Installing VirtualBox on Mac

Mac is just one of the operating systems on which VirtualBox runs, and the following instructions will help you to install VirtualBox on that operating system. Everyone has different tastes and comfort levels with various operating systems, so I wanted to make sure I covered the installation instructions for the three major operating systems.

In this recipe, we'll install VirtualBox 6.0 on a Mac host. Follow these instructions if you plan to use Mac as your host operating system; otherwise, skip ahead to the Installing VirtualBox on Ubuntu recipe or view the previous recipe to install VirtualBox 6.0 on a Windows host.

Getting ready

Download a copy of VirtualBox 6.0 from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. Make sure to download the appropriate installer for Mac, which should come in the form of a .dmg file.

How to do it...

The following instructions will guide you through the VirtualBox installation process on a host running on a Mac. These instructions were performed on Mac 10.13.6 without any issue:

1. Once downloaded, double-click on the VirtualBox disk image file to start the installation process.

2. The disk image will get mounted to the filesystem, and a new window will be displayed. Double-click on the VirtualBox.pkg icon beneath the 1 Double click on this icon: text.
3. A new window will be displayed and may warn you about installing VirtualBox. Click on Continue.
4. Following this warning, the installation window will display information about the version of VirtualBox. Click on Continue to continue the installation process.
5. The next window will allow us to change the destination folder or location of the VirtualBox installation. The default option is fine here unless you have specific needs for your own setup. Click Change Install Location... if you need to select a new location for the VirtualBox files; otherwise, click Install.
6. You may get a prompt asking you to provide an administrator user's credentials. Do so, and then click Install Software.
7. The next window displays information indicating that the installation is complete. As long as there are no errors, VirtualBox will be installed successfully. To proceed, click on Close.
8. One final window may appear, asking whether you would like to keep the downloaded disk image file for VirtualBox. It's up to you how you proceed, but I recommend holding on to the downloaded VirtualBox disk image file for a little bit in case you need to go through these instructions again for some reason.
9. Once you're finished, you should now have the VirtualBox application in the location you chose in step 4.

As long as everything during the installation process went smoothly, you are ready to move on to the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machine creation instructions. Otherwise, if you plan to install VirtualBox on other hosts, feel free to navigate to the appropriate instructions for either Windows or Linux.

How it works...

This recipe installed VirtualBox on your Mac, preparing you for configuring virtual machines in the examples in this book. During the installation process, the necessary files and libraries that help VirtualBox to run were installed on your hard drive so that when you're ready to move on to installing the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop 32-bit and 64-bit virtual machines, you will be able to do so.

There's more...

If you need to install VirtualBox on another system with a different operating system for whatever reason, feel free to jump into the installation instructions for Windows or Ubuntu Linux. Otherwise, I designed this chapter so that you can skip to the recipes that are appropriate for your lab. When you're ready, skip ahead to the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Desktop 32-bit virtual machine installation instructions.

See also

More information about VirtualBox and some of its features have been documented at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki.