Is it hard or easy to install a vm on win10 and put tails in it?

Have you ever done it?
How hard is it to do for someone who never done neither?

On 6/10/2023 2:35 PM, rdb wrote:
> Is it hard or easy to install a vm on win10 and put tails in it?
>
> Have you ever done it?
> How hard is it to do for someone who never done neither?
>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tails_%28operating_system%29

"It can also be run as a virtual machine, with some additional security risks."

Yum.

Me likes secure network traffic (from VM),
intermixed with insecure network traffic (Host OS).

*******

VirtualBox does not particularly care whether you use W10/W11 Home/Pro.
Hyper-V control panel would be available in Pro SKUs, as far as I know,
and that's not going to help a Home user (what I'm running at the moment).
(Using Hyper-V, the software is all provided by Microsoft.)

The BIOS has to have virtualization turned on. But that's also helpful
for OS Sandboxing and other related stuff, so you might well already
have that turned on. There are a few more

Programs and Features : Windows Features

things that have to be turned on, so VirtualBox can use the inverted
hypervisor the OS uses. VirtualBox is not allowed to use the old model
where the hypervisor is not inverted. Windows will block the installation
of old-enough versions of VirtualBox, that won't run under an inverted
hypervisor. Like, some time ago, to upgrade the Windows OS, I had to remove
an older version of VirtualBox, before the Windows OS install would
move forward.

I do not like the most modern VBox versions, because on occasion they
stop responding. Also, sometimes booting fails (guest black screen)
and it's hard to tell whether tapping a mouse or a keyboard key will
wake it up or not. You can start by testing as old a version as
you can find. If this works, do a backup before installing 7.x .
The following might be a decent compromise, but... no promises.
My "tried and true" VirtualBox today, is 5.2 running under Windows 7,
as that always works. I may still try to run the newer stuff
like 6.1, but I am not surprised when it just sits there and I mutter
"not again".

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_6_1

VirtualBox 6.1.44 (released April 18 2023)
Windows Hosts [ https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.1.44/VirtualBox-6.1.44-156814-Win.exe ]

Extension Pack [ https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.1.44/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-6.1.44.vbox-extpack ]

the Guest Additions should be inside the first package.

1) Install VirtualBox.

2) If it asks what file associations to keep, keep all the
ones that VirtualBox uses. In particular, you need to keep
the ExtPack extension.

3) Now, if you have installed VirtualBox and it is running,
you can double click the ExtPack file in File Explorer and
VirtualBox should install it.

The main purpose of ExtPack, is so you can have USB Passthru into
the Guest. Not everyone needs that, but that allows running an old
USB scanner in a Guest OS. ExtPack is for home users only,
and if you're commercial, Oracle will come after you if they
detect the usage of ExtPack.

You create a New Guest ( Machine : New ), and in there, you
specify things like a virtual DVD drive (which you load with
the ISO file for Tails installer). You also need to define
a container (like a .VHD), a dynamically expandable one,
and I typically use 64GB as the max size. That's sufficient
for throw-away OS usage (test OSes as Guests).

You may find Tails to be incomprehensible, which is why I'm
referring to "throw-away OSes" in the previous paragraph. Lots
and lots of OSes I've installed, got thrown away, and only a few
are kept.

My main concern with your idea, is something leaking from the
Host that gives the game away. Now, if you have some comprehensive
instructions available somewhere, which explains how to avoid
that happening, then... carry on. But don't be surprised that
if you install Tails, you find you "don't know what to do next".
VirtualBox has a handy Machine : Remove that can remove all
the files associated with the selected Guest OS.

If the mouse cursor gets "stuck" in the Guest, these hosting
softwares use things like right-control or one of the alt-keys,
as a signal to "let the mouse go". Normally, there are balloons
on the screen as the Guest boots, that tell you what hot keys
to use for "escaping".

VirtualBox has VBoxManage.exe as a command line utility for
changing things or doing container conversions. You won't
need that right away, but eventually you'll discover it's
a useful thing (even if the support matrix is a less than full
one) . Most of the time, the GUI interface has what you need,
but some manipulations need that command line. The executable
is in the Program Files.

Paul