Sameh Attia: VBoxHeadless - Running Virtual Machines With VirtualBox 3.1 On A Headless Ubuntu 9.10 Server

This guide explains how you can run virtual machines with Sun VirtualBox 3.1 on a headless Ubuntu 9.10 server.

Normally you use the VirtualBox GUI to manage your virtual machines, but a server does not have a desktop environment.

Fortunately, VirtualBox comes with a tool called VBoxHeadless that allows you to connect to the virtual machines over a remote desktop connection, so there's no need for the VirtualBox GUI.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note
I have tested this on an Ubuntu 9.10 server (host system) with the IP address 192.168.0.100 where I'm logged in as a normal user (user name administrator in this example) instead of as root.

2 Installing VirtualBox
To install VirtualBox 3.1 on our Ubuntu 9.10 server, we open /etc/apt/sources.list...

# sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

... and add the following line to it:

[...]
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian karmic non-free

Then we download Sun's public key...

# wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

... and update our package database:

# sudo aptitude update

Afterwards, we install VirtualBox 3.1 as follows:

# sudo aptitude install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential virtualbox-3.1 dkms

(The dkms package ensures that the VirtualBox host kernel modules are properly updated if the Linux kernel version changes.)

Creating group 'vboxusers'

Users of VirtualBox must be members of that group. Host network interfaces will be assigned to that group. <-- Ok

Should the vboxdrv kernel module be compiled now? <-- Yes

Now we must add the user that will run VirtualBox (administrator in this example) to the vboxusers group:

# sudo adduser administrator vboxusers

VirtualBox is now installed and ready to be used.

3 Using VirtualBox On The Command Line
3.1 Creating A VM
To create a VM on the command line, we can use the VBoxManage command. See

# VBoxManage --help

for a list of available switches and (highly recommended!) take a look at http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html#vboxmanage.

I will now create an Ubuntu 9.10 Server VM with 256MB memory and a 10GB hard drive from the Ubuntu 9.10 Server iso image (which I have stored in /home/ubuntu-9.10-server-amd64.iso):

# VBoxManage createvm --name "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" --register
# VBoxManage modifyvm "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" --memory 256 --acpi on --boot1 dvd --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0
# VBoxManage createhd --filename Ubuntu_9_10_Server.vdi --size 10000 --register
# VBoxManage storagectl "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" --name "IDE Controller" --add ide
# VBoxManage storageattach "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium Ubuntu_9_10_Server.vdi
# VBoxManage storageattach "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium /home/ubuntu-9.10-server-amd64.iso

3.2 Importing An Existing VM

Let's assume you have a VM called examplevm that you want to reuse on this host.

On the old host, you should have a directory Machines/examplevm in the VirtualBox directory; Machines/examplevm should contain the examplevm.xml file.

Copy the examplevm directory (including the examplevm.xml file) to your new Machines directory (if your user name is administrator, this is /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/Machines - the result should be /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/Machines/examplevm/examplevm.xml).

In addition to that copy the examplevm.vdi file from the old VDI directory to the new one (e.g. /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/VDI/examplevm.vdi).

Afterwards, you must register the imported VM:

VBoxManage registervm Machines/examplevm/examplevm.xml

3.3 Starting A VM With VBoxHeadless

Regardless of if you create a new VM or import and old one, you can start it with the command:

# VBoxHeadless --startvm "Ubuntu 9.10 Server"

(Replace Ubuntu 9.10 Server with the name of your VM.)

VBoxHeadless will start the VM and a VRDP (VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol) server which allows you to see the VM's output remotely on another machine.

To stop a VM, run

# VBoxManage controlvm "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" poweroff

To pause a VM, run

# VBoxManage controlvm "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" pause

To reset a VM, run

# VBoxManage controlvm "Ubuntu 9.10 Server" reset

To learn more about VBoxHeadless, take a look at

# VBoxHeadless --help

and at http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html#id2515738.

4 Connecting To A VM From A Remote Desktop
4.1 Windows XP
You can use the built-in Remote Desktop Connection utility to connect to the VM:

Type in the hostname or IP address of the host (not the guest!):

And voilà, you should be connected to the VM:

4.2 Linux

On Linux desktops, you can use the rdesktop command to connect to the VM. Open a terminal (on Ubuntu, for example, it's under Applications > Accessories > Terminal)...