virtualbox.org

Hi everybody.

I need to test a program. The test from the start to the end can take about 10 hours. And it's not possible to save the program and reached progress. So if I close the program, I need to start from the very beginning next run. Is it possible to save the program at the point I've ended. It's like the hibernation only for the program, not the whole system. Is it possible with VirtualBox or it's better to use something lighter for the purpose.

VirtualBox is a hardware emulator. A fake/virtual computer. It is not designated to work with a single program. It works with Operating Systems. But since you are not interested in that, I suspect you'd have to search for a different kind of a solution, although I must say I haven't heard of "program hibernation" before. Maybe something like a backup/restore of sorts?

The "save state" feature of VirtualBox might be what you're looking for; this allows you to pause and resume the execution state of a machine at any point. I can't say how it might affect performance of the software in question, so you would just have to try it to find out. And to reiterate socratis' point, remember that you would first have to create a virtual machine (guest) with a complete operating system to install the software to. VirtualBox will not enable you to run software independently of an operating system. If this is what you're after, then you might want to look into a container solution like Docker instead, though this is not something I am very familiar with and is outside the scope of this forum.