Glossary
C
COM Microsoft Component Object Model, a programming infrastructure for modular software. COM allows applications to provide application programming inter- faces which can be accessed from various other programming languages and applications. VirtualBox makes use of COM both internally and externally to provide a comprehensive API to 3rd party developers.
D
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. This allows a networking device in a network to acquire its IP address (and other networking details) automatically, in order to avoid having to configure all devices in a network with fixed IP ad- dresses. VirtualBox has a
DKMS Dynamic Kernel Module Support. A framework that simplifies installing and updating external kernel modules on Linux machines; see chapter 2.3.2, The VirtualBox kernel module, page 34.
E
EFI Extensible Firmware Interface, a firmware built into computers which is designed to replace the aging BIOS. Originally designed by Intel, most modern operating systems can now boot on computers which have EFI instead of a BIOS built into them; see chapter 3.12, Alternative firmware (EFI), page 58.
EHCI Enhanced Host Controller Interface, the interface that implements the USB 2.0 standard.
G
GUI Graphical User Interface. Commonly used as an antonym to a “command line interface”, in the context of VirtualBox, we sometimes refer to the main graphical VirtualBox program as the “GUI”, to differentiate it from the VBoxManage interface.
GUID See UUID.
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