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<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="security-model">
  <title>The Security Model</title>
  
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    <p> One property of virtual machine monitors (VMMs) like <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> is to encapsulate a guest by executing it in a protected environment, a virtual machine, running as a user process on the host operating system. The guest cannot communicate directly with the hardware or other computers but only through the VMM. The VMM provides emulated physical resources and devices to the guest which are accessed by the guest operating system to perform the required tasks. The VM settings control the resources provided to the guest, for example the amount of guest memory or the number of guest processors and the enabled features for that guest. For example remote control, certain screen settings and others. See <xref href="settings-window.dita"/>.</p>
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