VBoot Questions

How is vboot different from Virtualbox? is it supposed to be a vm for dummies type program? What are the advantages of using it instead of using vbox?

 

vboot is totally different from vbox, or any other virtual machine software. It's not a virtual machine.

Instead, vboot allows you to boot a physical computer from a virtual disk file in vhd/vmdk/vdi format. The format is same as those used by virtual machine software. However, the os is running as native mode, no virtualization in hardware, only the disk access is routed through the virtual disk file. VBoot supports 2000/XP/vista/7 and Linux. VBoot supports differential disks, so it's very easy to take snapshots, performs immutable boot, one click recovery, etc. Attached is a screenshot of the boot menu.

VMLite XP Mode is a modified version of VirtualBox, but integrate with Microsoft XP Mode, so very easy to use, and offers a seamless taskbar mode, where single apps can be displayed on host.

 

forgot the screenshot
http://www.vmlite.com/vboot/vboot-snapshots.jpg

 

Ok since the processor isn't emulated, could this make the environment less secure than a full blown VM? I mean if virtualbox could provide great security by just creating a virtual HDD, then why haven't they just done so and save users' machine resources?

 

I think that it's a wrong direction to compare vBoot vs other virtual machine software. vBoot is closer to real operating systems. vBoot can only allow one OS to run at one time, you can't run 2 instances at the same time.

This is how vBoot works, you install xp to a vhd, vista to another vhd, Linux to 3rd vhd files. Now you have 3 files on your hard disk, and you choose to boot from one of them, and your host OS will be the OS installed inside the vhd file. There is no guest os here. You do same as if this is the OS booting from a real hard disk. This is a much easier way to do multiple boot.

This is how it looks like inside grub.cfg file:

vboot harddisk=(hd0,1)/xp.vmdk immutable

vBoot is more like a disk utility. For the first time, you can control a host OS as if it's a guest os booting from a virtual machine. For example, you can boot as immutable, so all changes will be discarded after a reboot.

You can also take a snapshot, and install new software to the system, and later on, you can revert to it, etc.

vBoot allows you to install an OS to give it to others to boot their computers without installations. For example, you can just download our pre-built Ubuntu VHDs, and boot your computers by simply placing the single vhd file.

 

Thats great. Kinda like Dualboot, except with the ability to run more OS's natively. I am particularly interested about how the level of security of VBoot measures up.

On your site; vmlite.com I see the claim that it is Unbreakable. Now don't get me wrong, but my alarm bell goes off when I see such claims made with little evidence to prove them. On other developers' security product sites, they qualify their claims with the statement that sometimes malware may be able to get through from a previously unknown security hole.

 

Unbreakeable refers to the virtual machine created by VMLite XP Mode, modified from vbox.

We put a secure IE shortcut on desktop that runs from a virtual machine. If you use this IE (from xp mode vm), it won't touch your host system.

We will do more on security on vBoot, it will be at least same level as Deep Freeze type of products. All disk changes will be saved to different file, once this diff file is deleted, your system goes to the prior state.