="YES"

If ntpd(8) or ntpdate(8) is used, disable host time synchronization:

    vboxservice_flags="--disable-timesync"

Xorg will automatically recognize the `vboxvideo` driver. It can also be manually entered in `/etc/X11/xorg.conf`:

    Section "Device"
    	Identifier "Card0"
    	Driver "vboxvideo"
    	VendorName "InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH"
    	BoardName "VirtualBox Graphics Adapter"
    EndSection

To use the `vboxmouse` driver, adjust the mouse section in `/etc/X11/xorg.conf`:

    Section "InputDevice"
    	Identifier "Mouse0"
    	Driver "vboxmouse"
    EndSection

HAL users should create the following `/usr/local/etc/hal/fdi/policy/90-vboxguest.fdi` or copy it from `/usr/local/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/90-vboxguest.fdi`:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <!--
    # Sun VirtualBox
    # Hal driver description for the vboxmouse driver
    # $Id: chapter.xml,v 1.33 2012-03-17 04:53:52 eadler Exp $

    	Copyright (C) 2008-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

    	This file is part of VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE, as
    	available from http://www.virtualbox.org. This file is free software;
    	you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
    	General Public License (GPL) as published by the Free Software
    	Foundation, in version 2 as it comes in the "COPYING" file of the
    	VirtualBox OSE distribution. VirtualBox OSE is distributed in the
    	hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY of any kind.

    	Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa
    	Clara, CA 95054 USA or visit http://www.sun.com if you need
    	additional information or have any questions.
    -->
    <deviceinfo version="0.2">
      <device>
        <match key="info.subsystem" string="pci">
          <match key="info.product" string="VirtualBox guest Service">
            <append key="info.capabilities" type="strlist">input</append>
    	<append key="info.capabilities" type="strlist">input.mouse</append>
            <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">vboxmouse</merge>
    	<merge key="input.device" type="string">/dev/vboxguest</merge>
          </match>
        </match>
      </device>
    </deviceinfo>

Shared folders for file transfers between host and VM are accessible by mounting them using `mount_vboxvfs`. A shared folder can be created on the host using the VirtualBox GUI or via `vboxmanage`. For example, to create a shared folder called `myshare` under ``/mnt/bsdboxshare`` for the VM named `BSDBox`, run:

    # vboxmanage sharedfolder add 'BSDBox' --name myshare --hostpath /mnt/bsdboxshare

Note that the shared folder name must not contain spaces. Mount the shared folder from within the guest system like this:

    # mount_vboxvfs -w myshare /mnt

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