virtualization support

Originally created by Tails on #6019 (Redmine)

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Status

The design document dedicated to virtualization support contains notes about the already working bits in this field.

Tails as a VirtualBox guest

The VirtualBox 4.x guest utilities, X11 drivers and kernel modules are installed inside Tails.

What works:

• the option to integrate the guest windows inside a X11 desktop
• kernel modules are loaded at runtime
• X11 auto-detects the VirtualBox video and input drivers
• sharing folders between a GNU/Linux host and a Tails guest
• mouse integration

Since we want to support the "Tails as a guest inside Windows" usecase, we need to test:

• desktop integration inside Windows
• Win7 SP1, VirtualBox 4.0.4 r70112: mouse integration works flawlessly
• filesharing between a Tails guest and a Windows host

No bug report about it for a while, let’s close this task.

Tails as a VMware guest

Seems to work fine inside VMWare Player 3, using the ISO as the guest’s CD-ROM, with the ‘Debian 5’ Guest OS preset.

Warn users when running inside a VM

Most of the work has been done.

Left to do:

• warn users when running in a non-free VM
• when running inside a VM within a non-free host OS, emphasize the pseudo-security situation; seems almost impossible, let’s forget about it

Autorun Tails in Windows

See autorun in Windows.