VirtualBox
About
VirtualBox is a free open-source virtualization platform from Oracle (formerly Sun).
Manual
The online manual can be found here.
Tips
USB support on Linux
Download the Extension Pack at https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
Install it into the VirtualBox application below File => Preferences => Extensions
Ubuntu Installation
aptitude install virtualbox virtualbox-guest-additions-iso
This will get you an slightly older version i.e. 4.1.12. There also appears to be a virtualbox-nonfree package which I have not tried.
To allow regular users to use VirtualBox on Linux i.e. Ubuntu, add the username to the vboxusers group in /etc/group
adduser username vboxusers
Installing the virtualbox-guest-additions-iso package allows you install the guest additions in each guest from the Devices->Install Guest Additions
After upgrading to Ubuntu Trusty, I found I could no longer connect to RDP. Remmina fails to connect. rdesktop returns connection closed.
mdf@mfoster-wkstn:~$ rdesktop 127.0.0.2:33890 Autoselected keyboard map en-us ERROR: Connection closed
After poking around, I found I need to install the extpack, but it would not install from the GUI, instead returning the error
The installer failed with exit code 127: Error creating textual authentication agent: Error opening current controlling terminal for the process (`/dev/tty'): No such device or address
Checking permissions of /dev/tty there is not a problem there.
mdf@mfoster-wkstn:~$ ls -al /dev/tty crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty 5, 0 Jul 20 14:04 /dev/tty
I attempt to install by hand, it gives same error!
mdf@mfoster-wkstn:~$ VBoxManage extpack install Downloads/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.10-93012.vbox-extpack 0%... Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE VBoxManage: error: Failed to install "/home/mdf/Downloads/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.10-93012.vbox-extpack" VBoxManage: error: The installer failed with exit code 127: Error creating textual authentication agent: Error opening current controlling terminal for the process (`/dev/tty'): No such device or address VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component ExtPackManager, interface IExtPackManager VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleExtPack(HandlerArg*)" at line 1143 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
Try again, but use sudo, it does the magic
mdf@mfoster-wkstn:~$ sudo VBoxManage extpack install Downloads/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.3.10-93012.vbox-extpack 0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100% Successfully installed "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack".
Afterwards, I remove the VNC extension and RDP works now using rdesktop, but not remmina.
Command line
The two interesting command line utilities are: VBoxManage and VBoxHeadless
List VMs
VBoxManage list vms
Add -l (long) for a very detailed listing of each VMs attributes.
Info about a VM
The showvminfo command provides quite a bit of detail about a VM.
$ VBoxManage showvminfo mdftestb1
Name: mdftestb1
Groups: /
Guest OS: Ubuntu (64 bit)
UUID: ff4c6d82-9de7-4ac8-b281-ce6df265756c
Config file: /home/mdf/VirtualBox VMs/mdftestb1/mdftestb1.vbox
Snapshot folder: /home/mdf/VirtualBox VMs/mdftestb1/Snapshots
Log folder: /home/mdf/VirtualBox VMs/mdftestb1/Logs
Hardware UUID: ff4c6d82-9de7-4ac8-b281-ce6df265756c
Memory size: 512MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 12MB
CPU exec cap: 100%
HPET: off
Chipset: piix3
Firmware: BIOS
Number of CPUs: 1
PAE: off
Long Mode: on
Synthetic CPU: off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): HardDisk
Boot Device (2): Network
Boot Device (3): Not Assigned
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: on
Time offset: 0ms
RTC: UTC
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: off
VT-x VPID: on
VT-x unr. exec.: on
State: aborted (since 2015-04-20T15:07:59.772000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: off
2D Video Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Tracing Enabled: off
Allow Tracing to Access VM: off
Tracing Configuration:
Autostart Enabled: off
Autostart Delay: 0
Default Frontend:
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Bootable (0): on
Storage Controller Name (1): SATA
Storage Controller Type (1): IntelAhci
Storage Controller Instance Number (1): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (1): 30
Storage Controller Port Count (1): 1
Storage Controller Bootable (1): on
IDE (1, 0): Empty
SATA (0, 0): /home/mdf/VirtualBox VMs/mdftestb1/Snapshots/{cdffd51d-e6b4-44de-b639-cd3cc9472281}.vdi (UUID: cdffd51d-e6b4-44de-b639-cd3cc9472281)
NIC 1: MAC: 0800275FC13F, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'p2p1', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none
NIC 2: disabled
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: USB Tablet
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
LPT 1: disabled
LPT 2: disabled
Audio: enabled (Driver: PulseAudio, Controller: AC97)
Clipboard Mode: disabled
Drag'n'drop Mode: disabled
VRDE: disabled
USB: enabled
EHCI: disabled
USB Device Filters:
<none>
Available remote USB devices:
<none>
Currently Attached USB Devices:
<none>
Bandwidth groups: <none>
Shared folders: <none>
VRDE Connection: not active
Clients so far: 0
View/Manage Hard Drive(s)
$ VBoxManage showhdinfo "/home/mdf/VirtualBox VMs/win7b/win7b.vdi" UUID: 0226f256-633e-42e3-8aaa-34f1ed91f1ee Accessible: yes Logical size: 25600 MBytes Current size on disk: 12756 MBytes Type: normal (base) Storage format: VDI Format variant: dynamic default In use by VMs: win7b (UUID: 28100c19-5c45-4870-bc6a-ff2ef0448dc5) Location: /home/mdf/VirtualBox VMs/win7b/win7b.vdi
VBoxManage modifyhd YOUR_HARD_DISK.vdi --resize SIZE_IN_MB
Note that you'll need to resize the partition after growing the disk. I used gparted which can not only resize the (NTFS) partition but grow the filesystem in one step!
Start a VM
VBoxHeadless -s vmname &
It's usually best to run the command above in a screen session.
At the very least, background it and consider prepending nohup...
Export
VBoxManage export "name of machine" -o export-vmname.ova
Tags: vbox