Run OS X 10.8 virtual machine on OS X 10.6 with Virtualbox

I have a roommate with a mid-2010 MacBook Pro running OS X 10.6.8. I would like to experiment with OS X 10.8, but don’t want to make them upgrade their Mac since 10.6 is still receiving security updates and they subscribe to the "if it isn’t broke don’t fix it" computer philosophy. Is it technically possible to run OS X 10.8 in Virtualbox with 10.6 as the host OS? If so how do you do this, and what is the legality of doing so?

I haven't seen people have good luck using non-server versions of OS X on Virtual Box since they explicitly do not support Lion or Mountain Lion by intention and design.

Here is the forum post I refer to when I can't remember which OS virtual box has done the work to make the install go smoothly.

• https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=31104

The relevant section reads "the new Mac OS X as Guest feature is only available to users with Apple/Mac hardware, and only for "Mac OS X Server" installations as a guest OS."

It goes on to explain that they do not welcome any discussions on this topic on their site as it could be construed as bypassing Apple Software License Agreement (SLA).

This is quite problematic since the obvious way I would get to Lion Server or Mountain Lion Server would be to start from the 10.6 Retail DVD and then use the App Store to upgrade. Furthermore the FAQ in their forum are from 2007 and 2010 and are marked as "outdated - do not use these" for the most part. I apologize for the wordy non-answer but despite some time working on this, it's not at all clear what set of steps are needed to get going. I'll revise this if I get things working using VB but at some point will switch to Parallels or VMWare as I've heard they make it easier to get going.