vbox 4.0 will allow resizing of disk images, correct?

[Robert P. J. Day]

as i recall reading (but i'm not sure where), vbox will allow the
disk image files to be resized, is that correct? but that useful
feature isn't mentioned in the intro to vbox installation in the User
Manual (pp. 17-18). it seems that that's an important enough feature
that it should be mentioned there. unless i'm simply misremembering.

rday

[Leonardo Carneiro]

yes, i recall this too. it's a very welcome feature. while virtual
servers will have lvm or other stuff that allow the management of the
disk space, virtual desktops will not. it will be a very welcome
feature.

 as i recall reading (but i'm not sure where), vbox will allow the
disk image files to be resized, is that correct?  but that useful
feature isn't mentioned in the intro to vbox installation in the User
Manual (pp. 17-18).  it seems that that's an important enough feature
that it should be mentioned there.  unless i'm simply misremembering.
rday
--
========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
                       http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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[Robert P. J. Day]

Post by Leonardo Carneiro
yes, i recall this too. it's a very welcome feature. while virtual
servers will have lvm or other stuff that allow the management of
the disk space, virtual desktops will not. it will be a very welcome
feature.

 as i recall reading (but i'm not sure where), vbox will allow the
disk image files to be resized, is that correct?  but that useful
feature isn't mentioned in the intro to vbox installation in the
User Manual (pp. 17-18).  it seems that that's an important enough
feature that it should be mentioned there.  unless i'm simply
misremembering.

let's make sure we agree on what i'm talking about here. when you
create a VM, you select a size for that disk image -- say, 8G -- and
it can be either fixed or dynamically expandable. what i'm asking is
whether you can change your mind later after you've created the VM and
find you're getting close to filling up your virtual disk space.

working from memory, i could swear i read somewhere that this was a
new feature with 4.0. and if it is, it should be mentioned early on
in the User Manual since it's a fairly significant feature.

rday

[Kees Nuyt]

Post by Robert P. J. Day

Post by Leonardo Carneiro
yes, i recall this too. it's a very welcome feature. while virtual
servers will have lvm or other stuff that allow the management of
the disk space, virtual desktops will not. it will be a very welcome
feature.

 as i recall reading (but i'm not sure where), vbox will allow the
disk image files to be resized, is that correct?  but that useful
feature isn't mentioned in the intro to vbox installation in the
User Manual (pp. 17-18).  it seems that that's an important enough
feature that it should be mentioned there.  unless i'm simply
misremembering.

let's make sure we agree on what i'm talking about here. when you
create a VM, you select a size for that disk image -- say, 8G -- and
it can be either fixed or dynamically expandable. what i'm asking is
whether you can change your mind later after you've created the VM and
find you're getting close to filling up your virtual disk space.
working from memory, i could swear i read somewhere that this was a
new feature with 4.0. and if it is, it should be mentioned early on
in the User Manual since it's a fairly significant feature.

Of course it's in the release notes of 4.0 Beta 1 :
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=36748

[Alexey Eromenko]

With v4.0 -- you can resize (grow) existing disk images to any size
you choose. (up to 2TB)
Before v4.0 -- images were growable but to some maximum size, that you
choose when creating the image. (like 20 GB)

Yes, but it's use is questionable for me... once the disk is
formatted, the logical size is static, no matter how much you resize
it...
And using custom disk tools is not worth the effort. (for me)

[Robert P. J. Day]

Post by Alexey Eromenko
With v4.0 -- you can resize (grow) existing disk images to any size
you choose. (up to 2TB) Before v4.0 -- images were growable but to
some maximum size, that you choose when creating the image. (like 20
GB)

that's what i *thought* i'd read. my point was that that new
feature isn't mentioned early in the manual (pp. 17-18) when
explaining to the reader about (re)sizing the disk image. and it
seems that's an important enough new feature that it deserves
mentioning.

rday

[Alexey Eromenko]

On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Robert P. J. Day

Post by Alexey Eromenko
With v4.0 -- you can resize (grow) existing disk images to any size
you choose. (up to 2TB) Before v4.0 -- images were growable but to
some maximum size, that you choose when creating the image. (like 20
GB)

 that's what i *thought* i'd read.  my point was that that new
feature isn't mentioned early in the manual (pp. 17-18) when
explaining to the reader about (re)sizing the disk image.  and it
seems that's an important enough new feature that it deserves
mentioning.
rday

This is not important feature for me.

The new architecture of v4.0 is important feature for me... as it
allows backup+restore VMs with snapshots...

Different people w/ different needs...

Please comment here:
New Features Test
http://forum.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=36763&sid=ab781aa1f4cbe13e586ecdaa06ef9941

[Fernando Cassia]

Post by Alexey Eromenko
This is not important feature for me.
The new architecture of v4.0 is important feature for me... as it
allows backup+restore VMs with snapshots...
Different people w/ different needs...

Can someone comment on what the new "extensions" allow? besides the
Oracle developed features like RDP and PXE, will there be a SDK so
that third parties can create extensions to vbox? or am I
misunderstanding the meaning of "extensions" ?.

The way I imagine it... an extensions api -if developed- would
provide, for instance, access to the "pci bus" via a virtual "pci
bridge" for the virtual machine, allowing third parties to create
extension "drivers" to implement new kind of virtual devices.

Final question... will there be an OSE edition of 4.0 ? hope so.

FC

[Alexey Eromenko]

Post by Fernando Cassia

Post by Alexey Eromenko
This is not important feature for me.
The new architecture of v4.0 is important feature for me... as it
allows backup+restore VMs with snapshots...
Different people w/ different needs...

Can someone comment on what the new "extensions" allow? besides the
Oracle developed features like RDP and PXE, will there be a SDK so
that third parties can create extensions to vbox? or am I
misunderstanding the meaning of "extensions" ?.
The way I imagine it... an extensions api -if developed- would
provide, for instance, access to the "pci bus" via a virtual "pci
bridge" for the virtual machine, allowing third parties to create
extension "drivers" to implement new kind of virtual devices.
Final question... will there be an OSE edition of 4.0 ? hope so.

Yes, APIs provided to 3rd parties -- so everyone can develop
extensions. Like FireFox.

Now the standard version is OSE.

Many components were open-sourced with v4.0: (those were PUEL with v3.x)
-USB v1.1
-User Manual source code
-Installer sources (windows scripts + Linux RPM SPECs + ...)
-Shared Folder for Windows guests...

The VBox v4.x you download now -- is OSE.
All PUEL components are now in extpack.

[Nikola M.]

Post by Alexey Eromenko
Yes, APIs provided to 3rd parties -- so everyone can develop
extensions. Like FireFox.
Now the standard version is OSE.
Many components were open-sourced with v4.0: (those were PUEL with v3.x)
-USB v1.1
-User Manual source code
-Installer sources (windows scripts + Linux RPM SPECs + ...)
-Shared Folder for Windows guests...
The VBox v4.x you download now -- is OSE.
All PUEL components are now in extpack.

This is so great. Thanks to VBox team for having such great open source
product!

However, I think there were always possible to buy support contract for
Virtualbox
and I can not see clearly link on the site for that anymore.
Are support contracts still available?
I was thinking of recommending them to some people at a certain moment.

Connected to that, Will supported platform extend to illumos distributions
(open source opensolaris continuation), like Openindiana (/dev), OmniOS,
SmartOS, OpenSXCE,
Nexenta (not fully open source), and some upcoming ones.
- http://wiki.illumos.org/display/illumos/Distributions -
Nexenta have some relationship with Vmware, so maybe there is a space
for expanding VirtualBox to it to compete with closed-source competition.

[Robert P. J. Day]

Post by Alexey Eromenko
On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 12:06 PM, Robert P. J. Day

Post by Alexey Eromenko
With v4.0 -- you can resize (grow) existing disk images to any
size you choose. (up to 2TB) Before v4.0 -- images were growable
but to some maximum size, that you choose when creating the
image. (like 20 GB)

 that's what i *thought* i'd read.  my point was that that new
feature isn't mentioned early in the manual (pp. 17-18) when
explaining to the reader about (re)sizing the disk image.  and it
seems that's an important enough new feature that it deserves
mentioning.

This is not important feature for me.
The new architecture of v4.0 is important feature for me... as it
allows backup+restore VMs with snapshots...
Different people w/ different needs...

i wasn't passing judgment on any features that were new with 4.0;
all i was pointing out was that, at least in this one case, a
potentially useful feature was not being mentioned early on when it
would be most useful. if someone with experience with vbox was
reading the early part of the User Manual, they would never be aware
that there was a new disk image resize feature available.

more specifically, if you read about that feature way up on p. 123:

"The –resize option allows you to expand the capacity of an existing
image; this increases the logical size of a virtual disk without
affecting the physical size much. This currently works only for the
VDI and VHD formats, and only for the dynamically expanding variants."

until i read that just this minute, i didn't realize that the
resizing was available only for dynamically expanding disk images.
that strikes me as a fairly important property of that feature.

anyway, i don't want to flog this, but it might be worth having a
really early section in the User Manual, "Cool new stuff with Release
4.0" for people who've worked with vbox before and just need a quick
list. (and, no, the changelog isn't sufficient. that kind of section
shouldn't clutter things up with bug fixes -- just major new
features.)

rday

[Robert P. J. Day]

Post by Alexey Eromenko
This is not important feature for me.
The new architecture of v4.0 is important feature for me... as it
allows backup+restore VMs with snapshots...
Different people w/ different needs...
New Features Test
http://forum.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=36763&sid=ab781aa1f4cbe13e586ecdaa06ef9941

i submitted a request suggesting an early "What's new in 4.0"
section to the User Manual:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=37236

rday

[Frank Mehnert]

Post by Robert P. J. Day
as i recall reading (but i'm not sure where), vbox will allow the
disk image files to be resized, is that correct? but that useful
feature isn't mentioned in the intro to vbox installation in the User
Manual (pp. 17-18). it seems that that's an important enough feature
that it should be mentioned there. unless i'm simply misremembering.

4.0 Beta 4, user manual, section 8.19 (VBoxManage modifyhd), last
paragraph (--resize parameter).

Kind regards,

Frank
--
ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert
Werkstrasse 24 Staff Engineer, VirtualBox
71384 Weinstadt, Germany mailto:frank.mehnert-QHcLZuEGTsvQT0dZR+***@public.gmane.org

Hauptverwaltung: Riesstr. 25, D-80992 München
Registergericht: Amtsgericht München, HRA 95603

Komplementärin: ORACLE Deutschland Verwaltung B.V.
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Handelsregister der Handelskammer Midden-Niederlande, Nr. 30143697
Geschäftsführer: Jürgen Kunz, Marcel van de Molen, Alexander van der Ven

[Robert P. J. Day]

Post by Frank Mehnert

Post by Robert P. J. Day
as i recall reading (but i'm not sure where), vbox will allow the
disk image files to be resized, is that correct? but that useful
feature isn't mentioned in the intro to vbox installation in the User
Manual (pp. 17-18). it seems that that's an important enough feature
that it should be mentioned there. unless i'm simply misremembering.

4.0 Beta 4, user manual, section 8.19 (VBoxManage modifyhd), last
paragraph (--resize parameter).

i know it's mentioned in Chapter 8. i was suggesting that perhaps a
single sentence could be added way back in chapter 1 mentioning the
new resize feature because a lot of new users aren't going to make it
to chapter 8 to notice the cool, new resizing option before basing
their disk type decision based on what they read much earlier.

rday

[Leonardo Carneiro]

Hi. There is a "bug" with this feature. It allows to expand disk
beyond the phisical limits of the host disk.

Should i open a ticket or post this in the forum?

Post by Frank Mehnert

  as i recall reading (but i'm not sure where), vbox will allow the
disk image files to be resized, is that correct?  but that useful
feature isn't mentioned in the intro to vbox installation in the User
Manual (pp. 17-18).  it seems that that's an important enough feature
that it should be mentioned there.  unless i'm simply misremembering.

4.0 Beta 4, user manual, section 8.19 (VBoxManage modifyhd), last
paragraph (--resize parameter).

 i know it's mentioned in Chapter 8.  i was suggesting that perhaps a
single sentence could be added way back in chapter 1 mentioning the
new resize feature because a lot of new users aren't going to make it
to chapter 8 to notice the cool, new resizing option before basing
their disk type decision based on what they read much earlier.
rday
--
========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
                       http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn:                               http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lotusphere 2011
Register now for Lotusphere 2011 and learn how
to connect the dots, take your collaborative environment
to the next level, and enter the era of Social Business.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/lotusphere-d2d
_______________________________________________
VBox-users-community mailing list
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/vbox-users-community

[Alexey Eromenko]

On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 8:47 PM, Leonardo Carneiro

Post by Leonardo Carneiro
Hi. There is a "bug" with this feature. It allows to expand disk
beyond the phisical limits of the host disk.
Should i open a ticket or post this in the forum?

This is not really a bug, because you can later on move your virtual
disk to a bigger physical disk.

A warning is appropriate.