In addition to these instructions, you can find a video tutorial here:

Step 1: Install vscode

The first thing you need to do is install vscode on your local device (person computer). We won’t go into the details of installing it here as it varies depending on your device (Linux, Windows, iOS). The install is usually straight-forward.
The vscode download for various platforms can be found here:

Step 2: Install Remote-SSH Extension

vscode cannot make remote connections initially. The Remote-SSH extension is required

Open vscode and click on the Extensions panel button (see Red Box in the image below)

Click on the extension search bar (see Red Box in the image below) and start typing remote ssh.

The Remote – SSH extension should appear (see Green Box in the image below).

Click on the Install button (see Purple Box in the image below).

Step 3: Create Remote-SSH Connection

A new panel button called Remote Explorer should appear – you may have to close and reopen vscode (see Red Box in the image below). Click on the Remote Explorer button.

Expand the tree down until you see the SSH branch (see Green Box in the image below).

Click on the plus (+) button to begin adding a new SSH connection (see Purple Box in the image below).

In the SSH Connection box that opens (see Red Box in the image below)
Enter ssh student@134.117.130.199 – replacing the IP with you own 134.117.#.# IP address

It will ask you to save the connection information to an ssh config file. The default one will vary depending on what operating system you are running. In general you can select the first option (see Red Box in the image below)

A pop-up will appear saying the host was added. If you want, you can manually modify the ssh config file by clicking Open Config. However, this is not required, and in this case we will just click Connect (see Red Box in the image below)

You will then be prompted for the password for the student account (see Red Box in the image below).

It will then show a pop-up on the bottom right showing the vscode-server being added to the remote account. This make take a few moments to complete.

And that should complete adding the connection. A new empty vscode workspace should open that is connected to that remote server.

Step 3 OPTIONAL: SSH with a Jump Host (No VPN) and Passkeys

As an alternative to VPN, you can ssh through the SCS access.scs.carleton.ca jump host. You can see this article for more information on using the access as a jump host.

We recommend you confirm with a regular ssh shell (terminal) application that you are able to use the access jump host to jump to your target server (eg: your openstack instance).

Once confirmed you can edit the vscode ssh config file manually and add the below config:
NOTE: If you are only connecting with a password, do NOT include the OPTIONAL IdentityFile and AddKeysToAgent options below, as they do not apply. If you wish to use the public/private key IdentityFile so that you do not need to types your password every time, then you should follow this article that explains how to set those up.

Host access-jump-host
  HostName access.scs.carleton.ca
  User cmail_username
  # OPTIONAL use of identify file (so you do not have to use a password)
  IdentityFile /Path/To/Private/Key/privatekey.ed25519
  # OPTIONAL add key to your local computer's ssh agent if you use a key with a passphrase.  You will need to research how to setup the ssh agent on your particular operating system (beyond the scope of this article)
  AddKeysToAgent yes

Host my-openstack-instance
  # The below IP must be your openstack IP or other destination server
  HostName 134.117.128.32
  User student
  ProxyJump access-jump-host
  # OPTIONAL use of identify file (so you do not have to use a password)
  IdentityFile /Path/To/Private/Key/
  # OPTIONAL add key to your local computer's ssh agent if you use a key with a passphrase.  You will need to research how to setup the ssh agent on your particular operating system (beyond the scope of this article)
  AddKeysToAgent yes

Once you have saved the above ssh config in vscode, replacing usernames, IPs, etc as required for your particular situation, you will now see my-openstack-instance as a connection option when you open a new remote ssh connection in vscode.

Step 4: Open Folder on Remote Server

Now that the vscode workspace is connected to the remote server, we need to open a folder. Click the Explorer navigation button (see Red Box in the image below) and click Open Folder (see Green Box in the image below)

The open folder search box will automatically start in the home directory (/home/student) of the student account, so simply click OK (see Red Box in the image below) unless you want to open a specific sub-folder.

You will again be asked to enter the password for the student account (see Red Box in the image below)

A window will pop up asking if you trust the authors of files in this folder. If a check box is shown to trust all files in the folder ‘student’, check it (see Red Box in the image below), although this may not appear in all cases. Click Yes, I trust the authors (see Green Box in the image below)

The Explorer view will now show all of the files and folders in the student account home directory (see Red Box in the image below).
NOTE: The exact content of the directory will vary depending on which course image you are connecting

Step 5: Open a terminal, edit some code, run some code!

It can be convenient to open a terminal window so we can run commands just like we would if we had ssh’d into the system. You can open a terminal window in many ways. Here are three easy ones:

• With the Ctrl + ` (Ctrl + backtick) hot key
• By right-clicking on any file or folder in the student home directory and clicking Open in Integrated Terminal
• By clicking on any file or folder in the student home directory, and going to the View menu and click Terminal

Either of these actions will open a terminal, as seen in the Red Box in the image below

Next, we can open a file to edit with vscode. In the example below, we have a folder called assignment-code, with a python file called hello-world.py (see Red Box in the image below). If you click on the hello-world.py file, it will open the file in the workspace so you can edit it (see Green Box in the image below).
NOTE: If this is the first time you have edited a python file, vscode may helpfully offer to install a python extension to help with you python coding (see Purple Box in the image below). It will often do this for any programming language that you open for the first time. It is up to you to decide if you want this extension. In some cases, your instructor may ask that you install specific extensions with certainly capabilities. So make sure to check your course notes.

We can use the terminal window to conveniently run commands. In this example, we manually run the python program hello-world.py.

• First we cd assignment-code to get into the assignment directory (see Red Box in the image below)
• Then we enter ls to list the files and make sure we see the hello-world.py file (see Green Box in the image below)
• Then we run the python file with python3 hello-world.py and we see the output (it prints Hello, world!â€�) (see Purple Box in the image below)
  NOTE: The commands you run to execute code will vary, this is just one example of a possible way of running a python file

Troubleshooting: Failed Login

vscode failed logins are most often caused by two things:

1. New Openstack Instance with Expired Password: New openstack instances have a default username and password, and the password is expired and must be changed. This cannot be done through the vscode remote connection interface, so you must use a different Connection Tool to connect to your instance for the first time. Once you have set a new password, you can use vscode normally.
2. Instance Disk Full: If an instance’s disk drive fills up, it will not be possible to login with vscode as the tool needs to setup temporary files to initialize. The indicator of this problem is (usually): when you enter the password, vscode will hang, sometimes showing an installing vscode server message that never goes away. If you see that behavior, it is likely that the disk is full. You must login with another Connection Tool, free up some disk space, and then return to using vscode.

Troubleshooting: Disk Full

vscode installs a lot of libraries and support tools to make you coding easier. It also stores a cache of all the original downloaded installers, which it keeps even after the tool has been successfully added to vscode. It is quite common for all of this to quickly fill an openstack instance’s disk drive. Check with your course instructor for instructions on how to clear the vscode cache as it can vary.

The post vscode: Remote Access and Code Editing appeared first on School of Computer Science.

VirtualBox can take advantage of some of the capabilities of your host computer’s GPU to improve performance. However, enabling this feature can often cause problems. In particular, new version upgrades of VirtualBox often has 3D acceleration problems. These problems usually get ironed out as further updates are released.

This issue has been documented by some users of VirtualBox 7.0.x when running older Virtual Machines

If your Virtual Machine is experiencing any of these issues, you should consider disabling the setting:

• Unusually slow and poor performance while the Virtual Machine is running
• Inconsistent performance (sometimes fine, other times very slow)
• Regular crashing, especially when opening graphical apps within the Virtual Machine
• Virtual Machine hangs or crashes during boot (this often will happen to a previously working VM that stops working after a VirtualBox upgrade)

Disabling 3D Acceleration

This setting is adjusted in the VirtualBox Virtual Machine’s settings (see image below):
uncheck the setting to disable

• Display -> Screen -> Extended Features: -> Enable 3D Acceleration

The post VirtualBox 3D Acceleration Issue appeared first on School of Computer Science.

The Windows version of the early VirtualBox 7.x.x installers no longer include the Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable Package as part of the installer. This is due to a license change by Microsoft that changes how this can be packaged with other software. It is expected that Oracle will release an updated Windows VirtualBox installer soon that provides the package again in the format required by the license. Until then, if you get this error (see image below), you can manually download and install the Microsoft package.

Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable Package:

On the above page, make sure to download the 64-bit version as indicated in the image below:

NOTE: Some students have reported that they had to restart their computer after installing the Visual C++ Redistributable package, and THEN perform the VirtualBox installation.

The post VirtualBox Visual C++ Redistributable Error appeared first on School of Computer Science.

VirtualBox technical support is provided by the SCS Technical Staff. In order to provide effective support, please include the following items in your email so that we have as much information as possible.
WARNING: To be provided technical support, you must first:

1. Have thoroughly reviewed the technical support articles found on our Virtual Machine Technical Support page.
2. Followed these instructions for getting in-person support, which includes first engaging with your TAs and Lab Coordinators, who are trained to help with many issues.

VirtualBox Support Request Email

When you email the SCS Technical Staff to request VirtualBox technical support, you must include the following items in your email:

1. Course Code for your course, including the section number
   
   eg: COMP1405A
2. Virtual Machine Name that you are experiencing issues with. Ideally use the .ova file name from our Virtual Machine website if applicable.
   
   eg: COMP2401-F21.ova
3. Description of the Problem including:
   • General explanation of the problem – an overview of what you are trying to do and what is not working
   • Exact steps to reproducing the problem so we can attempt to reproduce it as well
   • List any error messages or error codes
   • Provide screen captures or photos of any errors or other problems, where possible
4. Names of the people (TAs, Lab Coordinators, and/or Instructors) that you worked with so far on this technical issue
   
   eg: TA 1: John Doe; TA 2: Jane Doe; Lab Coordinator: Jon Smith
5. Device information of your computer including the model and the operating system version
   
   eg: HP Omen Laptop (16-b0018ca); Windows 10
   
   eg: Apple MacBook Pro (2020) Intel i5; macOS Big Sur
   
   eg: Dell XPS 13 9310; Ubuntu 20.04
   
6. VirtualBox version number and VirtualBox Extension Pack number
   
   eg: VirtualBox 6.1.26; Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack 6.1.26
7. The Virtual Machine’s two (2) log files for the Virtual Machine that you are trying to use. These are found in the Virtual Machine’s Logs folder and will be called VBox.log and VBoxHardening.log. Attach these log files to your email.

The post Prepare a VirtualBox Support Request appeared first on School of Computer Science.

Computing Devices not Supported by SCS

Many courses offered by the School of Computer Science, especially undergraduate courses rely heavily on Virtual Machines and other forms of virtualization. Given this, it is required that you have access to a personal computing device which supports virtualization, while completing your program in the SCS.

Devices that do not support virtualization and Apple devices using the M-series chipset

There are many devices that do NOT support virtualization, including:

• Some Intel and AMD chipsets for lower-end laptops and netbooks (You can check the BIOS to see if virtualization is available)
• Most hand-held devices such as phones and tablets based on Android or iOS
• Chromebooks and other similar devices

Also, recent Apple computers, (those manufactured after November 2020) using the new ARM-based M-chipset (M1/M2/M3) use virtualization that is not yet supported by most hypervisors (such as VirtualBox, VMware, KVM, etc). The M-processor Apple computers offer excellent performance and battery life, but because of this limitation, you will not be able to run the virtualization software required by some of your SCS courses. Due to this, as indicated in the CPU section of the Laptop Requirements Specification, the School of Computer Science recommends that students do not purchase new Apple computers employing the M-chipset.

In line with this, the SCS Technical Support Team does NOT provide any specific technical support for M-processor Mac devices or other devices without virtualization capabilities.

I have already purchased a device that does not support virtualization, What can I do?

If your personal computing device does not support virtualization, or if your devices is experiencing issues with Virtual Machines, there are several options for completing course work that requires virtualization:

OPTION 1: SCS Windows Labs

You can use the SCS Windows PC Labs, either visiting an SCS lab in person or remotely using a web based remote access tool. VirtualBox is installed and many of the SCS course Virtual Machines are made available there. Please review important information about the SCS Lab Virtual Machines as they do have limitations compared to Virtual Machines running on your own device.

OPTION 2: SCS Openstack

Many SCS courses that use Virtual Machines also make Virtual Machine resources available on the SCS Openstack. Your course instructor can tell you if such resources are available for their course.
General (non-course specific) instructions can be found on our SCS Openstack Step-By-Step Guide and these instructions are completely sufficient for most of our openstack courses.
On openstack, you will be able to launch the Virtual Machine as an “instance” and it will run on our servers for the duration of the term. Importantly: any changes you make will persist until the instance is destroyed at the end of the term (unlike using Virtual Machines in our SCS Windows Labs).
Further details will typically be provided by your instructor, lab coordinators and TAs as the academic term gets underway.

I already purchased an Apple computer with the M-chipset. Do I have any other options?

Yes! There is an another virtualization option for the Apple M-procssor Mac computers in addition to the two options above!

OPTION 3: Parallels (for Mac M-processor users)

For users with the M-processor Mac chipset, the 3rd party software provides an additional virtualization option. It is a hypervisor similar to VirtualBox, VMware, KVM, etc. More recent versions of the software is able to provide virtualization support on M-processor Macs. We have heard anecdotal evidence that it works really well, really poorly or not at all – so you will need to try it to see if it will work for you!

A yearly subscription fee applies to the software. We recommend that you test with their Free Trial first before you commit to purchasing it.

The SCS Technical Support Team does NOT provide any support for this software.

The post M-processor Mac Devices & Other Non-Virtualization Capable Devices Not Supported by SCS appeared first on School of Computer Science.

This article covers the steps for importing a Virtual Machine into VirtualBox. If you have not yet installed VirtualBox, you can do so using the Install VirtualBox Guide.

To import one of the SCS Virtual Machines as a guest into VirtualBox, follow these steps:

1. Download the Virtual Machine for your course from our Course Virtual Machines page.
   
   This will download the .ova file, which – if you are curious – is a compressed tarball of the Virtual Machine exported from VirtualBox
2. In VirtualBox, go to File menu and click Import Appliance (or press CTRL-I)
3. In the Appliance Import Window that opens, click the folder icon to browse for the .ova file you just downloaded, then click Next
4. Do NOT change any of the Appliance Settings- these have already been optimized for most systems
5. Click Import
6. NOTE: Importing an Appliance can take 2-10 minutes depending on the speed of your computer and the size of the Virtual Machine
7. When the import is complete, you will see the new Virtual Machine guest in VirtualBox’s guest list.

The post Import Virtual Machine into VirtualBox appeared first on School of Computer Science.

Video and written instructions for installing VirtualBox:

Please complete BOTH of these steps to install VirtualBox:

1. Download and install the latest VirtualBox for your host from virtualbox.org
   • NOTE: Due to stability problems with recent versions of VirtualBox, it is recommended that you install VirtualBox version 7.2.4 from this link:
   • Find the 7.2.4 version on that page (see RED box in the image below)
     Ensure you also download the extension pack for that version (see GREEN box in the image below)
2. Install the VirtualBox Extension Pack:
   • Download the VirtualBox Extension Pack at: virtualbox.org
     As indicated in the point above, ensure you install the extension pack for the version of VirtualBox you are using. If you followed the recommendation of version 7.2.4, then you will also download the extension pack at the above link (see GREEN box in the image below)
   • In VirtualBox, open the Menu Item Preferences…
   • Click the Extensions tab
   • Click the small Add New Package button/icon
   • Browse to the Extension Pack you just downloaded and follow the instructions to install it
   • IMPORTANT: ALL of the SCS Virtual Machines require the Extension Pack, which provides critical tools and drivers for the Virtual Machines.

The post Install VirtualBox appeared first on School of Computer Science.

Why extend a disk?
What is LVM Partition
Check Existing Space
Extend Partition using the Script
Extend Partition Manually

Why extend a disk?

Many of our images (primarily on openstack) do not grow their partition/file system size automatically if you choose a flavor (openstack resource definition) that allocates more disk space to your instance than was available in the original image. It is possible to use tools such as cloud-init to do this automatically. However, in our public images, which we use on multiple environments (openstack, virtualbox, vmware, etc), we find cloud-init can sometimes cause issues. Instead, we have scripts designed to resize the partitions for the user.

What is LVM Partition

Historically, many of our standard images for Openstack and VirtualBox virtual machines use LVM (Linux Logical Volume Manager) to provide the disk volume for the operating system, as well as additional storage volumes (if applicable). LVM makes it easy to resize and re-purpose space within Linux, usually without even requiring a reboot.

You can learn more about LVM here: – LVM is available for most Linux distros.

Check Existing Space

Before you can enlarge the disk, first you have to check to see if it is possible:

Check physical disk size versus the partition or LVM size (using fdisk):

• Run fdisk, to see if there is more space available that could be added to the LVM:
  
  sudo fdisk -l
• In most of our basic images, this should show just a single physical device, such as:
  
  Disk /dev/vda: 32 GiB, 34359738368 bytes, 67108864 sectors – 32 GB physical disk
• It will also show the main partition, typically the LAST partition (which could be used by LVM):
  
  Regular partition example:
  
  Device Start End Sectors Size Type

/dev/vda1 2048 4095 2048 1M BIOS boot

/dev/vda2 4096 16777182 16773087 8G Linux filesystem
  
  In this case it is an 8 GB partition (/dev/vda2)
  
  LVM Example:
  
  Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type

/dev/vda1 2048 16777215 16775168 8G 8e Linux LVM
  
  In this case it is an 8 GB partition (/dev/vda1)
• And finally it will also show the LVM itself if LVM is being used:
  
  Disk /dev/mapper/COMPbase--vg-root: 8 GiB, 8585740288 bytes, 16769024 sectors

So, in this case, the Physical disk is 32 GB, but only 8 GB are currently allocated to the LVM, and no other partitions are using the rest of the space for anything else. So we can extend it!

Extend Partition using the Script

If you are using one of our standard SCS images, either for OpenStack or for VirtualBox virtual machines, it usually comes with a small script called extend-disk.sh. The script is found in the home directory of the student user under the extend-disk folder. NOTE:Older images may have the script called extend-lvm.sh, found in the extend-lvm folder in the student home directory

To run the script:

• Open a terminal
• Go to the directory with the script, usually: cd ~student/extend-disk/
• Enter: sudo ./extend-disk.sh /dev/vda – NOTE: the /dev/vda may be different on your system. It is the device you found in Check Existing Space above

That’s it! Now when you run fdisk, you should see the last partition is the full size of the physical disk: sudo fdisk -l.

To update or download the script:

• If you do not have the script, you can get it using git:
  
  git clone https://git.scs.carleton.ca/git/extend-disk.git
• If you have the script and it was pulled from the git repository, then you can pull updates:
  
  cd extend-disk go into the extend-disk git folder
  
  git pull to pull the updates
  
  NOTE: If you are unsure if it was pulled from the git repository, then check if there is a .git hidden folder in the extend-disk folder (check for hidden folders with ls -la); If not, then you need to clone the repository using the git clone command above.

Extend Partition Manually

Here are the steps to manually extend the partition and the filesystem, including for the LVM case.

NOTE: We assume the same setup as the above Check Existing Space

• Extend the physical drive partition:
  • sudo fdisk /dev/vda – Enter the fdisk tool to modify /dev/vda
    
    NOTE: End each one letter command by pressing [Enter]; if the instructions do not specify a specific response to a question, just press [Enter] to accept the default
  • p – p command prints the disk info, same as running fdisk -l /dev/vda
  • d – d command delete the last partition (usually /dev/vda1 or /dev/vda2 on our images)
  • n e n command creates a new partition; e makes that an extended partition
  • Optional: t – t changes the type of partition. NOTE: This should not be required as fdisk should use the same type as was removed. You can also enter L when prompted to find the list of codes for the types. Make sure to use the same type as was listed by fdisk for the partition you removed in the earlier d step.
    
  • w – w writes the changes to disk and exits fdisk
• IF using LVM: Modify (extend) the LVM:
  • Tell LVM the physical partition size has changed: sudo pvresize /dev/vda1
  • Find the actual path of the LVM logical volume: sudo lvdisplay – The LV Path is the value needed
  • Tell LVM to extend the logical volume to use all of the new partition size: sudo lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/COMPbase-vg/root – Using the LV Path from above
• Resize the file system:
  
  sudo resize2fs /dev/vda2 or for lvm: sudo resize2fs /dev/COMPbase-vg/root

That’s it! Now, when you run sudo fdisk -l, it will show that the LVM is using all of the space on the physical disk!

The post Extend Linux Disk (disk space) appeared first on School of Computer Science.

Symptoms of the VirtualBox macOS Security and Access Problems
Cause of the Problem
Solutions to the Problem

• Accessing Security & Privacy Settings
• SOLUTION 1: Allow Identified Apps to Access the System
• SOLUTION 2: Modify VirtualBox Permissions
• SOLUTION 3: Clean Re-install of VirtualBox

Still Experiencing Problems?

Symptoms of the VirtualBox macOS Security and Access Problem

Multiple people have reported VirtualBox having a variety of issues running VirtualBox and its Virtual Machines on macOS (Catalina and newer).
The reported issue is happening in at least two circumstances:

• New installations of VirtualBox on newer macOS will install successfully, but attempting to run a Virtual Machine will fail
• VirtualBox and the Virtual Machines were working fine, but then stopped working after upgrading macOS (to Catalina and newer)

Some Common Symptoms:

• VirtualBox and/or the Virtual Machine crashes immediately or may crash while your are interacting with the VM or when you deselect the active instance window
• The Virtual Machine freezes seemingly at random or has very slow performance (compared to pre-MacOS upgrade)
• Some features such as copy/paste and drag-and-drop between the host OSX and guest Virtual Machine is not working, or causes freezing or crashes
• Shared folders stop working (if you were using them)

Cause of the Problem

In Catalina and higher macOS, how applications manage their permissions as well as how kernel integrations are handled has been changed. Some applications will no longer function with certain permissions and will no longer function without certain permissions. Also, if VirtualBox was already installed and an update to MacOS is performed, this can break existing kernel integrations and permissions that were previously working. In our testing, we have found that different users have experienced both of these types of issues with VirtualBox (and other software such as VMWare). From the user’s perspective, the symptoms of both the permission issue and kernel integrations issue are similar, and the solutions are related. Below are some steps to try and repair your VirtualBox installation. However, we recognize that this may not solve all permissions issues with VirtualBox and Catalina (and higher), and some additional research and tweaking may be required.

Solutions to the Problem

Due to the nature of the problem, and how it can be caused by different circumstances, there are a number of different solutions that may be able to help. We encourage you to go through the solution below in the given order. They are roughly in order of how challenging and disruptive they are, with the first solutions being the quickest and least disruptive to your setup.

• Accessing Security & Privacy Settings
• SOLUTION 1: Allow Identified Apps to Access the System
• SOLUTION 2: Modify VirtualBox Permissions
• SOLUTION 3: Clean Re-install of VirtualBox

Accessing Security & Privacy Settings

Several of the below solution require accessing macOS Security & Privacy settings. You can do that following these instructions:

SOLUTION 1: Allow Identified Apps to Access the System

MacOS Catalina and newer puts more restrictions on what apps can run on the system. We have to make sure that software by Oracle America, Inc, the current developers of VirtualBox, are permitted to run their software on your system.

1. Completely quit out of VirtualBox
2. Follow the steps from Accessing your Permissions Settings above to get into the General Tab of the Security & Privacy settings window. You should see a window that looks like the image below.
   
   

   

   
   
3. Unlock the General Tab to permit changes by clicking on the lock icon. You may need to enter your password
4. In the Allow apps downloaded from: section indicated by the GREEN box in the image above, make sure App Store and identified developers is selected.
   
   NOTE: If it is NOT selected, then you must select it, leave the Security & Privacy settings, and run VirtualBox again to see if it works. If it does not work, close VirtualBox and come back into these settings and continue with the next step.
   
5. If this problem applies to you, then you will see the warning System software from developer “Oracle America, Inc.” was blocked from loading. with an Allow button beside it, highlighted by the RED box in the image above.
   
   Click Allow so that VirtualBox will be able to run properly
6. Again, leave the Security & Privacy settings and attempt to run VirtualBox and the Virtual Machine again to see if this fixes the error.

If the error is not fixed, try one of the other Solutions to the Problem…

SOLUTION 2: Modify VirtualBox Permissions

These steps have been used to help fix the VirtualBox permission issues on macOS Catalina and higher, although different users have reported that they must change different permissions. Did you find permissions changes that fixed your crashing on Catalina, which aren’t listed below? Let us know!

GRANT Permissions for VirtualBox

In the ideal case, VirtualBox and its various services work best if all four (4) of the required permissions are granted.

1. Completely quit out of VirtualBox
2. Follow the steps from Accessing your Permissions Settings above to get into the Privacy Tab of the Security & Privacy settings window. You should see a window that looks like the image below, and notice the RED box indicating the Privacy Tab being selected.
   
   

   

   
   
3. Unlock the Privacy Tab to permit changes by clicking on the lock icon (see the YELLOW box in the image). You may need to enter your password
4. Go through the four (4) permissions indicated in the GREEN box and make sure that in each case, VirtualBox appears in the Allow the apps below to control your computer list (in the BLUE box) and that the checkbox is checked
   
   NOTE: In some cases the VirtualBox app may not be modifiable (greyed out). It SHOULD still have a checkmark. If not, you may need perform the Clean Re-install of VirtualBox as indicated above
5. If VirtualBox is missing from any of the four permissions, you can add it manually:
   • Press the + (found in the PURPLE box in the image above)
   • Navigate to Applications > VirtualBox and click Open – This should add it to the list. Make sure you check the checkbox

Once you have granted all four permissions, lock the Security & Privacy window by clicking the Lock icon (YELLOW box) and then Open VirtualBox and test your Virtual Machine. If problems (crashing, etc) persist, go back into Security & Privacy and start to REVOKE Permissions for VirtualBox (see below).

REVOKE Permissions for VirtualBox

If you are still having issues with VirtualBox, particularly unexpected crashes, then you can try revoking some permissions as this has been found to help some users. Using the image from the above section GRANT Permissions for VirtualBox for reference, start revoking permissions. Go through the four (4) permissions we granted as indicated in the GREEN box.
For EACH permission, follow these steps:

1. Select ONE of the permissions (start with Accessibility) and uncheck VirtualBox
2. Lock the Security & Privacy window by clicking the Lock icon (YELLOW box) and then Open VirtualBox and test your Virtual Machine.
3. If problems (crashing, etc) persist, go back into Security & Privacy and try unchecking VirtualBox on another Permission.
4. Repeat these steps for all four permissions one at a time, ideally following this order (and testing after each change):
   1. Accessibility
   2. Input Monitoring
   3. Files and Folders
   4. Full Disk Access

If the error is not fixed, try one of the other Solutions to the Problem…

SOLUTION 3: Clean Re-install of VirtualBox

The most reliable solution we have found to both the permission issue and the kernel integration issue is to do a clean re-install of VirtualBox:

1. Uninstall VirtualBox using the VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool found in the VirtualBox Installation Package (.dmg file). If you don’t still have the install package, you can just download it again from the (you don’t need the .dmg for your installed version, any new version is fine).
   
   When you open the VirtualBox Installation Package, you will see the VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool in the bottom right (see the RED box in the image below)
   
   Right-click the VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool to get the file action menu. Then go into Open With and click the Terminal option to open this uninstall script in a terminal window.
   
   The script will start determining what VirtualBox files are installed, and will then ask you to confirm removal by typing Yes
   
   

   

2. Reboot the system in Recovery Mode to clear the permissions. This can be done by restarting the system and holding the COMMAND + R keys until the Apple logo appears. You should then boot into the mac OSX Recovery Mode.
   
   Click on the Utilities menu and select Terminal to open a recovery terminal window.
   
   Run the csrutil clear command to clear existing permissions. Then reboot the system.
3. Install a fresh copy of VirtualBox using a recent VirtualBox Installation Package version (you can use the dmg from the step above if suitable)

Hopefully VirtualBox will now work properly. However, if not, you can continue with more troubleshooting options below.
If the error is not fixed, try one of the other Solutions to the Problem…

Still Experiencing Problems?

If you have gone through all of these steps, you can try to look up additional information regarding the recent macOS VirtualBox. Finally, you can submit a Virtual Machine Support Request

In the interim, you can try some of the alternative virtualization options available outlined in this article:
M1 Mac Devices & Other Non-Virtualization Capable Devices Not Supported by SCS

The post VirtualBox Problems on macOS (Security & Access) appeared first on School of Computer Science.

This guide shows you how to set up a folder which will be shared between your host machine and your guest machine. For more information on transferring files between virtual machines, click here.

For a video tutorial on Windows, .

Setting Up the Shared Folder

1. Select the guest machine you wish to share files with
2. Click Settings > Shared Folders
3. Right-click and select Add Shared Folder and use the following settings:
   
   

   Folder Path: Click the dropdown arrow, select Other, and navigate to the folder you would like to share
   
   Folder Name: Anything to identify it on the guest machine
   
   Read-Only: Unchecked (Checked, if you are exclusively pulling files from the host)
   
   Auto-Mount: Checked
   
   Mount Point: Leave blank

   
   
4. Click OK

The post Creating a Permanently Shared Folder in VirtualBox appeared first on School of Computer Science.