ILRI Research Computing

To change between "not attached", NAT,Bridged,internal network and host olny adapter:

VBoxManage modifyvm <uuid|name> [--nic<1-N> none|null|nat|bridged|intnet|hostonly]

Set the boot order:

VBoxManage modifyvm <uuid|name> [--boot<1-4> none|floppy|dvd|disk|net>]

Add a shared folder:

VBoxManage sharedfolder add <vmname>|<uuid> --name <name> --hostpath <hostpath> [--transient] [--readonly] 

Acpi Vm:

VBoxManage controlvm  <uuid>|<name>pause|resume|reset|poweroff|savestate|acpipowerbutton|acpisleepbutton| 

Change rdp address:

VBoxManage modifyvm <uuid|name> [--vrdpaddress <host>]

Change the Authentication type:

VBoxManage modifyvm <uuid|name> [--vrdpauthtype null|external|guest]

Note: option "external" will limit access to individual users, The user will be required to use rdesktop-vrdp with username and password:

rdesktop-vrdp -u <username> -p - <host ip address>:<vrdp port>

Change rdp port:

VBoxManage modifyvm <uuid|name> [--vrdpport <port>]

List all VMs in the server:

VBoxManage list vms

List all running VMs:

VBoxManage list runningvms 

List guest properties:

 VBoxManage list -l  vms 

Note: All the guest parameters(configuration) are in <guestname>.xml

Copy an ISO to your home directory:

$scp <dist>.iso <username>@172.26.0.205:~/

• SSH to VM server: 172.26.0.205

$ ssh <username>@172.26.0.205

• start the virtualbox application

$ VirtualBox

• Follow the wizzard to create a VM with the following properties:
  1. Base Memory: less than 512 MB
  2. Network : NAT
  3. Harddisk size: less than 30Gb

If your guest OS is using NAT for networking you will need to enable port forwarding. There is no GUI for this in VirtualBox, but you can use VBoxManage setextradata to make the required changes. If you want to SSH to your VM, for example:

$ VBoxManage setextradata Ubuntu "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/HostPort" 2223
$ VBoxManage setextradata Ubuntu "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/GuestPort" 22
$ VBoxManage setextradata Ubuntu "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/ssh/Protocol" TCP
Then you can log in to the VM from your own computer using the port you've forwarded above:
<code>$ ssh -p 2223 username@172.26.0.205

[jmagochi@biovbox ~]$ VBoxManage controlvm CentOS savestate
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.0.8
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%
[jmagochi@biovbox ~]$ sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv stop

$ wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.12/VirtualBox-3.0.12_54655_rhel5-1.i386.rpm
$ rpm -Uvh VirtualBox-3.0.12_54655_rhel5-1.i386.rpm
$ /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup