Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2315 mails)

[Clayton <smaug42@xxxxxxxxx>]

> He is kind of using a (virtual) machine inside his computer at home
> dedicated to "work", so that the "home" machine and the "work" machines are
> separate and don't contaminate one another. But it is physically a single
> computer, so he saves money (instead of having two real computers).
>
> The VPN is... say like an extension of the work environment to an external
> computer, so that you can work at home as if your computer is connected
> inside the business network of the company.

Thanks for clarifying that Carlos. :-)

Carlos hit it dead on, but here is a more lengthy explanation.

I have one computer at home.  On that computer I have openSUSE 11.0
installed.  This is the called the host OS.  It is the main operating
system, and everything else runs on top of that.

On the host OS I have installed VirtualBox.  VirtualBox runs as an
application like any other on the host OS, but provides a virtual
computer that I can install other operating systems on.  When you
start up VirtualBox, and then launch a virtual machine, it starts up
with a BIOS screen just like a real computer, and boots an operating
system just like a real computer.  Each operating system you install
into VirtualBox is referred to as a guest OS.

VPN is a Virtual Private Network
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_private_network
This is how I log into my employer's network.  When I connect using
VPN, my computer effectively becomes another computer on my employer's
network, and everything I do is routed through my employer's network.
I have full access to all my employer's network drives just as if I
was sitting at my desk in the office.  This allows me to work from
home when I choose, and still have my complete work environment
available.

When you connect with VPN, all of your network traffic is routed to
the server you are connected to.  I don't want that - I run
BitTorrent, a personal webserver and so on, and that network traffic
should never be routed through my employer's severs.  The easy
solution to this is to use VirtualBox and install a guest OS.  I have
openSUSE 11.0 running as a guest OS, and I use that guest OS to VPN to
my employer.  This way, all network traffic from the guest OS is set
to my employer via the VPN, and all network traffic from my host OS
stays where it should be, going through my private ISP.  VirtualBox
allows me to easily isolate my working environment from my personal
environment.

I also use VirtualBox to test other operating systems such as each
release of OpenSolaris.  I used VirtualBox to test out openSUSE 11.0
and KDE4 before committing to installing it as the host OS so that I
could be sure that I liked how things worked before I committed my
computer to running a new OS.  I also have WindowsXP installed for
those rare occasions where I need Windows to do some task.  The
advantage is I have multiple OSes available to me at any time, that
can be started on demand without ever having to reboot my host OS, or
having to deal with mutliboot setups.

In your case, would VirtualBox improve your turnover?  I would agree
with Carlos... probably not.  VirtualBox's strength is in providing a
way for you to run more than one operating system on a single computer
without needing to reboot to get to each one.  There are many ways to
use this... for example running Windows XP as a guest so that you can
access certain Windows only apps you may need to run your business
while keeping Linux as your main/core OS.  If you don't need more than
one OS at the same time, then it's not so interesting to you and your
business.

Does this help clarify things a little?  Or did a add to the mud :-)

C.
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