| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="teleporting">
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| 4 | <title>Teleporting</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | Oracle VM VirtualBox supports <i>teleporting</i>.
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| 9 | Teleporting is moving a virtual machine over a network from one
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| 10 | Oracle VM VirtualBox host to another, while the virtual machine is
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| 11 | running. This works regardless of the host operating system that
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| 12 | is running on the hosts. You can teleport virtual machines between
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| 13 | Oracle Solaris and macOS hosts, for example.
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| 14 | </p>
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| 15 | <p>
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| 16 | Teleporting requires that a machine be currently running on one
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| 17 | host, which is called the <i>source</i>. The host to
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| 18 | which the virtual machine will be teleported is called the
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| 19 | <i>target</i>. The machine on the target is then
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| 20 | configured to wait for the source to contact the target. The
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| 21 | machine's running state will then be transferred from the source
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| 22 | to the target with minimal downtime.
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| 23 | </p>
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| 24 | <p>
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| 25 | Teleporting happens over any TCP/IP network. The source and the
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| 26 | target only need to agree on a TCP/IP port which is specified in
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| 27 | the teleporting settings.
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| 28 | </p>
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| 29 | <p>
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| 30 | At this time, there are a few prerequisites for this to work, as
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| 31 | follows:
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| 32 | </p>
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| 33 | <ul>
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| 34 | <li>
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| 35 | <p>
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| 36 | On the target host, you must configure a virtual machine in
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| 37 | Oracle VM VirtualBox with exactly the same hardware settings as the
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| 38 | machine on the source that you want to teleport. This does not
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| 39 | apply to settings which are merely descriptive, such as the VM
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| 40 | name, but obviously for teleporting to work, the target
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| 41 | machine must have the same amount of memory and other hardware
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| 42 | settings. Otherwise teleporting will fail with an error
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| 43 | message.
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| 44 | </p>
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| 45 | </li>
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| 46 | <li>
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| 47 | <p>
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| 48 | The two virtual machines on the source and the target must
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| 49 | share the same storage, hard disks as well as floppy disks and
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| 50 | CD/DVD images. This means that they either use the same iSCSI
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| 51 | targets or that the storage resides somewhere on the network
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| 52 | and both hosts have access to it using NFS or SMB/CIFS.
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| 53 | </p>
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| 54 | <p>
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| 55 | This also means that neither the source nor the target machine
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| 56 | can have any snapshots.
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| 57 | </p>
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| 58 | </li>
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| 59 | </ul>
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| 60 | <p>
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| 61 | To configure teleporting, perform the following steps:
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| 62 | </p>
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| 63 | <ol>
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| 64 | <li>
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| 65 | <p>
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| 66 | On the <i>target</i> host, configure the virtual
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| 67 | machine to wait for a teleport request to arrive when it is
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| 68 | started, instead of actually attempting to start the machine.
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| 69 | This is done with the following <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput>
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| 70 | command:
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| 71 | </p>
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| 72 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage modifyvm <varname>targetvmname</varname> --teleporter on --teleporter-port <varname>port</varname>
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| 73 | </pre>
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| 74 | <p><varname>targetvmname</varname> is the name of the
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| 75 | virtual machine on the target host and
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| 76 | <varname>port</varname> is a TCP/IP port number to be
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| 77 | used on both the source and the target hosts. For example, use
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| 78 | 6000. See <xref href="man_VBoxManage-modifyvm.dita">VBoxManage modifyvm</xref>.
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| 79 | </p>
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| 80 | </li>
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| 81 | <li>
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| 82 | <p>
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| 83 | Start the VM on the target host. Instead of running, the VM
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| 84 | shows a progress dialog, indicating that it is waiting for a
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| 85 | teleport request to arrive.
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| 86 | </p>
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| 87 | </li>
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| 88 | <li>
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| 89 | <p>
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| 90 | Start the VM on the <i>source</i> host as usual.
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| 91 | When it is running and you want it to be teleported, issue the
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| 92 | following command on the source host:
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| 93 | </p>
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| 94 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage controlvm <varname>sourcevmname</varname> teleport --host <varname>targethost</varname> --port <varname>port</varname>
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| 95 | </pre>
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| 96 | <p>
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| 97 | where <varname>sourcevmname</varname> is the name of
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| 98 | the virtual machine on the source host, which is the machine
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| 99 | that is currently running.
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| 100 | <varname>targethost</varname> is the host or IP name
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| 101 | of the target host on which the machine is waiting for the
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| 102 | teleport request, and <varname>port</varname> must be
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| 103 | the same number as specified in the command on the target
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| 104 | host. See <xref href="man_VBoxManage-controlvm.dita">VBoxManage controlvm</xref>.
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| 105 | </p>
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| 106 | </li>
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| 107 | </ol>
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| 108 | <p>
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| 109 | For testing, you can also teleport machines on the same host. In
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| 110 | that case, use localhost as the hostname on both the source and
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| 111 | the target host.
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| 112 | </p>
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| 113 | <note>
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| 114 | <p>
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| 115 | In rare cases, if the CPUs of the source and the target are very
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| 116 | different, teleporting can fail with an error message, or the
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| 117 | target may hang. This may happen especially if the VM is running
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| 118 | application software that is highly optimized to run on a
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| 119 | particular CPU without correctly checking that certain CPU
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| 120 | features are actually present. Oracle VM VirtualBox filters what CPU
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| 121 | capabilities are presented to the guest operating system.
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| 122 | Advanced users can attempt to restrict these virtual CPU
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| 123 | capabilities with the <userinput>VBoxManage modifyvm
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| 124 | --cpuid-portability-level</userinput> command. See
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| 125 | <xref href="man_VBoxManage-modifyvm.dita">VBoxManage modifyvm</xref>.
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| 126 | </p>
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| 127 | </note>
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| 128 | </body>
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| 129 |
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| 130 | </topic>
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