Virtual Machine Technical Support
Technical Support for setting up and using the Virtual Machines:
Support comes in the form of step-by-step guides and single-topic technical support articles.
Additional information may be provided by your Supervisor, Instructor, Lab Coordinator or TA.
IMPORTANT: If you are a student and have any technical issues, please follow these instructions for getting in-person support.
Virtual Machine Step-by-Step Guide
Virtual Machine User Guides
Troubleshooting Issues with VirtualBox
General Troubleshooting and User Guides
Tagged Support Articles
Preparing a VirtualBox Support Request
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- virtualization – the underlying technology that allows a virtual operating system to be run as an application on your computer’s operating system
- hypervisor – the virtualization application (such as VirtualBox or VMware) running on your host computer that allows it to run a guest virtual operating system
- host – the computer on which you are running the hypervisor application
- guest – a virtual operating system running within the hypervisor on your host computer. The virtual operating system term is synonymous with other terms such as Virtual Machine, VM and instance
- virtualization – the underlying technology that allows a virtual operating system to be run as an application on your computer’s operating system
Virtual Machine Step-by-Step Guide
This Step-by-Step guide uses videos and written tutorials to take you through all the basic steps for setting up a virtual machine environment on your system, including installing a hypervisor (such as VirtualBox), importing Course Virtual Machines, and the basics of using those Virtual Machines.
- Virtual Machine Step-by-Step Guide
- VirtualBox Video Guide
Video guide with instructions specific to VirtualBox, the preferred hypervisor for SCS Virtual Machines
Virtual Machine User Guides
A list of individual guides and how-to articles related to Virtual Machines. Some articles provide support specifically for VirtualBox, which is our preferred hypervisor
- Install VirtualBox
Instructions for installing the Virtualbox hypervisor - Import Virtual Machine into VirtualBox
Instructions for importing a Course Virtual Machine into VirtualBox - Creating a New Host-Only Adapter in VirtualBox
You may need to create a network connection from your host to your guest Virtual Machine or between multiple guests Virtual Machines - Extend LVM (disk space)
This guide will help you increase the disk size of your Virtual Machine if required (based on an LVM file system, used by most SCS virtual machines)
Troubleshooting Issues with VirtualBox
For a curated list of Virtual Machine troubleshooting steps and quick-start guides, click here.
These are some of the most frequent issues when getting started with VirtualBox:
- VirtualBox Visual C++ Redistributable Error
This issue has recently appeared on the Windows installer for VirtualBox 7.0.1 and newer. It is expected to be resolved in a future VirtualBox installer updates - VirtualBox 3D Acceleration Issue
This issue often appears with a new VirtualBox version, and affects Virtual Machines created on older versions. Systems may have poor performance, crashing, or even fail to boot.
This issue has been documented by some users of VirtualBox 7.0 when running older Virtual Machines - Virtualization Error (Intel VT-d/VT-x or AMD-V)
This issue can appear with different error messages when trying to install or run a hypervisor or could contribute to poor system performance. - VirtualBox: Extension Pack Missing Error
If you receive this error or your system is running sluggishly, the extension pack may not be installed. Follow the instructions in this article to install the extension pack - VirtualBox: Graphics Controller (VMSVGA) Settings
For best performance with VirtualBox, you should enable the VMSVGA graphics controller
NOTE: Sometimes your graphics controller can contribute to crashing, boot errors, or very poor performance. If you encounter these issues, changing to a different graphics controller may work better on your particular system - VirtualBox Problems on macOS (Security & Access)
This article discusses a variety of solutions for Virtual Machines usage issues, crashing, or even not running at all on newer versions of macOS - M1 Mac Devices & Other Non-Virtualization Capable Devices Not Supported by SCS
This article looks at devices, including the Apple devices using the M1 chipset, that are not able to run SCS Virtual Machines and are thus Not supported by SCS technical staff
General Troubleshooting and User Guides
This list is an aggregation of many user guides and troubleshooting articles covering a wide array of topics. If you cannot find the information you need in the above sections, one of these articles might be helpful.
Tagged Support Articles
This is a list of tagged technical support articles that may provide additional support (automatically generated). Some of them are directly related to virtual machines and virtualization, but others are related to topics that may be relevant depending on what you are using doing (course work, research projects, etc.).
- Virtual Machine tagged support articles
- Linux tagged support articles
- Openstack tagged support articles
Preparing a VirtualBox Support Request
- Prepare a VirtualBox Support Request
This article will provide information on how to prepare an email support request for VirtualBox related issues