Install Windows VHDs on Linux for testing websites with Internet Explorer

Need to test websites in multiple Internet Explorer versions under Linux / Mac OSX? No problem. Microsoft created free Windows Virtual PC VHDs with the purpose of allowing web designers to test websites in Internet Explorer 7-9. There is a script ievms simplifying the installation. But before you have to install the latest VirtualBox. You can do this e.g. via Package Manager (Ubuntu), Yast (OpenSuse) or via Linux terminal

 
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.1
 

The next step is the installation of VirtualBox Extension Pack. This is necessary for USB 2.0 devices, shared folders, better screen resolution, etc. The best way is to download and install the package for the VirtualBox Extension Pack manually.

 
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.6/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.6-74713.vbox-extpack
VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.6-74713.vbox-extpack
 

Open VirtialBox tnen and go to File > Preferences > Extensions tab. Click there the "add" button and browse to the VirtualBox Extension Pack. Now you need to install curl (tool to transfer data from or to a server) and unrar (command-line applications for extracting RAR archives). In Ubuntu, install them using the command below.

 
sudo apt-get install curl unrar
 

To download and run the mentioned above script, use the following command in a terminal.

 
curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash
 

The above command will download Windows VHDs for IE7, IE8 and IE9. If you only need one specific Internet Explorer version, e.g. IE9, you can run:

 
curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="9" bash
 

At this point, the download will start and it will take a while. The VHD archives are massive and can take hours to download. Each version is installed into a subdirectory of ~/.ievms/vhd/. At the end you can delete the downloaded archives (*.exe and *.rar files) below this folder if you want to free up some space. You are ready to test websites in IE7-IE9 now. The password for all VMs is "Password1". The picture below shows a VirtualBox with IE9.

The next picture shows that I set shared folders to exchange data between Windows 7 in VM and my Kubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot).

You can start your web application on Linux. But how to access a running web application on Windows (VirtualBox)? Linux has a command tool ifconfig to configure, control and query TCP/IP network interface parameters. Open a terminal and type ifconfig. Find an IP address you Linux mashine is accessible from. I have e.g. 192.168.254.21 for wlan0 interface. You are able to call now

 
http://192.168.254.21:8080/...
 

in Interner Exloper on Windows. The IP address is like a localhost for your web application running on Linix. Remaning part behind this address is the same on both OS.