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<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="features-overview">
<title>Features Overview</title>
<body>
<p>
The following is a brief outline of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>'s main
features:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Portability. </b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> runs on a large number of 64-bit host operating systems. See <xref href="hostossupport.dita#hostossupport"/>. </p>
<p><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> is a so-called <i>hosted</i> hypervisor, sometimes
referred to as a <i>type 2</i> hypervisor. Whereas a <i>bare-metal</i> or <i>type 1</i> hypervisor runs
directly on the hardware, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> requires an existing OS to be
installed. It can thus run alongside existing applications on that host. </p>
<p>To a very large degree, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> is functionally identical on
all of the host platforms, and the same file and image formats are used. This enables you to run virtual
machines created on one host on another host with a different host OS. For example, you can create a virtual
machine on Windows and then run it on Linux. </p>
<p>In addition, virtual machines can easily be imported and exported using the Open Virtualization Format (OVF),
an industry standard created for this purpose. You can even import OVFs that were created with a different
virtualization software. See <xref href="ovf.dita#ovf"/>. </p>
<p>For users of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/oci"/> the functionality extends to exporting and
importing virtual machines to and from the cloud. This simplifies development of applications and deployment
to the production environment. See <xref href="cloud-export-oci.dita#cloud-export-oci"/>. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Guest Additions: shared folders,
seamless windows, 3D virtualization.</b> The
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> Guest Additions are software packages which can
be installed <i>inside</i> of supported guest
systems to improve their performance and to provide additional
integration and communication with the host system. After
installing the Guest Additions, a virtual machine will support
automatic adjustment of video resolutions, seamless windows,
accelerated 3D graphics and more. See
<xref href="guestadditions.dita#guestadditions"/>.
</p>
<p>In particular, Guest Additions provide for <i>shared folders</i>, which let you access files on the host
system from within a guest machine. See <xref href="sharedfolders.dita#sharedfolders"/>. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Comprehensive hardware
support.</b> Among other features, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
supports the following:
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Guest multiprocessing (SMP). </b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can present up to 32 virtual CPUs to each virtual machine, irrespective of how many CPU cores are physically present on your host. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">USB device support.</b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> implements a virtual USB controller and enables you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without having to install device-specific drivers on the host. USB support is not limited to certain device categories. See <xref href="settings-usb.dita#settings-usb"/>. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Hardware compatibility.</b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> virtualizes a vast array of virtual devices, among them many devices that are typically provided by other virtualization platforms. That includes IDE, SCSI, and SATA hard disk controllers, several virtual network cards and sound cards, virtual serial ports and an Input/Output Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (I/O APIC), which is found in many computer systems. This enables easy cloning of disk images from real machines and importing of third-party virtual machines into <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Full ACPI support.</b> The
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is fully
supported by <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. This enables easy cloning of
disk images from real machines or third-party virtual
machines into <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. With its unique
<i>ACPI power status support</i>,
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can even report to ACPI-aware guest OSes
the power status of the host. For mobile systems running
on battery, the guest can thus enable energy saving and
notify the user of the remaining power, for example in
full screen modes.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Multiscreen resolutions.</b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> virtual machines support screen resolutions many times that of a physical screen, allowing them to be spread over a large number of screens attached to the host system. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Built-in iSCSI support.</b>
This unique feature enables you to connect a virtual
machine directly to an iSCSI storage server without going
through the host system. The VM accesses the iSCSI target
directly without the extra overhead that is required for
virtualizing hard disks in container files. See
<xref href="storage-iscsi.dita#storage-iscsi"/>.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">PXE Network boot.</b> The
integrated virtual network cards of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> fully
support remote booting using the Preboot Execution
Environment (PXE).
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Multigeneration branched snapshots.</b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can save arbitrary snapshots of the state of the virtual machine. You can go back in time and revert the virtual machine to any such snapshot and start an alternative VM configuration from there, effectively creating a whole snapshot tree. See <xref href="snapshots.dita#snapshots"/>. You can create and delete snapshots while the virtual machine is running. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">VM groups.</b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> provides a groups feature that enables the user to organize and control virtual machines collectively, as well as individually. In addition to basic groups, it is also possible for any VM to be in more than one group, and for groups to be nested in a hierarchy. This means you can have groups of groups. In general, the operations that can be performed on groups are the same as those that can be applied to individual VMs: Start, Pause, Reset, Close (Save state, Send Shutdown, Poweroff), Discard Saved State, Show in File System, Sort. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Clean architecture and unprecedented modularity.</b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a clean separation of client and server code. This makes it easy to control it from several interfaces at once. For example, you can start a VM simply by clicking on a button in the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> graphical user interface and then control that machine from the command line, or even remotely. See <xref href="frontends.dita#frontends"/>. </p>
<p>Due to its modular architecture, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can also expose its
full functionality and configurability through a comprehensive <b outputclass="bold">software development kit
(SDK),</b> which enables integration of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> with other
software systems. See <xref href="VirtualBoxAPI.dita"><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
Programming Interfaces</xref>. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Remote machine display.</b> The
VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension (VRDE) enables
high-performance remote access to any running virtual machine.
This extension supports the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
originally built into Microsoft Windows, with special
additions for full client USB support.
</p>
<p>The VRDE does not rely on the RDP server that is built into Microsoft Windows. Instead, the VRDE is plugged
directly into the virtualization layer. As a result, it works with guest OSes other than Windows, even in text
mode, and does not require application support in the virtual machine either. The VRDE is described in detail
in <xref href="vrde.dita">Remote Display (VRDP Support)</xref>. </p>
<p>On top of this special capacity, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> offers you more unique
features: </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">Extensible RDP authentication.</b>
<ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> already supports Winlogon on Windows and PAM on Linux and Oracle Solaris for RDP authentication. In addition, it includes an easy-to-use SDK which enables you to create arbitrary interfaces for other methods of authentication. See <xref href="vbox-auth.dita">RDP Authentication</xref>. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b outputclass="bold">USB over RDP.</b> Using RDP
virtual channel support, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> also enables you
to connect arbitrary USB devices locally to a virtual
machine which is running remotely on an <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> RDP
server. See <xref href="usb-over-rdp.dita">Remote USB</xref>.
</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</topic>
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