VirtualBox – How to Select Paravirtualization Interface

virtualboxvirtualization

Given a windows 8 host system (Intel Core i5) and a Linux Fedora host, I would like to determine the optimal setting for the paravirtual interface.

Options are

  • none
  • Default
  • Legacy
  • minimal
  • Hyper-V
  • KVM

This page suggest the selection is only based on the guest system:

The biggest change in VirtualBox 5.0 is the introduction of
paravirtualization support, bringing higher performance and
time-keeping accuracy to supported guest operating systems (Hyper-V on
Windows and KVM on Linux).

Is that correct?

Best Answer

The VirtualBox Manual, in the section titled Paravirtualization providers explains very clearly when each should be used (emphasis added):

  • Minimal: Announces the presence of a virtualized environment. Additionally, reports the TSC and APIC frequency to the guest operating system. This provider is mandatory for running any Mac OS X guests.

  • KVM: Presents a Linux KVM hypervisor interface which is recognized by Linux kernels starting with version 2.6.25. VirtualBox's implementation currently supports paravirtualized clocks and SMP spinlocks. This provider is recommended for Linux guests.

  • Hyper-V: Presents a Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor interface which is recognized by Windows 7 and newer operating systems. VirtualBox's implementation currently supports paravirtualized clocks, APIC frequency reporting, guest debugging, guest crash reporting and relaxed timer checks. This provider is recommended for Windows guests.

The other options in the drop down do the following, as explained in the vboxmanage docs:

  • None: Specifying none explicitly turns off exposing any paravirtualization interface.

  • Default: The option default, will pick an appropriate interface depending on the guest OS type while starting the VM. This is the default option chosen while creating new VMs.

  • Legacy: The legacy option is chosen for VMs which were created with older VirtualBox versions and will pick a paravirtualization interface while starting the VM with VirtualBox 5.0 and newer.

Related Question