VirtualBox is a popular virtualization application that provides a lot of features. VirtualBox provides some extra features to the existing features with the Extension Pack. In this tutorial, we will learn what is Extension Pack and how to install an extension pack on Windows, Linux, or via command line.
What Is VirtualBox Extension Pack
VirtualBox Extension Pack provides some extra features to the existing VirtualBox features which are very useful. VirtualBox extension is provided as a binary file and provided by the Oracle VirtualBox team. VirtualBox Extension Pack provides features like USB 2.0, 3.0, Host Webcam Pass-through, VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP), AES Encryption of Disk Images, Intel PXE Boot ROM.
Support for USB 2.03 and 3.0will provides support for USB protocol for version 2.0 and 3.0. With this feature, USB devices can be pass through the host USB devices into the guest operating systems.Host Webcam Pass-throughfeature can pass the host webcam to the guest operating systems.VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP)feature will provide access to the guests via RDP protocol. This feature can be very useful even the guest virtual machine does not has any network access. The RDP access can be provided via the host operating system network connection via some ports.AES Encryption of Virtual Machine Disk Imagesfeature can be used to encrypt the virtual machines disk images via a reliable and secure AES algorithm. The data can be encrypted with 128 or 256-bit keys.Intel PXE Boot ROMfeature is used to boot a remote operating system via the network. This can be also used to install the operating system to the guest via the computer network. The install or boot files should be prepared in/VirtualBox/TFTPdirectory before boot.
Download VirtualBox Extension Pack
VirtualBox Extension Pack is provided as a binary file. This binary file can be used for all operating systems installation because it will be used by the existing VirtualBox. The Extension Pack can be downloaded from the following link. The size of the Extension Pack is about 22MB.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Install VirtualBox Extension Pack On Windows, Linux, and Ubuntu
In the Windows, Linux, and Ubuntu operating system from the VirtualBox main screen, we will click to the Preferences button like below. This will open the VirtualBox related settings screen. For Linux and Ubuntu systems we should start the VirtualBox with root privileges with the following command.
$ sudo virtualbox
In the VirtualBox – Preferences screen we will select the Extensions screen like below. which will list existing extensions. But as we can see there is not extension currently installed.
We will click on the plus button which can be shown above and select the extension pack like below. then we will click to the Open.
We will see the following question where it will ask us to install the extension pack. We will click on the install as below.
We will be asked to accept the provided license agreement. We have to scroll down to the bottom and click to the I Agree button like below.
As this extension pack requires some Administrative rights we will be asked with the following screen for Administrative rights for the Windows operating systems.
After the extension pack is successfully installed we will be informed that The extension pack was installed successfully.
Also, the installed extension pack will be listed in the preferences Extensions menu like below. with Name and Version information while showing it is active or passive.
Install VirtualBox Extension Pack via Command-Line VBoxManage
Extension Pack of VirtualBox can be also installed from the command-line interface. In order to install an extension pack, we will use the VBoxManage command with the extpack install option like below. First, we will download the extension pack from the following URL and then navigate to the download path.
$ wget https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.0.0/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-6.0.0.vbox-extpack
Now we will use the VBoxManage command like below.
$ sudo VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-6.0.0.vbox-extpack
We will be asked to accept the License Agreement. We will accept the license agreement with the Y like below and the installation will continue. When the installation of the extension pack is successful we will see the message Successfully installed "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack".
Uninstall/Remove VirtualBox Extension Pack
We can uninstall the VirtualBox Extension Pack from the GUI easily. We will open the Extension Pack List from Preferences->Extensions. We will see the list of installed VirtualBox Extensions Packs. We will select the version we want to uninstall or remove and then click to the x of the right side like below which is red.
We will be asked for the Extension Pack removal like below and we will click to the Remove button.
