Introduction

Ubuntu is a great OS for use in both virtualization hosts and in guest virtual machines and software appliances. Virtualization simply means the running of another OS within a host OS, through the usage of a special "hypervisor" application which handles everything about how the guest OS operates within (and with) the host system.

"Guest" OSes are typically installed to virtual drives; large and expanding (typically) files to which a the guest OS is installed in the same way that one would install the same OS to a hard disk. The guest OS then runs from that virtual drive. Another configuration, not recommended for beginners or those with high-value systems (always backup your data), is the running of a guest OS from another hard drive partition. This mode is called "raw disk" and requires special setup; using a small virtual "drive" file (for example in vmdk format) as an interface to the hard disk, and special commands which handle certain aspects of that system's startup.

Hosts

There are quite a few virtualization platforms you can use a Ubuntu host with:

Open Source

• KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) - the officially maintained choice

  • Official documentation

  • Community documentation

• OpenVZ

• Qemu

• VirtualBox

• Xen

Proprietary

• Parallels

• VMware (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware)

• JumpBox uses Ubuntu as the OS in their guest appliances.

Guests

• Ubuntu can be used as a guest OS in all of the above virtualization environments.

• Ubuntu Server Edition JeOS is a specialized version of Ubuntu to create Virtual Appliances for KVM or VMWare.

• python-vm-builder is a tool which allows you to automate the creation of virtual machine. See the JeOSVMBuilder tutorial for more information.

Links

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CategoryVirtualization

CategoryVirtualization