Sun Microsystems 3.0.0 user manual Automated Windows guest logons VBoxGINA

9 Advanced topics

machine called “Fedora 6” would, by default, have its settings saved in

.VirtualBox/Machines/Fedora 6/Fedora 6.xml. If you would like more control over the file names used, you can create the machine using VBoxManage createvm with the --settingsfile option; see chapter 8.4, VBoxManage createvm, page 107.

The virtual machine directory will be renamed if you change the machine name. If you do not wish this to happen, you can create the machine using VBoxManage createvm with the --basefolder option. In this case, the folder name will never change.

•VirtualBox keeps snapshots and saved states in another special folder for each virtual machine. By default, this is a subfolder of the virtual machine folder called Snapshots – in our example, .VirtualBox/Machines/Fedora 6/Snapshots. You can change this setting for each machine using VBoxManage as well.

•VDI container files are, by default, created in the .VirtualBox/VDI directory. In particular, this directory is used when the “Create new virtual disk” wizard is started to create a new VDI file. Changing this default is probably most useful if the disk containing your home directory does not have enough room to hold your VDI files, which can grow very large.

9.2 Automated Windows guest logons (VBoxGINA)

When Windows is running in a virtual machine, it might be desirable to perform co- ordinated and automated logons of guest operating systems using credentials from a master logon system. (With “credentials”, we are referring to logon information con- sisting of user name, password and domain name, where each value might be empty.) Since Windows NT, Windows has provided a modular system logon subsystem (“Win- logon”) which can be customized and extended by means of so-called GINA mod- ules (Graphical Identification and Authentication). The VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows come with such a GINA module and therefore allow Windows guests to perform automated logons.

To activate the GINA module, install the Guest Additions with the command line switch /with_gina. To manually install the GINA module, extract the Guest Additions (see chapter 4.2.4, Manual file extraction, page 64) and copy the file VBoxGINA.dll to the Windows SYSTEM32 directory. Then, in the registry, create the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\

Winlogon\GinaDLL

with a value of VBoxGINA.dll.

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