Portable-VirtualBox

[pumpingiron22]

Now you can bring it with you this is a great tool to run os tails or other platforms
http://www.vbox.me/

Portable-VirtualBox is a free and open source software tool that lets you run any operating system from a usb stick without separate installation.

Installation instructions

1. Download and run Portable-VirtualBox_v4.3.18-Starter_v6.4.9-Win_all.exe.
2. Choose a folder to extract to.
3. Go to the folder and run Portable-VirtualBox.exe. You’ll see a window like the one below:
   
4. If you have already downloaded the installer for VirtualBox from www.virtualbox.org click search and navigate to the file. If not, click “Download The Installation Files of VirtualBox.” Portable-VirtualBox will show you the download’s progress.
5. Once the installer is download, check the boxes that are appropriate and click OK. Portable-VirtualBox will extract the files it needs from the VirtualBox installer, and restart itself afterward if you select the last checkbox.

Optional configuration
Portable-VirtualBox makes default settings automatically. You can modify them by pressing CTRL-5 or opening the tray menu while Portable-VirtualBox is running. Either action will bring up the configuration GUI below. The Hokey-Settings tab is shown open in the image below:



Features

• Splash screen to start and end
• Configurable Home Directory
• Launch the VirtualBox GUI or directly launch a VM
• Configure the hotkeys for managing your virtual machine
• Configure USB and network support
• Choose language for GUI
• Saves settings in editable *.ini-files
• Can automatically check for VirtualBox updates
• All absolute paths in the VirtualBox.xml are replaced automatically by relative paths
• Checks to make sure VirtualBox files exist

Note
VirtualBox needs several kernel drivers installed and needs to start several services: if the drivers and services are not already installed you’ll need administrator rights to run Portable-VirtualBox.

When Portable-VirtualBox starts, it checks to see if the drivers are installed. If they are not it will install them before running VirtualBox and will remove them afterward. Similarly, Portable-VirtualBox checks to see if the services are running. If not, it will start them and then stop them when it exits.

If you want to save space you can remove the language files for other languages than your own. That can save you nearly 10 MB. They are in the nls directory.

You can also delete the documentation saving nearly 5 MB. You will find it in the doc directory.

When the VM is running you must press the “Host-Key” (initially configured as the right CTRL-Key) to be able to use the other Hotkeys since otherwise the VM will have the focus.

Network support

1. To download of Portable-VirtualBox
2. Unpack from Portable-VirtualBox
3. Start from Portable-VirtualBox
4. Attitudes open (Tray –> attitudes, CTRL+5) –> rider Network (Tab) –> VirtualBox with network support start –> memory (save)
5. Terminate from Portable-VirtualBox
6. Start from Portable-VirtualBox
7. Driver installation agree
8. Wait
9. Selection of a VM and the network map to host interfaces stop
10. Attitudes make
11. FINISHED

Languages of Launcher
English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian.

Important
None of the files that come from VirtualBox are modified or otherwise changed.

Portable-VirtualBox downloads the VirtualBox installer which contains all of the VirtualBox files and drivers. Portable-VirtualBox unpacks the files and stores them in subdirectories . Portable-Virtualbox can also compress them in order to save space.

 

[barbelle]

How do you clear the RAM after closing VirtualBox?

 

[barbelle]

I mean if you run tails in a virtual machine, your host os will still leave traces, or even be compromised.

 

[MindlessWork]

I mean if you run tails in a virtual machine, your host os will still leave traces, or even be compromised.

Once you exit the VM, the memory used should be released back by Virtualbox before it exits. To be safe you should reboot your machine after using something like TAILS or some other secure Linux distro.

I do highly recommend using TAILS directly from a USB stick by booting from USB rather than using something like Portable Virtualbox, as most BIOS's let you select the boot device by pressing a function key as soon as the BIOS splash screen appears.

 

[pumpingiron22]

Once you exit the VM, the memory used should be released back by Virtualbox before it exits. To be safe you should reboot your machine after using something like TAILS or some other secure Linux distro.

I do highly recommend using TAILS directly from a USB stick by booting from USB rather than using something like Portable Virtualbox, as most BIOS's let you select the boot device by pressing a function key as soon as the BIOS splash screen appears.

you beat me to it lol

 

[MindlessWork]

you beat me to it lol

From one techie to another..

 

[barbelle]

Released does not equal cleared. This means that your computer will hold a mirror image of your Tails virtual machine until the memory cells are explicitly overwritten. With normal computer use and a large RAM, there is nothing to say that this will eventually happen.

Rebooting will not necessarily mitigate this as memory can hold a charge for some time.

 

[barbelle]

If you have a paging file, the memory used by the virtual machine could even be written do disk and if you have rally bad luck it could remain there until you do a secure wipe of the entire disk.

 

[MindlessWork]

Released does not equal cleared. This means that your computer will hold a mirror image of your Tails virtual machine until the memory cells are explicitly overwritten. With normal computer use and a large RAM, there is nothing to say that this will eventually happen.

Rebooting will not necessarily mitigate this as memory can hold a charge for some time.

Yes you are correct and if you are real paranoid, you can power off the machine and wait 60 seconds before powering it back on, rather than simply rebooting.

Some computers can initialize RAM by writing all zeros to the unallocated RAM locations as part of memory test at power on. I even wrote a program to do this years ago back in my college days as part of an Operating Systems course.

Sadly I don't have the code anymore...lost some of my disks in a fire years back

 

[barbelle]

Sadly I don't have the code anymore...lost some of my disks in a fire years back

No problem I would be too paranoid to run your code anyway lol

 

[MindlessWork]

No problem I would be too paranoid to run your code anyway lol

lol my program didn't have any backdoors or any sneaky stuff...it was written for a class assignment in college (mid 80s)