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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="security-secure-install-overview">
<title>Installation Overview</title>
<body>
<p>
The <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> base package should be downloaded only from a
trusted source, for instance the official website
<ph>http://www.virtualbox.org</ph>. The integrity of the
package should be verified with the provided SHA256 checksum
which can be found on the official website.
</p>
<p>
General <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> installation instructions for the
supported hosts can be found in <xref href="installation.dita">Installation Details</xref>.
</p>
<p>
On Windows hosts, the installer can be used to disable USB
support, support for bridged networking, support for host-only
networking and the Python language binding. See
<xref href="installation_windows.dita">Installing on Windows Hosts</xref>. All these features are
enabled by default but disabling some of them could be
appropriate if the corresponding functionality is not required
by any virtual machine. The Python language bindings are only
required if the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> API is to be used by external
Python applications. In particular USB support and support for
the two networking modes require the installation of Windows
kernel drivers on the host. Therefore disabling those selected
features can not only be used to restrict the user to certain
functionality but also to minimize the surface provided to a
potential attacker.
</p>
<p>
The general case is to install the complete <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
package. The installation must be done with system privileges.
All <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> binaries should be executed as a regular user
and never as a privileged user.
</p>
<p>
The <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/vbox-ext"/> provides additional features
and must be downloaded and installed separately, see
<xref href="intro-installing.dita">Installing <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> and Extension Packs</xref>. As for the base package, the
SHA256 checksum of the extension pack should be verified. As the
installation requires system privileges, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> will ask
for the system password during the installation of the extension
pack.
</p>
</body>
</topic>
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