Re: Oracle's VirtualBox RANT

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Author: Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss
Date:  
To: Main PLUG discussion list
CC: Michael Butash
Subject: Re: Oracle's VirtualBox RANT
I've not used vbox under ubuntu in a while, and use it literally all day
every day, and honestly in the 10+ years I've used virtualbox, I've never
found it complicated or broken, so I suspect some pebkac here.

Under ubuntu or arch that I use with vbox, it should create at least a Nat
network and a local-only network, it's important to know what these are and
do. NAT will NOT allow things to connect to you, Local-Only will as long
as you share a network with it, and for your LAN as you said you need a
bridge to a wired (ie. not wireless) nic. When I create a VM, I give a
guest 2 nics, one with a bridge to my local lan, and a local-only. This
way it shares a 192.168.56.0/24 network with my host, and I can always
network to the host, even if we're both on nat, or separate bridges (think
usb nics presented to the guest direct). I use NAT when I'm presenting a
guest to a foreign network, ie a client network, usually for audits with my
network management tools, then they never see it, only my laptop. Nice for
hiding a useful linux box behind a windows mule at work.

Only time I ever have weirdness with vbox and nics are with my thunderbolt
dock at home if it gets disconnected. Which is somewhat rare, but vbox
will sort of freak out if bridged to the nic and it disappears. Sometimes
shutting down and restarting the vm works (not a reset!), sometimes I've
had to reboot to fix it, but I'll just go back to hiding it on a nat if
that happens until I do reboot next.

I am a network engineer by trade, so I don't tend to break my own network
often, and always can fix it, but I would still say you simply didn't have
it setup correctly. I find vbox to be the most simplistic vm solution out
there, why I like it despite it having the Oracle stink, but been a fan
since Sun. If you have problems with that, life will get no easier outside
of it for you.

-mb


On Tue, Nov 15, 2022 at 7:42 AM Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss <
> wrote:

>
>
> Hi,
>
> As you probably know I am struggling to configure Oracle's VirtualBox
> for web development testing.
>
> VirtualBox is a mess. I cannot get it to work for PHP testing. It will
> either work external so I can build the server OR I can make it visible
> to my local net and I am not able to pull in any packages.
>
> My expectation was that I could download and install VB then create a
> guest instance and configure my VM as I like, and in my case I want to
> have it have an IP on my local private network, and be able to put that
> IP in my browser and do some testing.
>
> VirtualBox in my opinion is what is wrong with technology. I've said it
> before and I'll say it again, technology has become too difficult. Case
> in point, last year I configured a full-stack host in my home office.
> This was complete with BIND, Postfix, and Dovecot. With a little
> studying Bind is doable. Postfix, and Dovecot on the other hand are
> total enigmas. I probably need to spend 30 or 40 hours to understand
> setting up and configuring Postfix, and Dovecot.
>
> I was able to get things to work, however I still do not know how.
>
> PHP is the same in my opinion. To be a PHP dev requires a large stack
> of technologies. I'm starting to feel the barrier to entry is too high.
> About 3 years ago I attended several AzPHP meetings and I was amazed to
> discover that the top programmers actually were embracing this level of
> complexity. There was one guy,who is accomplished, that actually looked
> down on anyone who was not at his level. Yikes!!
>
> I'm talking about things like Composer and dependency injection. Anyone
> know there is three ways to configure and use dependency injection. I
> do not recall all 3 off the top of my head.
>
> CodeIgniter 1 and 2 used dependency injection in a way that hid the
> complexities of dependency injection. It was so subtle that you don't
> even know you are implementing dependency injection.
>
> I really liked CodeIgniter 1 and 2. It hid the complexities of web
> development and was the closest thing I've seen in web development that
> was rapid application development (RAD).
>
> One of the things I really liked about CodeIgniter was it's simplicity.
> A middle school kid could learn enough about it in a weekend to start
> building something.
>
> Back to VirtualBox... It is entirely too complicated and I'm not sure
> why. Can anyone shed light on this?
>
> I read that everyone should learn how to program. Why? Programming
> itself is simple... doing anything remotely useful requires you get down
> into the mud of the complexities of building an application.
>
> I fell in love with programming at the UofA in 1983. I feel in love
> with Linux in 1998 when a friend told me about it. Yes I'm old. And I've
> seen a lot.
>
> What was VirtualBox created for and does it need to be so complex?
>
> Keith
>
>
>
>
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