virtualbox.org

Is there any setting which instructs virtualbox to store more than one backwards version of .vbox file when changes are made? I'm using Linux so if this is not-in-plan functionality I will go with some inotify based home made solution but that seems so stupid... i.e. logs are being preserved without eviction.

norminul wrote:Is there any setting which instructs virtualbox to store more than one backwards version of .vbox file when changes are made?

Not one that I know of.

The most important question is, why? How many times are you planning on changing your (virtual) hardware? And in ways that you don't remember what changes you've made? And without being able to note these changes, for example in the description, if not in a text file?

The .vbox file is the "recipe" for the guest's hardware. It is not a log. However...

On my guests I see only one vmname.vbox file and one vmname.vbox-prev file per guest. However I do see one or more "versioned" .vbox's on some guests, which I guess are made by Virtualbox if the guest existed during a Virtualbox upgrade.

Some of my guests were from a Windows 7 host running VB 4.2.16. The I upgraded to Windows 10 and 5.0.something. then I upgraded to 10 Anniversary Edition and 5.1.6.

On many of my guests dating back to the Windows 7 host, I have both a "vmname.vbox" and a "vmname-1.12-windows.vbox". On a couple guests I also have a "vmname-1.13-windows.vbox".

I suspect these "versioned" .vbox's come from the upgrades in major version number in Virtualbox (4.2 to 5.0, 5.0 to 5.1). Maybe it's something new that version 5 does.

The best backup is a simple folder-copy after the guest is shut down. See this tutorial Moving a VM and re-interpret it as "Backing Up a VM".

scottgus1 wrote:I suspect these "versioned" .vbox's come from the upgrades in major version number in Virtualbox (4.2 to 5.0, 5.0 to 5.1). Maybe it's something new that version 5 does.

No, these are the XML versions of the VBox file and in fact the 1st line declaration. Example:

<VirtualBox xmlns="http://www.virtualbox.org/" version="1.15-macosx">

Whenever there is a need to modify the VBOX file, VirtualBox backs up the previous one with the XML version in its name. Note that I said "modify", not read. You can read old files, but if a modification you make to the recipe requires a change that didn't exist in the previous versions of VirtualBox, you'll get that effect...

You may be right there, Socratis, but these "version-named" .vbox files that I have don't show under normal operation of Virtualbox. Guests that I have made since the last major update to Virtualbox (5.0 to 5.1) have only the .vbox and the .vbox-prev files. Guests pre-dating the 5.0 to 5.1 or 4.2 to 5.0 (I haven't paid attention so I can't say for certain, thus the "guess" and "suspect") have the 1.12-windows-named.vbox. And at least one guest has a 1.13-windows-named .vbox: I didn't see such a thing back when I went from 3.2 to 4.0 or 4.0 to 4.2,althoguh I wasn't looking for it either.