Table of Contents
As briefly mentioned in the section called “Alternative front-ends”, VBoxManage is the command-line interface to VirtualBox. With it, you can completely control VirtualBox from the command line of your host operating system. VBoxManage supports all the features that the graphical user interface gives you access to, but it supports a lot more than that. It exposes really all the features of the virtualization engine, even those that cannot (yet) be accessed from the GUI.
You will need to use the command line if you want to
use a different user interface than the main GUI (for example, VBoxSDL or the VBoxHeadless server);
control some of the more advanced and experimental configuration settings for a VM.
There are two main things to keep in mind when using
VBoxManage: First,
VBoxManage must always be used with a
specific "subcommand", such as "list" or "createvm" or "startvm". All the
subcommands that VBoxManage supports are
described in detail in Chapter 8, VBoxManage.
Second, most of these subcommands require that you specify a particular virtual machine after the subcommand. There are two ways you can do this:
You can specify the VM name, as it is shown in the VirtualBox GUI. Note that if that name contains spaces, then you must enclose the entire name in double quotes (as it is always required with command line arguments that contain spaces).
For example:
VBoxManage startvm "Windows XP"
You can specify the UUID, which is the internal unique identifier that VirtualBox uses to refer to the virtual machine. Assuming that the aforementioned VM called "Windows XP" has the UUID shown below, the following command has the same effect as the previous:
VBoxManage startvm 670e746d-abea-4ba6-ad02-2a3b043810a5
You can type VBoxManage list vms to
have all currently registered VMs listed with all their settings,
including their respective names and UUIDs.
Some typical examples of how to control VirtualBox from the command line are listed below:
To create a new virtual machine from the command line and
immediately register it with VirtualBox, use
VBoxManage createvm with the
--register option,[35] like this:
$ VBoxManage createvm --name "SUSE 10.2" --register VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 4.2.12 (C) 2005-2013 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. Virtual machine 'SUSE 10.2' is created. UUID: c89fc351-8ec6-4f02-a048-57f4d25288e5 Settings file: '/home/username/.VirtualBox/Machines/SUSE 10.2/SUSE 10.2.xml'
As can be seen from the above output, a new virtual machine has been created with a new UUID and a new XML settings file.
To show the configuration of a particular VM, use
VBoxManage showvminfo; see the section called “VBoxManage showvminfo” for details and an example.
To change settings while a VM is powered off, use
VBoxManage modifyvm, e.g. as
follows:
VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows XP" --memory "512MB"
For details, see the section called “VBoxManage modifyvm”.
To change the storage configuration (e.g. to add a storage
controller and then a virtual disk), use VBoxManage
storagectl and VBoxManage
storageattach; see the section called “VBoxManage storagectl” and the section called “VBoxManage storageattach” for details.
To control VM operation, use one of the following:
To start a VM that is currently powered off, use
VBoxManage startvm; see the section called “VBoxManage startvm” for details.
To pause or save a VM that is currently running or change
some of its settings, use VBoxManage
controlvm; see the section called “VBoxManage controlvm” for details.
When running VBoxManage without parameters or when supplying an
invalid command line, the below syntax diagram will be shown. Note that
the output will be slightly different depending on the host platform; when
in doubt, check the output of VBoxManage
for the commands available on your particular host.
Usage:
VBoxManage [<general option>] <command>
General Options:
[-v|--version] print version number and exit
[-q|--nologo] suppress the logo
[--settingspw <pw>] provide the settings password
[--settingspwfile <file>] provide a file containing the settings password
Commands:
list [--long|-l] vms|runningvms|ostypes|hostdvds|hostfloppies|
bridgedifs|dhcpservers|hostinfo|
hostcpuids|hddbackends|hdds|dvds|floppies|
usbhost|usbfilters|systemproperties|extpacks|
groups
showvminfo <uuid>|<name> [--details]
[--machinereadable]
showvminfo <uuid>|<name> --log <idx>
registervm <filename>
unregistervm <uuid>|<name> [--delete]
createvm --name <name>
[--groups <group>, ...]
[--ostype <ostype>]
[--register]
[--basefolder <path>]
[--uuid <uuid>]
modifyvm <uuid|name>
[--name <name>]
[--groups <group>, ...]
[--ostype <ostype>]
[--memory <memorysize in MB>]
[--pagefusion on|off]
[--vram <vramsize in MB>]
[--acpi on|off]
[--ioapic on|off]
[--pae on|off]
[--hpet on|off]
[--hwvirtex on|off]
[--hwvirtexexcl on|off]
[--nestedpaging on|off]
[--largepages on|off]
[--vtxvpid on|off]
[--synthcpu on|off]
[--cpuidset <leaf> <eax> <ebx> <ecx> <edx>]
[--cpuidremove <leaf>]
[--cpuidremoveall]
[--hardwareuuid <uuid>]
[--cpus <number>]
[--cpuhotplug on|off]
[--plugcpu <id>]
[--unplugcpu <id>]
[--cpuexecutioncap <1-100>]
[--rtcuseutc on|off]
[--monitorcount <number>]
[--accelerate3d on|off]
[--firmware bios|efi|efi32|efi64]
[--chipset ich9|piix3]
[--bioslogofadein on|off]
[--bioslogofadeout on|off]
[--bioslogodisplaytime <msec>]
[--bioslogoimagepath <imagepath>]
[--biosbootmenu disabled|menuonly|messageandmenu]
[--biossystemtimeoffset <msec>]
[--biospxedebug on|off]
[--boot<1-4> none|floppy|dvd|disk|net>]
[--nic<1-N> none|null|nat|bridged|intnet|
generic]
[--nictype<1-N> Am79C970A|Am79C973]
[--cableconnected<1-N> on|off]
[--nictrace<1-N> on|off]
[--nictracefile<1-N> <filename>]
[--nicproperty<1-N> name=[value]]
[--nicspeed<1-N> <kbps>]
[--nicbootprio<1-N> <priority>]
[--nicpromisc<1-N> deny|allow-vms|allow-all]
[--nicbandwidthgroup<1-N> none|<name>]
[--bridgeadapter<1-N> none|<devicename>]
[--intnet<1-N> <network name>]
[--natnet<1-N> <network>|default]
[--nicgenericdrv<1-N> <driver>
[--natsettings<1-N> [<mtu>],[<socksnd>],
[<sockrcv>],[<tcpsnd>],
[<tcprcv>]]
[--natpf<1-N> [<rulename>],tcp|udp,[<hostip>],
<hostport>,[<guestip>],<guestport>]
[--natpf<1-N> delete <rulename>]
[--nattftpprefix<1-N> <prefix>]
[--nattftpfile<1-N> <file>]
[--nattftpserver<1-N> <ip>]
[--natbindip<1-N> <ip>
[--natdnspassdomain<1-N> on|off]
[--natdnsproxy<1-N> on|off]
[--natdnshostresolver<1-N> on|off]
[--nataliasmode<1-N> default|[log],[proxyonly],
[sameports]]
[--macaddress<1-N> auto|<mac>]
[--mouse ps2|usb|usbtablet
[--keyboard ps2|usb
[--uart<1-N> off|<I/O base> <IRQ>]
[--uartmode<1-N> disconnected|
server <pipe>|
client <pipe>|
file <file>|
<devicename>]
[--lpt<1-N> off|<I/O base> <IRQ>]
[--lptmode<1-N> <devicename>]
[--guestmemoryballoon <balloonsize in MB>]
[--audio none|null|dsound|solaudio|oss|
oss|coreaudio]
[--audiocontroller ac97|hda|sb16]
[--clipboard disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|
bidirectional]
[--draganddrop disabled|hosttoguest
[--vrde on|off]
[--vrdeextpack default|<name>
[--vrdeproperty <name=[value]>]
[--vrdeport <hostport>]
[--vrdeaddress <hostip>]
[--vrdeauthtype null|external|guest]
[--vrdeauthlibrary default|<name>
[--vrdemulticon on|off]
[--vrdereusecon on|off]
[--vrdevideochannel on|off]
[--vrdevideochannelquality <percent>]
[--usb on|off]
[--usbehci on|off]
[--snapshotfolder default|<path>]
[--teleporter on|off]
[--teleporterport <port>]
[--teleporteraddress <address|empty>
[--teleporterpassword <password>]
[--teleporterpasswordfile <file>|stdin]
[--tracing-enabled on|off]
[--tracing-config <config-string>]
[--tracing-allow-vm-access on|off]
[--autostart-enabled on|off]
[--autostart-delay <seconds>]
clonevm <uuid>|<name>
[--snapshot <uuid>|<name>]
[--mode machine|machineandchildren|all]
[--options link|keepallmacs|keepnatmacs|
keepdisknames]
[--name <name>]
[--groups <group>, ...]
[--basefolder <basefolder>]
[--uuid <uuid>]
[--register]
import <ovf/ova>
[--dry-run|-n]
[--options keepallmacs|keepnatmacs]
[more options]
(run with -n to have options displayed
for a particular OVF)
export <machines> --output|-o <name>.<ovf/ova>
[--legacy09|--ovf09|--ovf10|--ovf20]
[--manifest]
[--vsys <number of virtual system>]
[--product <product name>]
[--producturl <product url>]
[--vendor <vendor name>]
[--vendorurl <vendor url>]
[--version <version info>]
[--eula <license text>]
[--eulafile <filename>]
startvm <uuid>|<name>...
[--type gui|sdl|headless]
controlvm <uuid>|<name>
pause|resume|reset|poweroff|savestate|
acpipowerbutton|acpisleepbutton|
keyboardputscancode <hex> [<hex> ...]|
setlinkstate<1-N> on|off |
nic<1-N> null|nat|bridged|intnet|generic
[<devicename>] |
nictrace<1-N> on|off |
nictracefile<1-N> <filename> |
nicproperty<1-N> name=[value] |
nicpromisc<1-N> deny|allow-vms|allow-all |
natpf<1-N> [<rulename>],tcp|udp,[<hostip>],
<hostport>,[<guestip>],<guestport> |
natpf<1-N> delete <rulename> |
guestmemoryballoon <balloonsize in MB> |
usbattach <uuid>|<address> |
usbdetach <uuid>|<address> |
clipboard disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|
bidirectional |
draganddrop disabled|hosttoguest |
vrde on|off |
vrdeport <port> |
vrdeproperty <name=[value]> |
vrdevideochannelquality <percent> |
setvideomodehint <xres> <yres> <bpp>
[[<display>] [<enabled:yes|no> |
[<xorigin> <yorigin>]]] |
screenshotpng <file> [display] |
setcredentials <username>
--passwordfile <file> | <password>
<domain>
[--allowlocallogon <yes|no>] |
teleport --host <name> --port <port>
[--maxdowntime <msec>]
[--passwordfile <file> |
--password <password>] |
plugcpu <id> |
unplugcpu <id> |
cpuexecutioncap <1-100>
discardstate <uuid>|<name>
adoptstate <uuid>|<name> <state_file>
snapshot <uuid>|<name>
take <name> [--description <desc>] [--pause] |
delete <uuid>|<name> |
restore <uuid>|<name> |
restorecurrent |
edit <uuid>|<name>|--current
[--name <name>]
[--description <desc>] |
list [--details|--machinereadable]
showvminfo <uuid>|<name>
closemedium disk|dvd|floppy <uuid>|<filename>
[--delete]
storageattach <uuid|vmname>
--storagectl <name>
[--port <number>]
[--device <number>]
[--type dvddrive|hdd|fdd]
[--medium none|emptydrive|additions|
<uuid>|<filename>|host:<drive>|iscsi]
[--mtype normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable|
readonly|multiattach]
[--comment <text>]
[--setuuid <uuid>]
[--setparentuuid <uuid>]
[--passthrough on|off]
[--tempeject on|off]
[--nonrotational on|off]
[--discard on|off]
[--bandwidthgroup <name>]
[--forceunmount]
[--server <name>|<ip>]
[--target <target>]
[--tport <port>]
[--lun <lun>]
[--encodedlun <lun>]
[--username <username>]
[--password <password>]
[--initiator <initiator>]
[--intnet]
storagectl <uuid|vmname>
--name <name>
[--add ide|sata|scsi|floppy|sas]
[--controller LSILogic|LSILogicSAS|BusLogic|
IntelAHCI|PIIX3|PIIX4|ICH6|I82078]
[--sataportcount <1-30>]
[--hostiocache on|off]
[--bootable on|off]
[--remove]
bandwidthctl <uuid|vmname>
add <name> --type disk|network
--limit <megabytes per second>[k|m|g|K|M|G] |
set <name>
--limit <megabytes per second>[k|m|g|K|M|G] |
remove <name> |
list [--machinereadable]
(limit units: k=kilobit, m=megabit, g=gigabit,
K=kilobyte, M=megabyte, G=gigabyte)
showhdinfo <uuid>|<filename>
createhd --filename <filename>
[--size <megabytes>|--sizebyte <bytes>]
[--diffparent <uuid>|<filename>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: VDI)
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
modifyhd <uuid>|<filename>
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable|
readonly|multiattach]
[--autoreset on|off]
[--compact]
[--resize <megabytes>|--resizebyte <bytes>]
clonehd <uuid>|<filename> <uuid>|<outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|<other>]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--existing]
convertfromraw <filename> <outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--uuid <uuid>]
convertfromraw stdin <outputfile> <bytes>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--uuid <uuid>]
getextradata global|<uuid>|<name>
<key>|enumerate
setextradata global|<uuid>|<name>
<key>
[<value>] (no value deletes key)
setproperty machinefolder default|<folder> |
vrdeauthlibrary default|<library> |
websrvauthlibrary default|null|<library> |
vrdeextpack null|<library> |
autostartdbpath null|<folder> |
loghistorycount <value>
usbfilter add <index,0-N>
--target <uuid>|<name>|global
--name <string>
--action ignore|hold (global filters only)
[--active yes|no] (yes)
[--vendorid <XXXX>] (null)
[--productid <XXXX>] (null)
[--revision <IIFF>] (null)
[--manufacturer <string>] (null)
[--product <string>] (null)
[--remote yes|no] (null, VM filters only)
[--serialnumber <string>] (null)
[--maskedinterfaces <XXXXXXXX>]
usbfilter modify <index,0-N>
--target <uuid>|<name>|global
[--name <string>]
[--action ignore|hold] (global filters only)
[--active yes|no]
[--vendorid <XXXX>|""]
[--productid <XXXX>|""]
[--revision <IIFF>|""]
[--manufacturer <string>|""]
[--product <string>|""]
[--remote yes|no] (null, VM filters only)
[--serialnumber <string>|""]
[--maskedinterfaces <XXXXXXXX>]
usbfilter remove <index,0-N>
--target <uuid>|<name>|global
sharedfolder add <vmname>|<uuid>
--name <name> --hostpath <hostpath>
[--transient] [--readonly] [--automount]
sharedfolder remove <vmname>|<uuid>
--name <name> [--transient]
debugvm <uuid>|<name>
dumpguestcore --filename <name> |
info <item> [args] |
injectnmi |
log [--release|--debug] <settings> ...|
logdest [--release|--debug] <settings> ...|
logflags [--release|--debug] <settings> ...|
osdetect |
osinfo |
getregisters [--cpu <id>] <reg>|all ... |
setregisters [--cpu <id>] <reg>=<value> ... |
show [--human-readable|--sh-export|--sh-eval|
--cmd-set]
<logdbg-settings|logrel-settings>
[[opt] what ...] |
statistics [--reset] [--pattern <pattern>]
[--descriptions]
metrics list [*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]
(comma-separated)
metrics setup
[--period <seconds>] (default: 1)
[--samples <count>] (default: 1)
[--list]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]
metrics query [*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]
metrics enable
[--list]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]
metrics disable
[--list]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]
metrics collect
[--period <seconds>] (default: 1)
[--samples <count>] (default: 1)
[--list]
[--detach]
[*|host|<vmname> [<metric_list>]]
dhcpserver add|modify --netname <network_name> |
[--ip <ip_address>
--netmask <network_mask>
--lowerip <lower_ip>
--upperip <upper_ip>]
[--enable | --disable]
dhcpserver remove --netname <network_name> |
extpack install [--replace] <tarball> |
uninstall [--force] <name> |
cleanup
Each time VBoxManage is invoked, only one command can be executed. However, a command might support several subcommands which then can be invoked in one single call. The following sections provide detailed reference information on the different commands.
--version: show the version of
this tool and exit.
--nologo: suppress the output
of the logo information (useful for scripts)
--settingspw: specifiy a settings
password
--settingspwfile: specify a file
containing the settings password.
The settings password is used for certain settings which need to be
stored encrypted for security reasons. At the moment, the only encrypted
setting is the iSCSI initiator secret (see
the section called “VBoxManage storageattach” for details). As long as no
settings password is specified, this information is stored in
plain text. After using the
--settingspw|--settingspwfile option
once, it must be always used, otherwise the encrypted setting cannot
be unencrypted.
The list command gives relevant
information about your system and information about VirtualBox's current
settings.
The following subcommands are available with
VBoxManage list:
vms lists all virtual
machines currently registered with VirtualBox. By default this
displays a compact list with each VM's name and UUID; if you also
specify --long or
-l, this will be a detailed list as
with the showvminfo command (see
below).
runningvms lists all
currently running virtual machines by their unique identifiers
(UUIDs) in the same format as with
vms.
ostypes lists all guest
operating systems presently known to VirtualBox, along with the
identifiers used to refer to them with the
modifyvm command.
hostdvds,
hostfloppies, respectively, list
DVD, floppy, bridged networking and host-only networking interfaces
on the host, along with the name used to access them from within
VirtualBox.
bridgedifs,
hostonlyifs and
dhcpservers, respectively, list
bridged network interfaces, host-only network interfaces and DHCP
servers currently available on the host. Please see Chapter 6, Virtual networking for details on these.
hostinfo displays information
about the host system, such as CPUs, memory size and operating
system version.
hostcpuids dumps the CPUID
parameters for the host CPUs. This can be used for a more fine
grained analyis of the host's virtualization capabilities.
hddbackends lists all known
virtual disk back-ends of VirtualBox. For each such format (such as
VDI, VMDK or RAW), this lists the back-end's capabilities and
configuration.
hdds,
dvds and
floppies all give you information
about virtual disk images currently in use by VirtualBox, including
all their settings, the unique identifiers (UUIDs) associated with
them by VirtualBox and all files associated with them. This is the
command-line equivalent of the Virtual Media Manager; see the section called “The Virtual Media Manager”.
usbhost supplies information
about USB devices attached to the host, notably information useful
for constructing USB filters and whether they are currently in use
by the host.
usbfilters lists all global
USB filters registered with VirtualBox -- that is, filters for
devices which are accessible to all virtual machines -- and displays
the filter parameters.
systemproperties displays
some global VirtualBox settings, such as minimum and maximum guest
RAM and virtual hard disk size, folder settings and the current
authentication library in use.
extpacks displays all
VirtualBox extension packs currently installed; see the section called “Installing VirtualBox and extension packs” and the section called “VBoxManage extpack” for more information.
The showvminfo command shows
information about a particular virtual machine. This is the same
information as VBoxManage list vms --long
would show for all virtual machines.
You will get information similar to the following:
$ VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP" VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 4.2.12 (C) 2005-2013 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. Name: Windows XP Guest OS: Other/Unknown UUID: 1bf3464d-57c6-4d49-92a9-a5cc3816b7e7 Config file: /home/username/.VirtualBox/Machines/Windows XP/Windows XP.xml Memory size: 512MB VRAM size: 12MB Number of CPUs: 2 Synthetic Cpu: off Boot menu mode: message and menu Boot Device (1): DVD Boot Device (2): HardDisk Boot Device (3): Not Assigned Boot Device (4): Not Assigned ACPI: on IOAPIC: on PAE: on Time offset: 0 ms Hardw. virt.ext: on Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on Nested Paging: on VT-x VPID: off State: powered off (since 2009-10-20T14:52:19.000000000) Monitor count: 1 3D Acceleration: off 2D Video Acceleration: off Teleporter Enabled: off Teleporter Port: 0 Teleporter Address: Teleporter Password: Storage Controller (0): IDE Controller Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4 Storage Controller (1): Floppy Controller 1 Storage Controller Type (1): I82078 IDE Controller (0, 0): /home/user/windows.vdi (UUID: 46f6e53a-4557-460a-9b95-68b0f17d744b) IDE Controller (0, 1): /home/user/openbsd-cd46.iso (UUID: 4335e162-59d3-4512-91d5-b63e94eebe0b) Floppy Controller 1 (0, 0): /home/user/floppy.img (UUID: 62ac6ccb-df36-42f2-972e-22f836368137) NIC 1: disabled NIC 2: disabled NIC 3: disabled NIC 4: disabled NIC 5: disabled NIC 6: disabled NIC 7: disabled NIC 8: disabled UART 1: disabled UART 2: disabled Audio: disabled (Driver: Unknown) Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional VRDE: disabled USB: disabled USB Device Filters: <none> Shared folders: <none> Statistics update: disabled
The registervm command allows you
to import a virtual machine definition in an XML file into VirtualBox. The
machine must not conflict with one already registered in VirtualBox and it
may not have any hard or removable disks attached. It is advisable to
place the definition file in the machines folder before registering
it.
When creating a new virtual machine with
VBoxManage createvm (see below), you
can directly specify the --register
option to avoid having to register it separately.
The unregistervm command
unregisters a virtual machine. If
--delete is also specified, the following
files will automatically be deleted as well:
all hard disk image files, including differencing files, which are used by the machine and not shared with other machines;
saved state files that the machine created, if any (one if the machine was in "saved" state and one for each online snapshot);
the machine XML file and its backups;
the machine log files, if any;
the machine directory, if it is empty after having deleted all the above.
This command creates a new XML virtual machine definition file.
The --name <name> parameter
is required and must specify the name of the machine. Since this name is
used by default as the file name of the settings file (with the extension
.xml) and the machine folder (a subfolder
of the .VirtualBox/Machines folder), it
must conform to your host operating system's requirements for file name
specifications. If the VM is later renamed, the file and folder names will
change automatically.
However, if the --basefolder
<path> option is used, the machine folder will be
named <path>. In this case, the
names of the file and the folder will not change if the virtual machine is
renamed.
By default, this command only creates the XML file without
automatically registering the VM with your VirtualBox installation. To
register the VM instantly, use the optional
--register option, or run
VBoxManage registervm separately
afterwards.
This command changes the properties of a registered virtual machine
which is not running. Most of the properties that this command makes
available correspond to the VM settings that VirtualBox graphical user
interface displays in each VM's "Settings" dialog; these were described in
Chapter 3, Configuring virtual machines. Some of the more advanced settings,
however, are only available through the
VBoxManage interface.
These commands require that the machine is powered off (neither
running nor in "saved" state). Some machine settings can also be changed
while a machine is running; those settings will then have a corresponding
subcommand with the VBoxManage controlvm
subcommand (see the section called “VBoxManage controlvm”).
The following general settings are available through
VBoxManage modifyvm:
--name <name>: This
changes the VM's name and possibly renames the internal virtual
machine files, as described with VBoxManage
createvm above.
--ostype <ostype>:
This specifies what guest operating system is supposed to run in
the VM. To learn about the various identifiers that can be used
here, use VBoxManage list
ostypes.
--memory
<memorysize>: This sets the amount of RAM,
in MB, that the virtual machine should allocate for itself from
the host. See the remarks in the section called “Creating your first virtual machine” for
more information.
--vram <vramsize>:
This sets the amount of RAM that the virtual graphics card should
have. See the section called “Display settings” for details.
--acpi on|off;
--ioapic on|off: These two
determine whether the VM should have ACPI and I/O APIC support,
respectively; see the section called “"Motherboard" tab” for
details.
--hardwareuuid
<uuid>: The UUID presented to the guest via
memory tables (DMI/SMBIOS), hardware and guest properties. By
default this is the same as the VM uuid. Useful when cloning a VM.
Teleporting takes care of this automatically.
--cpus <cpucount>:
This sets the number of virtual CPUs for the virtual machine (see
the section called “"Processor" tab”). If CPU hot-plugging is
enabled (see below), this then sets the
maximum number of virtual CPUs that can be
plugged into the virtual machines.
--rtcuseutc on|off: This
option lets the real-time clock (RTC) operate in UTC time (see
the section called “"Motherboard" tab”).
--cpuhotplug on|off: This
enables CPU hot-plugging. When enabled, virtual CPUs can be added
to and removed from a virtual machine while it is running. See
the section called “CPU hot-plugging” for more information.
--plugcpu|unplugcpu
<id>: If CPU hot-plugging is enabled (see
above), this adds a virtual CPU to the virtual machines (or
removes one). <id>
specifies the index of the virtual CPU to be added or removed and
must be a number from 0 to the maximum no. of CPUs configured with
the --cpus option. CPU 0 can
never be removed.
--cpuexecutioncap
<1-100>: This setting controls how much cpu
time a virtual CPU can use. A value of 50 implies a single virtual
CPU can use up to 50% of a single host CPU.
--synthcpu on|off: This
setting determines whether VirtualBox will expose a synthetic CPU
to the guest to allow live migration between host systems that
differ significantly.
--pae on|off: This
enables/disables PAE (see the section called “"Processor" tab”).
--hpet on|off: This
enables/disables a High Precision Event Timer (HPET) which can
replace the legacy system timers. This is turned off by default.
Note that Windows supports a HPET only from Vista onwards.
--hwvirtex on|off: This
enables or disables the use of hardware virtualization extensions
(Intel VT-x or AMD-V) in the processor of your host system; see
the section called “Hardware vs. software virtualization”.
--hwvirtexexcl on|off: This
specifies whether VirtualBox will make exclusive use of the
hardware virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) in the
processor of your host system; see the section called “Hardware vs. software virtualization”. If
you wish to simultaneously share these extensions with other
hypervisors, then you must disable this setting. Doing so has
negative performance implications.
--nestedpaging on|off: If
hardware virtualization is enabled, this additional setting
enables or disables the use of the nested paging feature in the
processor of your host system; see the section called “Hardware vs. software virtualization”.
--largepages on|off: If
hardware virtualization and nested paging are
enabled, for Intel VT-x only, an additional performance
improvement of up to 5% can be obtained by enabling this setting.
This causes the hypervisor to use large pages to reduce TLB use
and overhead.
--vtxvpid on|off: If
hardware virtualization is enabled, for Intel VT-x only, this
additional setting enables or disables the use of the tagged TLB
(VPID) feature in the processor of your host system; see the section called “Hardware vs. software virtualization”.
--accelerate3d on|off: This
enables, if the Guest Additions are installed, whether hardware 3D
acceleration should be available; see the section called “Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)”.
You can influence the BIOS logo that is displayed when a virtual machine starts up with a number of settings. Per default, a VirtualBox logo is displayed.
With --bioslogofadein
on|off and --bioslogofadeout
on|off, you can determine whether the logo should
fade in and out, respectively.
With --bioslogodisplaytime
<msec> you can set how long the logo should
be visible, in milliseconds.
With --bioslogoimagepath
<imagepath> you can, if you are so
inclined, replace the image that is shown, with your own logo. The
image must be an uncompressed 256 color BMP file.
--biosbootmenu
disabled|menuonly|messageandmenu: This specifies
whether the BIOS allows the user to select a temporary boot
device. menuonly suppresses the
message, but the user can still press F12 to select a temporary
boot device.
--nicbootprio<1-N>
<priority>: This specifies the order in which
NICs are tried for booting over the network (using PXE). The
priority is an integer in the 0 to 4 range. Priority 1 is the
highest, priority 4 is low. Priority 0, which is the default unless
otherwise specified, is the lowest.
Note that this option only has effect when the Intel PXE boot ROM is used.
--boot<1-4>
none|floppy|dvd|disk|net: This specifies the boot
order for the virtual machine. There are four "slots", which the
VM will try to access from 1 to 4, and for each of which you can
set a device that the VM should attempt to boot from.
--snapshotfolder
default|<path>: This allows you to specify
the folder in which snapshots will be kept for a virtual
machine.
--firmware efi|bios:
Specifies which firmware is used to boot particular virtual
machine: EFI or BIOS. Use EFI only if your fully understand what
you're doing.
--guestmemoryballoon
<size> sets the default size of the guest
memory balloon, that is, memory allocated by the VirtualBox Guest
Additions from the guest operating system and returned to the
hypervisor for re-use by other virtual machines. <size> must
be specified in megabytes. The default size is 0 megabytes. For
details, see the section called “Memory ballooning”.
--lptmode<1-N>
<Device>
Specifies the Device Name of the parallel port that
the Parallel Port feature will be using. Use this
before --lpt.
This feature is host operating system specific.
--lpt<1-N>
<I/O base> <IRQ>
Specifies the I/O address of the parallel port and the IRQ
number that the Parallel Port feature will be using. Use this
after
--lptmod. I/O base address and IRQ are
the values that guest sees i.e. the values avalable under guest Device Manager.
The following networking settings are available through
VBoxManage modifyvm. With all these
settings, the decimal number directly following the option name ("1-N"
in the list below) specifies the virtual network adapter whose settings
should be changed.
--nic<1-N>
none|null|nat|bridged|intnet|hostonly|generic
: With
this, you can set, for each of the VM's virtual network cards,
what type of networking should be available. They can be not
present (none), not connected to
the host (null), use network
address translation (nat),
bridged networking (bridged) or
communicate with other virtual machines using internal networking
(intnet), host-only networking
(hostonly), or access rarely used
sub-modes (generic).
These options correspond
to the modes which are described in detail in the section called “Introduction to networking modes”.
--nictype<1-N>
Am79C970A|Am79C973|82540EM|82543GC|82545EM|virtio:
This allows you, for each of the VM's virtual network cards, to
specify which networking hardware VirtualBox presents to the
guest; see the section called “Virtual networking hardware”.
--cableconnected<1-N>
on|off: This allows you to temporarily disconnect
a virtual network interface, as if a network cable had been pulled
from a real network card. This might be useful for resetting
certain software components in the VM.
With the "nictrace" options, you can optionally trace network traffic by dumping it to a file, for debugging purposes.
With --nictrace<1-N>
on|off, you can enable network tracing for a
particular virtual network card.
If enabled, you must specify with
--nictracefile<1-N>
<filename> what file the trace should be
logged to.
--bridgeadapter<1-N>
none|<devicename>: If bridged networking
has been enabled for a virtual network card (see the
--nic option above; otherwise
this setting has no effect), use this option to specify which host
interface the given virtual network interface will use. For
details, please see the section called “Bridged networking”.
--hostonlyadapter<1-N>
none|<devicename>: If host-only networking
has been enabled for a virtual network card (see the --nic option
above; otherwise this setting has no effect), use this option to
specify which host-only networking interface the given virtual
network interface will use. For details, please see the section called “Host-only networking”.
--intnet<1-N>
network: If internal networking has been enabled
for a virtual network card (see the
--nic option above; otherwise
this setting has no effect), use this option to specify the name
of the internal network (see the section called “Internal networking”).
--macaddress<1-N>
auto|<mac>: With this option you can set
the MAC address of the virtual network card. Normally, each
virtual network card is assigned a random address by VirtualBox at
VM creation.
--nicgenericdrv<1-N>
<backend driver>: If generic networking has been
enabled for a virtual network card (see the
--nic option above; otherwise
this setting has no effect), this mode allows you to access
rarely used networking sub-modes, such as VDE network or UDP Tunnel.
--nicproperty<1-N>
<paramname>="paramvalue":
This option, in combination with "nicgenericdrv" allows you to
pass parameters to rarely-used network backends.
Those parameters are backend engine-specific, and are different between UDP Tunnel and the VDE backend drivers. For example, please see the section called “UDP Tunnel networking”.
The following NAT networking settings are available through
VBoxManage modifyvm. With all these
settings, the decimal number directly following the option name ("1-N"
in the list below) specifies the virtual network adapter whose
settings should be changed.
--natpf<1-N>
[<name>],tcp|udp,[<hostip>],<hostport>,[<guestip>],
<guestport>: This option defines a NAT
port-forwarding rule (please see the section called “Configuring port forwarding with NAT”
for details).
--natpf<1-N> delete
<name>: This option deletes a NAT
port-forwarding rule (please see the section called “Configuring port forwarding with NAT”
for details).
--nattftpprefix<1-N>
<prefix>: This option defines a prefix
for the built-in TFTP server, i.e. where the boot file is
located (please see the section called “PXE booting with NAT” and the section called “Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network
interface” for details).
--nattftpfile<1-N>
<bootfile>: This option defines the TFT
boot file (please see the section called “Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network
interface” for
details).
--nattftpserver<1-N>
<tftpserver>: This option defines the
TFTP server address to boot from (please see the section called “Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network
interface” for details).
--natdnspassdomain<1-N>
on|off: This option specifies whether the
built-in DHCP server passes the domain name for network name
resolution.
--natdnsproxy<1-N>
on|off: This option makes the NAT engine proxy
all guest DNS requests to the host's DNS servers (please see
the section called “Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode” for details).
--natdnshostresolver<1-N>
on|off: This option makes the NAT engine use
the host's resolver mechanisms to handle DNS requests (please
see the section called “Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode” for details).
--natnatsettings<1-N>
[<mtu>],[<socksnd>],[<sockrcv>],[<tcpsnd>],
[<tcprcv>]: This option controls several
NAT settings (please see the section called “Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT” for
details).
--nataliasmode<1-N>
default|[log],[proxyonly],[sameports]: This
option defines behaviour of NAT engine core: log - enables
logging, proxyonly - switches of aliasing mode makes NAT
transparent, sameports enforces NAT engine to send packets via
the same port as they originated on, default - disable all
mentioned modes above . (please see the section called “Configuring aliasing of the NAT engine” for details).
The following other hardware settings are available through
VBoxManage modifyvm:
--uart<1-N> off|<I/O base>
<IRQ>: With this option you can configure
virtual serial ports for the VM; see the section called “Serial ports” for an introduction.
--uartmode<1-N>
<arg>: This setting controls how VirtualBox
connects a given virtual serial port (previously configured with
the --uartX setting, see above)
to the host on which the virtual machine is running. As described
in detail in the section called “Serial ports”, for each such port,
you can specify <arg> as
one of the following options:
disconnected: Even
though the serial port is shown to the guest, it has no
"other end" -- like a real COM port without a cable.
server
<pipename>: On a Windows host, this
tells VirtualBox to create a named pipe on the host named
<pipename> and
connect the virtual serial device to it. Note that Windows
requires that the name of a named pipe begin with
\\.\pipe\.
On a Linux host, instead of a named pipe, a local domain socket is used.
client
<pipename>: This operates just like
server ..., except that the
pipe (or local domain socket) is not created by VirtualBox,
but assumed to exist already.
<devicename>:
If, instead of the above, the device name of a physical
hardware serial port of the host is specified, the virtual
serial port is connected to that hardware port. On a Windows
host, the device name will be a COM port such as
COM1; on a Linux host, the
device name will look like
/dev/ttyS0. This allows you
to "wire" a real serial port to a virtual machine.
--audio none|null|oss: With
this option, you can set whether the VM should have audio
support.
--clipboard
disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|bidirectional:
With this setting, you can select whether the guest operating
system's clipboard should be shared with the host; see the section called “General settings”. This requires that the Guest
Additions be installed in the virtual machine.
--monitorcount
<count>: This enables multi-monitor
support; see the section called “Display settings”.
--usb on|off: This option
enables or disables the VM's virtual USB controller; see the section called “USB settings” for details.
--usbehci on|off: This
option enables or disables the VM's virtual USB 2.0 controller;
see the section called “USB settings” for details.
The following settings that affect remote machine behavior are
available through VBoxManage
modifyvm:
--vrde on|off: With the
VirtualBox graphical user interface, this enables or disables the
VirtualBox remote desktop extension (VRDE) server. Note that if
you are using VBoxHeadless (see
the section called “VBoxHeadless, the remote desktop server”), VRDE is enabled by
default.
--vrdeport
default|<ports>: A port or a range of ports
the VRDE server can bind to; "default" or "0" means port 3389, the
standard port for RDP. You can specify a comma-separated list of
ports or ranges of ports. Use a dash between two port numbers to
specify a range. The VRDE server will bind to one of available ports from the specified
list. Only one machine can use a given port at a time. For
example, the option --vrdeport
5000,5010-5012 will tell the server to bind to
one of following ports: 5000, 5010, 5011 or 5012.
--vrdeaddress <IP
address>: The IP address of the host network
interface the VRDE server will bind to. If specified, the server
will accept connections only on the specified host network
interface.
--vrdeauthtype
null|external|guest: This allows you to choose
whether and how authorization will be performed; see the section called “RDP authentication” for details.
--vrdemulticon on|off: This
enables multiple connections to the same VRDE server, if the
server supports this feature; see the section called “Multiple connections to the VRDP server”.
--vrdereusecon on|off: This
specifies the VRDE server behavior when multiple connections are
disabled. When this option is enabled, the server will allow a new
client to connect and will drop the existing connection. When this
option is disabled (this is the default setting), a new connection
will not be accepted if there is already a client connected to the
server.
--vrdevideochannel on|off:
This enables video redirection, if it is supported by the VRDE
server; see the section called “VRDP video redirection”.
--vrdevideochannelquality
<percent>: Sets the image quality for video
redirection; see the section called “VRDP video redirection”.
With the following commands for VBoxManage
modifyvm you can configure a machine to be a target for
teleporting. See the section called “Teleporting” for an
introduction.
--teleporter on|off: With
this setting you turn on or off whether a machine waits for a
teleporting request to come in on the network when it is started.
If "on", when the machine is started, it does not boot the virtual
machine as it would normally; instead, it then waits for a
teleporting request to come in on the port and address listed with
the next two parameters.
--teleporterport
<port>, --teleporteraddress
<address>: these must be used with
--teleporter and tell the virtual machine on which port and
address it should listen for a teleporting request from another
virtual machine. <port> can
be any free TCP/IP port number (e.g. 6000);
<address> can be any IP
address or hostname and specifies the TCP/IP socket to bind to.
The default is "0.0.0.0", which means any address.
--teleporterpassword
<password>: if this optional argument is
given, then the teleporting request will only succeed if the
source machine specifies the same password as the one given with
this command.
--teleporterpasswordfile
<password>: if this optional argument is
given, then the teleporting request will only succeed if the
source machine specifies the same password as the one specified
in the file give with this command. Use stdin
to read the password from stdin.
--cpuid <leaf> <eax> <ebx>
<ecx> <edx>: Advanced users can use
this command before a teleporting operation to restrict the
virtual CPU capabilities that VirtualBox presents to the guest
operating system. This must be run on both the source and the
target machines involved in the teleporting and will then modify
what the guest sees when it executes the
CPUID machine instruction. This
might help with misbehaving applications that wrongly assume that
certain CPU capabilities are present. The meaning of the
parameters is hardware dependent; please refer to the AMD or Intel
processor manuals.
This command creates a full or linked copy of an existing virtual machine.
The clonevm subcommand takes at
least the name of the virtual machine which should be cloned. The following
additional settings can be used to further configure the clone VM
operation:
--snapshot <uuid>|<name>:
Select a specific snapshot where the clone operation should refer
to. Default is referring to the current state.
--mode machine|machineandchildren|all:
Selects the cloning mode of the operation. If
machine is selected (the default),
the current state of the VM without any snapshots is cloned. In the
machineandchildren mode the snapshot
provided by --snapshot and all
child snapshots are cloned. If all
is the selected mode all snapshots and the current state are cloned.
--options link|keepallmacs|keepnatmacs|keepdisknames:
Allows additional fine tuning of the clone operation. The first
option defines that a linked clone should be created, which is
only possible for a machine clone from a snapshot. The next two
options allow to define how the MAC addresses of every virtual
network card should be handled. They can either be reinitialized
(the default), left unchanged
(keepallmacs) or left unchanged
when the network type is NAT
(keepnatmacs). If you add
keepdisknames all new disk images
are called like the original once, otherwise they are
renamed.
--name <name>: Select a
new name for the new virtual machine. Default is "Original Name
Clone".
--basefolder <basefolder>:
Select the folder where the new virtual machine configuration should
be saved in.
--uuid <uuid>:
Select the UUID the new VM should have. This id has to be unique in
the VirtualBox instance this clone should be registered. Default is
creating a new UUID.
--register:
Automatically register the new clone in this VirtualBox
installation. If you manually want register the new VM later, see
the section called “VBoxManage registervm / unregistervm” for instructions how to do
so.
This command imports a virtual appliance in OVF format by copying the virtual disk images and creating virtual machines in VirtualBox. See the section called “Importing and exporting virtual machines” for an introduction to appliances.
The import subcommand takes at
least the path name of an OVF file as input and expects the disk images,
if needed, in the same directory as the OVF file. A lot of additional
command-line options are supported to control in detail what is being
imported and modify the import parameters, but the details depend on the
content of the OVF file.
It is therefore recommended to first run the import subcommand with
the --dry-run or
-n option. This will then print a
description of the appliance's contents to the screen how it would be
imported into VirtualBox, together with the optional command-line options
to influence the import behavior.
As an example, here is the screen output with a sample appliance containing a Windows XP guest:
VBoxManage import WindowsXp.ovf --dry-run
Interpreting WindowsXp.ovf...
OK.
Virtual system 0:
0: Suggested OS type: "WindowsXP"
(change with "--vsys 0 --ostype <type>"; use "list ostypes" to list all)
1: Suggested VM name "Windows XP Professional_1"
(change with "--vsys 0 --vmname <name>")
3: Number of CPUs: 1
(change with "--vsys 0 --cpus <n>")
4: Guest memory: 956 MB (change with "--vsys 0 --memory <MB>")
5: Sound card (appliance expects "ensoniq1371", can change on import)
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 5 --ignore")
6: USB controller
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 6 --ignore")
7: Network adapter: orig bridged, config 2, extra type=bridged
8: Floppy
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 8 --ignore")
9: SCSI controller, type BusLogic
(change with "--vsys 0 --unit 9 --scsitype {BusLogic|LsiLogic}";
disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 9 --ignore")
10: IDE controller, type PIIX4
(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 10 --ignore")
11: Hard disk image: source image=WindowsXp.vmdk,
target path=/home/user/disks/WindowsXp.vmdk, controller=9;channel=0
(change controller with "--vsys 0 --unit 11 --controller <id>";
disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 11 --ignore")As you can see, the individual configuration items are numbered, and
depending on their type support different command-line options. The import
subcommand can be directed to ignore many such items with a
--vsys X --unit Y --ignore option, where
X is the number of the virtual system (zero unless there are several
virtual system descriptions in the appliance) and Y the item number, as
printed on the screen.
In the above example, Item #1 specifies the name of the target
machine in VirtualBox. Items #9 and #10 specify hard disk controllers,
respectively. Item #11 describes a hard disk image; in this case, the
additional --controller option indicates
which item the disk image should be connected to, with the default coming
from the OVF file.
You can combine several items for the same virtual system behind the
same --vsys option. For example, to
import a machine as described in the OVF, but without the sound card and
without the USB controller, and with the disk image connected to the IDE
controller instead of the SCSI controller, use this:
VBoxManage import WindowsXp.ovf
--vsys 0 --unit 5 --ignore --unit 6 --ignore --unit 11 --controller 10This command exports one or more virtual machines from VirtualBox into a virtual appliance in OVF format, including copying their virtual disk images to compressed VMDK. See the section called “Importing and exporting virtual machines” for an introduction to appliances.
The export command is simple to
use: list the machine (or the machines) that you would like to export to
the same OVF file and specify the target OVF file after an additional
--output or
-o option. Note that the directory of the
target OVF file will also receive the exported disk images in the
compressed VMDK format (regardless of the original format) and should have
enough disk space left for them.
Beside a simple export of a given virtual machine, you can append
several product information to the appliance file. Use
--product,
--producturl,
--vendor,
--vendorurl and
--version to specify this additional
information. For legal reasons you may add a license text or the content
of a license file by using the --eula and
--eulafile option respectively. As with
OVF import, you must use the --vsys X
option to direct the previously mentioned options to the correct virtual
machine.
For virtualization products which aren't fully compatible with the
OVF standard 1.0 you can enable a OVF 0.9 legacy mode with the
--legacy09 option.
This command starts a virtual machine that is currently in the "Powered off" or "Saved" states.
This is provided for backwards compatibility only. We recommend to
start virtual machines directly by running the respective front-end, as
you might otherwise miss important error and state information that
VirtualBox may display on the console. This is especially important for
front-ends other than VirtualBox, our
graphical user interface, because those cannot display error messages in
a popup window. See the section called “VBoxHeadless, the remote desktop server” for more
information.
The optional --type specifier
determines whether the machine will be started in a window (GUI mode,
which is the default) or whether the output should go through
VBoxHeadless, with VRDE enabled or not;
see the section called “VBoxHeadless, the remote desktop server” for more information. The list of
types is subject to change, and it's not guaranteed that all types are
accepted by any product variant.
The following values are allowed:
Starts a VM showing a GUI window. This is the default.
Starts a VM without a window for remote display only.
The controlvm subcommand allows you
to change the state of a virtual machine that is currently running. The
following can be specified:
VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
pause temporarily puts a virtual machine on hold,
without changing its state for good. The VM window will be painted
in gray to indicate that the VM is currently paused. (This is
equivalent to selecting the "Pause" item in the "Machine" menu of
the GUI.)
Use VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
resume to undo a previous
pause command. (This is equivalent
to selecting the "Resume" item in the "Machine" menu of the
GUI.)
VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
reset has the same effect on a virtual machine as
pressing the "Reset" button on a real computer: a cold reboot of the
virtual machine, which will restart and boot the guest operating
system again immediately. The state of the VM is not saved
beforehand, and data may be lost. (This is equivalent to selecting
the "Reset" item in the "Machine" menu of the GUI.)
VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
poweroff has the same effect on a virtual machine
as pulling the power cable on a real computer. Again, the state of
the VM is not saved beforehand, and data may be lost. (This is
equivalent to selecting the "Close" item in the "Machine" menu of
the GUI or pressing the window's close button, and then selecting
"Power off the machine" in the dialog.)
After this, the VM's state will be "Powered off". From there, it can be started again; see the section called “VBoxManage startvm”.
VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
savestate will save the current state of the VM to
disk and then stop the VM. (This is equivalent to selecting the
"Close" item in the "Machine" menu of the GUI or pressing the
window's close button, and then selecting "Save the machine state"
in the dialog.)
After this, the VM's state will be "Saved". From there, it can be started again; see the section called “VBoxManage startvm”.
VBoxManage controlvm <vm> teleport
--hostname <name> --port <port> [--passwordfile
<file> | --password <password>] makes
the machine the source of a teleporting operation and initiates a
teleport to the given target. See the section called “Teleporting” for
an introduction. If the optional password is specified, it must match
the password that was given to the
modifyvm command for the target
machine; see the section called “Teleporting settings” for
details.
A few extra options are available with
controlvm that do not directly affect the
VM's running state:
The setlinkstate<1-N>
operation connects or disconnects virtual network cables from their
network interfaces.
nic<1-N>
null|nat|bridged|intnet|hostonly|generic: With this, you can
set, for each of the VM's virtual network cards, what type of
networking should be available. They can be not connected to the host
(null), use network address
translation (nat), bridged networking
(bridged) or communicate with other
virtual machines using internal networking
(intnet) or host-only networking
(hostonly) or access to rarely used
sub-modes
(generic). These options correspond
to the modes which are described in detail in the section called “Introduction to networking modes”.
usbattach and
usbdettach make host USB devices
visible to the virtual machine on the fly, without the need for
creating filters first. The USB devices can be specified by UUID
(unique identifier) or by address on the host system.
You can use VBoxManage list
usbhost to locate this information.
vrde on|off lets you enable or
disable the VRDE server, if it is installed.
vrdeport default|<ports>
changes the port or a range of ports that the VRDE server can bind to;
"default" or "0" means port 3389, the standard port for RDP. For
details, see the description for the
--vrdeport option in the section called “Serial port, audio, clipboard, remote desktop and USB
settings”.
setvideomodehint requests that
the guest system change to a particular video mode. This requires that
the Guest Additions be installed, and will not work for all guest
systems.
screenshotpng takes a screenshot
of the guest display and saves it in PNG format.
The setcredentials operation is
used for remote logons in Windows guests. For details, please refer to
the section called “Automated guest logons”.
The guestmemoryballoon
operation changes the size of the guest memory balloon, that is,
memory allocated by the VirtualBox Guest Additions from the guest
operating system and returned to the hypervisor for re-use by other
virtual machines. This must be specified in megabytes. For details,
see the section called “Memory ballooning”.
The cpuexecutioncap
<1-100>: This operation controls how much cpu
time a virtual CPU can use. A value of 50 implies a single virtual CPU
can use up to 50% of a single host CPU.
This command discards the saved state of a virtual machine which is not currently running, which will cause its operating system to restart next time you start it. This is the equivalent of pulling out the power cable on a physical machine, and should be avoided if possible.
If you have a saved state file (.sav)
that is seperate from the VM configuration, you can use this command to
"adopt" the file. This will change the VM to saved state and when you
start it, VirtualBox will attempt to restore it from the saved state file
you indicated. This command should only be used in special setups.
This command is used to control snapshots from the command line. A snapshot consists of a complete copy of the virtual machine settings, copied at the time when the snapshot was taken, and optionally a virtual machine saved state file if the snapshot was taken while the machine was running. After a snapshot has been taken, VirtualBox creates differencing hard disk for each normal hard disk associated with the machine so that when a snapshot is restored, the contents of the virtual machine's virtual hard disks can be quickly reset by simply dropping the pre-existing differencing files.
The take operation takes a snapshot
of the current state of the virtual machine. You must supply a name for
the snapshot and can optionally supply a description. The new snapshot is
inserted into the snapshots tree as a child of the current snapshot and
then becomes the new current snapshot.
The delete operation deletes a
snapshot (specified by name or by UUID). This can take a while to finish
since the differencing images associated with the snapshot might need to
be merged with their child differencing images.
The restore operation will restore
the given snapshot (specified by name or by UUID) by resetting the virtual
machine's settings and current state to that of the snapshot. The previous
current state of the machine will be lost. After this, the given snapshot
becomes the new "current" snapshot so that subsequent snapshots are
inserted under the snapshot from which was restored.
The restorecurrent operation is a
shortcut to restore the current snapshot (i.e. the snapshot from which the
current state is derived). This subcommand is equivalent to using the
"restore" subcommand with the name or UUID of the current snapshot, except
that it avoids the extra step of determining that name or UUID.
With the edit operation, you can
change the name or description of an existing snapshot.
With the showvminfo operation, you
can view the virtual machine settings that were stored with an existing
snapshot.
This commands removes a hard disk, DVD or floppy image from a VirtualBox media registry.[36]
Optionally, you can request that the image be deleted. You will get appropriate diagnostics that the deletion failed, however the image will become unregistered in any case.
This command attaches/modifies/removes a storage medium connected to
a storage controller that was previously added with the
storagectl command (see the previous
section). The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage storageattach <uuid|vmname>
--storagectl <name>
[--port <number>]
[--device <number>]
[--type dvddrive|hdd|fdd]
[--medium none|emptydrive|
<uuid>|<filename>|host:<drive>|iscsi]
[--mtype normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable]
[--comment <text>]
[--setuuid <uuid>]
[--setparentuuid <uuid>]
[--passthrough on|off]
[--tempeject on|off]
[--nonrotational on|off]
[--discard on|off]
[--bandwidthgroup name|none]
[--forceunmount]
[--server <name>|<ip>]
[--target <target>]
[--tport <port>]
[--lun <lun>]
[--encodedlun <lun>]
[--username <username>]
[--password <password>]
[--initiator <initiator>]
[--intnet]
A number of parameters are commonly required; the ones at the end of the list are required only for iSCSI targets (see below).
The common parameters are:
The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.
Name of the storage controller. Mandatory. The list of the
storage controllers currently attached to a VM can be obtained
with VBoxManage showvminfo; see
the section called “VBoxManage showvminfo”.
The number of the storage controller's port which is to be modified. Mandatory, unless the storage controller has only a single port.
The number of the port's device which is to be modified. Mandatory, unless the storage controller has only a single device per port.
Define the type of the drive to which the medium is being
attached/detached/modified. This argument can only be omitted if
the type of medium can be determined from either the medium given
with the --medium argument or
from a previous medium attachment.
Specifies what is to be attached. The following values are supported:
"none": Any existing device should be removed from the given slot.
"emptydrive": For a virtual DVD or floppy drive only, this makes the device slot behaves like a removeable drive into which no media has been inserted.
"additions": For a virtual DVD drive only, this attaches the VirtualBox Guest Additions image to the given device slot.
If a UUID is specified, it must be the UUID of a storage medium that is already known to VirtualBox (e.g. because it has been attached to another virtual machine). See the section called “VBoxManage list” for how to list known media. This medium is then attached to the given device slot.
If a filename is specified, it must be the full path of an existing disk image (ISO, RAW, VDI, VMDK or other), which is then attached to the given device slot.
"host:<drive>": For a virtual DVD or floppy drive only, this connects the given device slot to the specified DVD or floppy drive on the host computer.
"iscsi": For virtual hard disks only, this allows for specifying an iSCSI target. In this case, more parameters must be given; see below.
Some of the above changes, in particular for removeable media (floppies and CDs/DVDs), can be effected while a VM is running. Others (device changes or changes in hard disk device slots) require the VM to be powered off.
Defines how this medium behaves with respect to snapshots and write operations. See the section called “Special image write modes” for details.
Any description that you want to have stored with this medium (optional; for example, for an iSCSI target, "Big storage server downstairs"). This is purely descriptive and not needed for the medium to function correctly.
Modifies the UUID or parent UUID of a medium before
attaching it to a VM. This is an expert option. Inappropriate use
can make the medium unusable or lead to broken VM configurations
if any other VM is referring to the same media already. The most
frequently used variant is --setuuid "", which assigns
a new (random) UUID to an image. This is useful to resolve the
duplicate UUID errors if one duplicated an image using file copy
utilities.
For a virtual DVD drive only, you can enable DVD writing support (currently experimental; see the section called “CD/DVD support”).
For a virtual DVD drive only, you can configure the behavior for guest-triggered medium eject. If this is set to "on", the eject has only temporary effects. If the VM is powered off and restarted the originally configured medium will be still in the drive.
This switch allows to enable the non-rotational flag for virtual hard disks. Some guests (i.e. Windows 7+) treat such disks like SSDs and don't perform disk fragmentation on such media.
Sets the bandwidth group to use for the given device; see the section called “Limiting bandwidth for disk images”.
For a virtual DVD or floppy drive only, this forcibly unmounts the DVD/CD/Floppy or mounts a new DVD/CD/Floppy even if the previous one is locked down by the guest for reading. Again, see the section called “CD/DVD support” for details.
When "iscsi" is used with the
--medium parameter for iSCSI support --
see the section called “iSCSI servers” --, additional parameters must or can
be used:
The host name or IP address of the iSCSI target; required.
Target name string. This is determined by the iSCSI target and used to identify the storage resource; required.
TCP/IP port number of the iSCSI service on the target (optional).
Logical Unit Number of the target resource (optional). Often, this value is zero.
Username and password (initiator secret) for target authentication, if required (optional).
Username and password are stored without encryption (i.e. in clear text) in the XML machine configuration file if no settings password is provided. When a settings password was specified the first time, the password is stored encrypted.
If specified, connect to the iSCSI target via Internal Networking. This needs further configuration which is described in the section called “Access iSCSI targets via Internal Networking”.
This command attaches/modifies/removes a storage controller. After
this, virtual media can be attached to the controller with the
storageattach command (see the next
section).
The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage storagectl <uuid|vmname>
--name <name>
[--add <ide/sata/scsi/floppy>]
[--controller <LsiLogic|LSILogicSAS|BusLogic|
IntelAhci|PIIX3|PIIX4|ICH6|I82078>]
[--sataportcount <1-30>]
[--hostiocache on|off]
[--bootable on|off]
[--remove]where the parameters mean:
The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.
Name of the storage controller. Mandatory.
Define the type of the system bus to which the storage controller must be connected.
Allows to choose the type of chipset being emulated for the given storage controller.
This determines how many ports the SATA controller should support.
Configures the use of the host I/O cache for all disk images attached to this storage controller. For details, please see the section called “Host I/O caching”.
Selects whether this controller is bootable.
Removes the storage controller from the VM config.
This command creates/deletes/modifies/shows bandwidth groups of the given virtual machine:
VBoxManage bandwidthctl <uuid|vmname>
add <name> --type disk|network --limit <megabytes per second>[k|m|g|K|M|G] |
set <name> --limit <megabytes per second>[k|m|g|K|M|G] |
remove <name> |
list [--machinereadable]The following subcommands are available:
add, creates a new bandwidth
group of given type.
set, modifies the limit for an
existing bandwidth group.
remove, destroys a bandwidth
group.
list, shows all bandwidth groups
defined for the given VM.
The parameters mean:
The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.
Name of the bandwidth group. Mandatory.
Type of the bandwidth group. Mandatory. Two types are
supported: disk and
network. See
the section called “Limiting bandwidth for disk images” or
the section called “Limiting bandwidth for network I/O” for a description of a
particular type.
Specifies the limit for the given group. Can be changed
while the VM is running. The default unit is megabytes per
second. The unit can be changed by specifying one of the
following suffixes: k for kilobits/s, m for megabits/s, g for gigabits/s, K for kilobytes/s, M for megabytes/s, G for gigabytes/s.
The network bandwidth limits apply only to the traffic being sent by virtual machines. The traffic being received by VMs is unlimited.
To remove a bandwidth group it must not be referenced by any disks or adapters in running VM.
This command shows information about a virtual hard disk image, notably its size, its size on disk, its type and the virtual machines which use it.
For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the "showvdiinfo" command is also supported and mapped internally to the "showhdinfo" command.
The disk image must be specified either by its UUID (if the medium
is registered) or by its filename. Registered images can be listed by
VBoxManage list hdds (see the section called “VBoxManage list”
for more information). A filename must be specified as valid path, either
as an absolute path or as a relative path starting from the current
directory.
This command creates a new virtual hard disk image. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage createhd --filename <filename>
--size <megabytes>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: VDI)
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]where the parameters mean:
Allows to choose a file name. Mandatory.
Allows to define the image capacity, in 1 MiB units. Mandatory.
Allows to choose a file format for the output file different from the file format of the input file.
Allows to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will result in an error message.
For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the "createvdi" command is also supported and mapped internally to the "createhd" command.
With the modifyhd command, you can
change the characteristics of a disk image after it has been
created:
VBoxManage modifyhd <uuid>|<filename>
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable|
readonly|multiattach]
[--autoreset on|off]
[--compact]
[--resize <megabytes>|--resizebyte <bytes>]Despite the "hd" in the subcommand name, the command works with all disk images, not only hard disks. For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the "modifyvdi" command is also supported and mapped internally to the "modifyhd" command.
The disk image to modify must be specified either by its UUID
(if the medium is registered) or by its filename. Registered images
can be listed by VBoxManage list hdds
(see the section called “VBoxManage list” for more information).
A filename must be specified as valid path, either as an absolute path
or as a relative path starting from the current directory.
The following options are available:
With the --type argument, you
can change the type of an existing image between the normal,
immutable, write-through and other modes; see the section called “Special image write modes” for details.
For immutable (differencing) hard disks only, the
--autoreset on|off option
determines whether the disk is automatically reset on every VM
startup (again, see the section called “Special image write modes”). The default
is "on".
With the --compact option,
can be used to compact disk images, i.e. remove blocks that only
contains zeroes. This will shrink a dynamically allocated image
again; it will reduce the physical size of the
image without affecting the logical size of the virtual disk.
Compaction works both for base images and for diff images created as
part of a snapshot.
For this operation to be effective, it is required that free
space in the guest system first be zeroed out using a suitable
software tool. For Windows guests, you can use the
sdelete tool provided by Microsoft.
Execute sdelete -z in the guest to
zero the free disk space before compressing the virtual disk
image. For Linux, use the zerofree utility which
supports ext2/ext3 filesystems. For Mac OS X guests, use the
Erase Free Space feature of the built-in
Disk Utility. Use
Zero Out Data there.
Please note that compacting is currently only available for VDI images. A similar effect can be achieved by zeroing out free blocks and then cloning the disk to any other dynamically allocated format. You can use this workaround until compacting is also supported for disk formats other than VDI.
The --resize x option (where x
is the desired new total space in megabytes)
allows you to change the capacity of an existing image; this adjusts the
logical size of a virtual disk without affecting
the physical size much.[37] This currently works only for VDI and VHD formats, and only
for the dynamically allocated variants, and can only be used to expand
(not shrink) the capacity.
For example, if you originally created a 10G disk which is now full,
you can use the --resize 15360
command to change the capacity to 15G (15,360MB) without having to create a new
image and copy all data from within a virtual machine. Note however that
this only changes the drive capacity; you will typically next need to use
a partition management tool inside the guest to adjust the main partition
to fill the drive.
The --resizebyte x
option does almost the same thing, except that x is expressed in bytes
instead of megabytes.
This command duplicates a registered virtual hard disk image to a new image file with a new unique identifier (UUID). The new image can be transferred to another host system or imported into VirtualBox again using the Virtual Media Manager; see the section called “The Virtual Media Manager” and the section called “Cloning disk images”. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage clonehd <uuid>|<filename> <outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|<other>]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--existing]The disk image to clone as well as the target image must be described
either by its UUIDs (if the mediums are registered) or by its filename.
Registered images can be listed by VBoxManage list hdds
(see the section called “VBoxManage list” for more information).
A filename must be specified as valid path, either as an absolute path or
as a relative path starting from the current directory.
The following options are available:
Allow to choose a file format for the output file different from the file format of the input file.
Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will result in an error message.
Perform the clone operation to an already existing destination medium. Only the portion of the source medium which fits into the destination medium is copied. This means if the destination medium is smaller than the source only a part of it is copied, and if the destination medium is larger than the source the remaining part of the destination medium is unchanged.
For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the "clonevdi" command is also supported and mapped internally to the "clonehd" command.
This command converts a raw disk image to a VirtualBox Disk Image (VDI) file. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage convertfromraw <filename> <outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--uuid <uuid>]
VBoxManage convertfromraw stdin <outputfile> <bytes>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--uuid <uuid>]where the parameters mean:
The size of the image file, in bytes, provided through stdin.
Select the disk image format to create. Default is VDI.
Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file. It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will result in an error message.
Allow to specifiy the UUID of the output file.
The second form forces VBoxManage to read the content for the disk image from standard input (useful for using that command in a pipe).
For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the "convertdd" command is also supported and mapped internally to the "convertfromraw" command.
These commands let you attach and retrieve string data to a virtual
machine or to a VirtualBox configuration (by specifying
global instead of a virtual machine
name). You must specify a key (as a text string) to associate the data
with, which you can later use to retrieve it. For example:
VBoxManage setextradata Fedora5 installdate 2006.01.01 VBoxManage setextradata SUSE10 installdate 2006.02.02
would associate the string "2006.01.01" with the key installdate for the virtual machine Fedora5, and "2006.02.02" on the machine SUSE10. You could retrieve the information as follows:
VBoxManage getextradata Fedora5 installdate
which would return
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 4.2.12 (C) 2005-2013 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. Value: 2006.01.01
To remove a key, the setextradata
command must be run without specifying data (only the key), for example:
VBoxManage setextradata Fedora5 installdate
This command is used to change global settings which affect the entire VirtualBox installation. Some of these correspond to the settings in the "Global settings" dialog in the graphical user interface. The following properties are available:
This specifies the default folder in which virtual machine definitions are kept; see the section called “Where VirtualBox stores its files” for details.
This specifies which library to use when "external" authentication has been selected for a particular virtual machine; see the section called “RDP authentication” for details.
This specifies which library the web service uses to authenticate users. For details about the VirtualBox web service, please refer to the separate VirtualBox SDK reference (see Chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces).
This specifies which library implements the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension.
This selects whether or not hardware virtualization support is enabled by default.
The usbfilter commands are used for
working with USB filters in virtual machines, or global filters which
affect the whole VirtualBox setup. Global filters are applied before
machine-specific filters, and may be used to prevent devices from being
captured by any virtual machine. Global filters are always applied in a
particular order, and only the first filter which fits a device is
applied. So for example, if the first global filter says to hold (make
available) a particular Kingston memory stick device and the second to
ignore all Kingston devices, that memory stick will be available to any
machine with an appropriate filter, but no other Kingston device
will.
When creating a USB filter using usbfilter
add, you must supply three or four mandatory parameters.
The index specifies the position in the list at which the filter should be
placed. If there is already a filter at that position, then it and the
following ones will be shifted back one place. Otherwise the new filter
will be added onto the end of the list. The
target parameter selects the virtual
machine that the filter should be attached to or use "global" to apply it
to all virtual machines. name is a name
for the new filter and for global filters,
action says whether to allow machines
access to devices that fit the filter description ("hold") or not to give
them access ("ignore"). In addition, you should specify parameters to
filter by. You can find the parameters for devices attached to your system
using VBoxManage list usbhost. Finally,
you can specify whether the filter should be active, and for local
filters, whether they are for local devices, remote (over an RDP
connection) or either.
When you modify a USB filter using usbfilter
modify, you must specify the filter by index (see the
output of VBoxManage list usbfilters to
find global filter indexes and that of VBoxManage
showvminfo to find indexes for individual machines) and
by target, which is either a virtual machine or "global". The properties
which can be changed are the same as for usbfilter
add. To remove a filter, use usbfilter
remove and specify the index and the target.
This command allows you to share folders on the host computer with guest operating systems. For this, the guest systems must have a version of the VirtualBox Guest Additions installed which supports this functionality.
Shared folders are described in detail in the section called “Shared folders”.
The "guestproperty" commands allow you to get or set properties of a running virtual machine. Please see the section called “Guest properties” for an introduction. As explained there, guest properties are arbitrary key/value string pairs which can be written to and read from by either the guest or the host, so they can be used as a low-volume communication channel for strings, provided that a guest is running and has the Guest Additions installed. In addition, a number of values whose keys begin with "/VirtualBox/" are automatically set and maintained by the Guest Additions.
The following subcommands are available (where
<vm>, in each case, can either be a
VM name or a VM UUID, as with the other VBoxManage commands):
enumerate <vm> [--patterns
<pattern>]: This lists all the guest
properties that are available for the given VM, including the value.
This list will be very limited if the guest's service process cannot
be contacted, e.g. because the VM is not running or the Guest
Additions are not installed.
If --patterns <pattern>
is specified, it acts as a filter to only list properties that match
the given pattern. The pattern can contain the following wildcard
characters:
* (asterisk):
represents any number of characters; for example,
"/VirtualBox*" would match
all properties beginning with "/VirtualBox".
? (question mark):
represents a single arbitrary character; for example,
"fo?" would match both "foo"
and "for".
| (pipe symbol): can be
used to specify multiple alternative patterns; for example,
"s*|t*" would match anything
starting with either "s" or "t".
get <vm>: This
retrieves the value of a single property only. If the property
cannot be found (e.g. because the guest is not running), this will
print
No value set!
set <vm> <property> [<value>
[--flags <flags>]]: This allows you to set a
guest property by specifying the key and value. If
<value> is omitted, the
property is deleted. With --flags
you can optionally specify additional behavior (you can combine
several by separating them with commas):
TRANSIENT: the value
will not be stored with the VM data when the VM exits;
TRANSRESET: the value
will be deleted as soon as the VM restarts and/or exits;
RDONLYGUEST: the value
can only be changed by the host, but the guest can only read
it;
RDONLYHOST: reversely,
the value can only be changed by the guest, but the host can
only read it;
READONLY: a combination
of the two, the value cannot be changed at all.
wait <vm> <pattern> --timeout
<timeout>: This waits for a particular value
described by "pattern" to change or to be deleted or created. The
pattern rules are the same as for the "enumerate" subcommand
above.
The "guestcontrol" commands allow you to control certain things inside a guest from the host. Please see the section called “Guest control” for an introduction.
Generally, the syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage guestcontrol <command>
The following subcommands are available (where
<vm>, in each case, can either be a
VM name or a VM UUID, as with the other VBoxManage commands):
execute, which allows for
executing a program/script (process) which already is installed and
runnable on the guest. This command only works while a VM is up and
running and has the following syntax:
VBoxManage guestcontrol <vmname>|<uuid> exec[ute]
--image <path to program> --username <name>
[--passwordfile <file> | --password <password>]
[--environment "<NAME>=<VALUE> [<NAME>=<VALUE>]"]
[--verbose] [--timeout <msec>]
[--wait-exit] [--wait-stdout] [--wait-stderr]
[--dos2unix] [--unix2dos]
-- [[<argument1>] ... [<argumentN>]]where the parameters mean:
The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
Absolute path and process name of process to execute
in the guest, e.g.
C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe
Name of the user the process should run under. This user must exist on the guest OS.
Password of the user account specified to be read from the given file. If not given, an empty password is assumed.
Password of the user account specified with
--username. If not given,
an empty password is assumed.
One or more environment variables to be set or unset.
By default, the new process in the guest will be
created with the standard environment of the guest OS. This
option allows for modifying that environment. To set/modify
a variable, a pair of
NAME=VALUE must be
specified; to unset a certain variable, the name with no
value must set, e.g.
NAME=.
Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in
quotation marks. More than one
--environment at a time can
be specified to keep the command line tidy.
Value (in milliseconds) that specifies the time how long the started process is allowed to run and how long VBoxManage waits for getting output from that process. If no timeout is specified, VBoxManage will wait forever until the started process ends or an error occured.
Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.
Waits until the process ends and outputs its exit code along with the exit reason/flags.
Waits until the process ends and outputs its exit code along with the exit reason/flags. While waiting VBoxManage retrieves the process output collected from stdout.
Waits until the process ends and outputs its exit code along with the exit reason/flags. While waiting VBoxManage retrieves the process output collected from stderr.
One or more arguments to pass to the process being executed.
Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in quotation marks.
On Windows there are certain limitations for graphical applications; please see Chapter 14, Known limitations for more information.
Examples:
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol "My VM" execute --image "/bin/ls"
--username foo --passwordfile bar.txt --wait-exit --wait-stdout -- -l /usr
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol "My VM" execute --image "c:\\windows\\system32\\ipconfig.exe"
--username foo --passwordfile bar.txt --wait-exit --wait-stdoutNote that the double backslashes in the second example are only required on Unix hosts.
For certain commands a user name of an existing user account on the guest must be specified; anonymous executions are not supported for security reasons. A user account password, however, is optional and depends on the guest's OS security policy or rules. If no password is specified for a given user name, an empty password will be used. On certain OSes like Windows the security policy may needs to be adjusted in order to allow user accounts with an empty password set. Also, global domain rules might apply and therefore cannot be changed.
Starting at VirtualBox 4.1.2 guest process execution by default is limited to serve up to 5 guest processes at a time. If a new guest process gets started which would exceed this limit, the oldest not running guest process will be discarded in order to be able to run that new process. Also, retrieving output from this old guest process will not be possible anymore then. If all 5 guest processes are still active and running, starting a new guest process will result in an appropriate error message.
To raise or lower the guest process execution limit, either the guest
property /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/VBoxService/--control-procs-max-kept
or VBoxService' command line by specifying --control-procs-max-kept
needs to be modified. A restart of the guest OS is required afterwards. To serve unlimited
guest processes, a value of 0 needs to be set (not recommended).
copyto, which allows copying
files from the host to the guest (only with installed Guest
Additions 4.0 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <vmname>|<uuid> copyto|cp
<guest source> <host dest> --username <name>
[--passwordfile <file> | --password <password>]
[--dryrun] [--follow] [--recursive] [--verbose]where the parameters mean:
The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
Absolute path of source file(s) on host to copy over
to the guest, e.g.
C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe.
This also can be a wildcard expression, e.g.
C:\Windows\System32\*.dll
Absolute destination path on the guest, e.g.
C:\Temp
Name of the user the copy process should run under. This user must exist on the guest OS.
Password of the user account specified to be read from the given file. If not given, an empty password is assumed.
Password of the user account specified with
--username. If not given,
an empty password is assumed.
Tells VBoxManage to only perform a dry run instead of really copying files to the guest.
Enables following symlinks on the host's source.
Recursively copies files/directories of the specified source.
Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.
Additional flags to set. This is not used at the moment.
copyfrom, which allows copying
files from the guest to the host (only with installed Guest
Additions 4.0 and later). It has the same parameters as
copyto above.
createdirectory, which allows
copying files from the host to the guest (only with installed Guest
Additions 4.0 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <vmname>|<uuid> createdir[ectory]|mkdir|md
<guest directory>... --username <name>
[--passwordfile <file> | --password <password>]
[--parents] [--mode <mode>] [--verbose]where the parameters mean:
The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
Absolute path of directory/directories to create on
guest, e.g. D:\Foo\Bar.
Parent directories need to exist (e.g. in this example
D:\Foo) when switch
--parents is omitted. The
specified user must have appropriate rights to create the
specified directory.
Name of the user the copy process should run under. This user must exist on the guest OS.
Password of the user account specified to be read from the given file. If not given, an empty password is assumed.
Password of the user account specified with
--username. If not given,
an empty password is assumed.
Also creates not yet existing parent directories of
the specified directory, e.g. if the directory
D:\Foo of
D:\Foo\Bar does not exist
yet it will be created. Without specifying
--parent the action would
have failed.
Sets the permission mode of the specified directory.
Only octal modes (e.g.
0755) are supported right
now.
Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.
stat, which displays file
or file system status on the guest.
VBoxManage guestcontrol <vmname>|<uuid> stat
<file>... --username <name>
[--passwordfile <file> | --password <password>]
[--verbose]where the parameters mean:
The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
Absolute path of directory/directories to check on
guest, e.g. /home/foo/a.out.
The specified user must have appropriate rights to access
the given file element(s).
Name of the user the copy process should run under. This user must exist on the guest OS.
Password of the user account specified to be read from the given file. If not given, an empty password is assumed.
Password of the user account specified with
--username. If not given,
an empty password is assumed.
Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.
updateadditions, which allows
for updating an already installed Guest Additions version on the
guest (only already installed Guest Additions 4.0 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <vmname>|<uuid> updateadditions
[--source "<guest additions .ISO file to use>"] [--verbose]
[--wait-start]where the parameters mean:
The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
Full path to an alternative VirtualBox Guest Additions .ISO file to use for the Guest Additions update.
Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.
Starts the regular updating process and waits until the actual Guest Additions update inside the guest was started. This can be necessary due to needed interaction with the guest OS during the installation phase.
When omitting this flag VBoxManage will wait for the whole Guest Additions update to complete.
The "debugvm" commands are for experts who want to tinker with the exact details of virtual machine execution. Like the VM debugger described in the section called “The built-in VM debugger”, these commands are only useful if you are very familiar with the details of the PC architecture and how to debug software.
The subcommands of "debugvm" all operate on a running virtual machine. The following are available:
With dumpguestcore --filename
<name>, you can create a system dump of the
running VM, which will be written into the given file. This file
will have the standard ELF core format (with custom sections); see
the section called “VM core format”.
This corresponds to the
writecore command in the debugger.
The info command is used to
display info items relating to the VMM, device emulations and
associated drivers. This command takes one or two arguments: the
name of the info item, optionally followed by a string containing
arguments specific to the info item.
The help info item provides a
listning of the available items and hints about any optional
arguments.
This corresponds to the info
command in the debugger.
The injectnmi command causes
a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) in the guest, which might be useful
for certain debugging scenarios. What happens exactly is dependent
on the guest operating system, but an NMI can crash the whole guest
operating system. Do not use unless you know what you're
doing.
The osdetect command makes the
VMM's debugger facility (re-)detection the guest operation
system.
This corresponds to the detect
command in the debugger.
The osinfo command is used to
display info about the operating system (OS) detected by the VMM's
debugger facility.
The getregisters command is
used to display CPU and device registers. The command takes a list
of registers, each having one of the following forms:
register-set.register-name.sub-fieldregister-set.register-namecpu-register-name.sub-fieldcpu-register-nameall
The all form will cause all
registers to be shown (no sub-fields). The registers names are
case-insensitive. When requesting a CPU register the register set
can be omitted, it will be selected using the value of the
--cpu option (defaulting to 0).
The setregisters command is
used to change CPU and device registers. The command takes a list
of register assignments, each having one of the following forms:
register-set.register-name.sub-field=valueregister-set.register-name=valuecpu-register-name.sub-field=valuecpu-register-name=value
The value format should be in the same style as what
getregisters displays, with the
exception that both octal and decimal can be used instead of
hexadecimal. The register naming and the default CPU register set
are handled the same way as with the
getregisters command.
The statistics command can be
used to display VMM statistics on the command line. The
--reset option will reset
statistics. The affected statistics can be filtered with the
--pattern option, which accepts
DOS/NT-style wildcards (? and
*).
This command supports monitoring the usage of system resources.
Resources are represented by various metrics associated with the host
system or a particular VM. For example, the host system has a
CPU/Load/User metric that shows the
percentage of time CPUs spend executing in user mode over a specific
sampling period.
Metric data is collected and retained internally; it may be
retrieved at any time with the VBoxManage metrics
query subcommand. The data is available as long as the
background VBoxSVC process is alive. That
process terminates shortly after all VMs and frontends have been
closed.
By default no metrics are collected at all. Metrics collection does
not start until VBoxManage metrics setup
is invoked with a proper sampling interval and the number of metrics to be
retained. The interval is measured in seconds. For example, to enable
collecting the host processor and memory usage metrics every second and
keeping the 5 most current samples, the following command can be
used:
VBoxManage metrics setup --period 1 --samples 5 host CPU/Load,RAM/Usage
Metric collection can only be enabled for started VMs. Collected
data and collection settings for a particular VM will disappear as soon as
it shuts down. Use VBoxManage metrics list
subcommand to see which metrics are currently available.
You can also use --list option with any
subcommand that modifies metric settings to find out which metrics were
affected.
Note that the VBoxManage metrics
setup subcommand discards all samples that may have been
previously collected for the specified set of objects and metrics.
To enable or disable metrics collection without discarding the data
VBoxManage metrics enable and
VBoxManage metrics disable subcommands
can be used. Note that these subcommands expect metrics, not submetrics,
like CPU/Load or RAM/Usage as parameters. In
other words enabling CPU/Load/User while disabling
CPU/Load/Kernel is not supported.
The host and VMs have different sets of associated metrics.
Available metrics can be listed with VBoxManage metrics
list subcommand.
A complete metric name may include an aggregate function. The name
has the following form:
Category/Metric[/SubMetric][:aggregate].
For example, RAM/Usage/Free:min stands
for the minimum amount of available memory over all retained data if
applied to the host object.
Subcommands may apply to all objects and metrics or can be limited
to one object or/and a list of metrics. If no objects or metrics are given
in the parameters, the subcommands will apply to all available metrics of
all objects. You may use an asterisk
("*") to explicitly specify that the
command should be applied to all objects or metrics. Use "host" as the
object name to limit the scope of the command to host-related metrics. To
limit the scope to a subset of metrics, use a metric list with names
separated by commas.
For example, to query metric data on the CPU time spent in user and kernel modes by the virtual machine named "test", you can use the following command:
VBoxManage metrics query test CPU/Load/User,CPU/Load/Kernel
The following list summarizes the available subcommands:
This subcommand shows the parameters of the currently existing metrics. Note that VM-specific metrics are only available when a particular VM is running.
This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples
of metric data and the number of samples retained internally. The
retained data is available for displaying with the
query subcommand. The --list
option shows which metrics have been modified as
the result of the command execution.
This subcommand "resumes" data collection after it has been
stopped with disable subcommand. Note that specifying
submetrics as parameters will not enable underlying metrics. Use
--list to find out if the command
did what was expected.
This subcommand "suspends" data collection without affecting
collection parameters or collected data. Note that specifying
submetrics as parameters will not disable underlying metrics. Use
--list to find out if the command
did what was expected.
This subcommand retrieves and displays the currently retained metric data.
The query subcommand does not remove or
"flush" retained data. If you query often enough you will see
how old samples are gradually being "phased out" by new
samples.
This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples
of metric data and the number of samples retained internally. The
collected data is displayed periodically until Ctrl-C is pressed
unless the --detach option is
specified. With the --detach
option, this subcommand operates the same way as setup
does. The --list option shows which
metrics match the specified filter.
With "hostonlyif" you can change the IP configuration of a host-only network interface. For a description of host-only networking, please refer to the section called “Host-only networking”. Each host-only interface is identified by a name and can either use the internal DHCP server or a manual IP configuration (both IP4 and IP6).
The "dhcpserver" commands allow you to control the DHCP server that is built into VirtualBox. You may find this useful when using internal or host-only networking. (Theoretically, you can enable it for a bridged network as well, but that will likely cause conflicts with other DHCP servers in your physical network.)
Use the following command line options:
If you use internal networking for a virtual network adapter
of a virtual machine, use VBoxManage dhcpserver add
--netname <network_name>, where
<network_name> is the same
network name you used with VBoxManage modifyvm
<vmname> --intnet<X>
<network_name>.
If you use host-only networking for a virtual network adapter
of a virtual machine, use VBoxManage dhcpserver add
--ifname <hostonly_if_name> instead, where
<hostonly_if_name> is the
same host-only interface name you used with
VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname>
--hostonlyadapter<X>
<hostonly_if_name>.
Alternatively, you can also use the --netname option as with
internal networks if you know the host-only network's name; you can
see the names with VBoxManage list
hostonlyifs (see the section called “VBoxManage list”
above).
The following additional parameters are required when first adding a DHCP server:
With --ip, specify the IP
address of the DHCP server itself.
With --netmask, specify the
netmask of the network.
With --lowerip and
--upperip, you can specify the
lowest and highest IP address, respectively, that the DHCP server
will hand out to clients.
Finally, you must specify --enable
or the DHCP server will be created in the disabled state, doing
nothing.
After this, VirtualBox will automatically start the DHCP server for given internal or host-only network as soon as the first virtual machine which uses that network is started.
Reversely, use VBoxManage dhcpserver
remove with the given --netname
<network_name> or --ifname
<hostonly_if_name> to remove the DHCP server again
for the given internal or host-only network.
To modify the settings of a DHCP server created earlier with
VBoxManage dhcpserver add, you can use
VBoxManage dhcpserver modify for a given
network or host-only interface name.
The "extpack" command allows you to add or remove VirtualBox extension packs, as described in the section called “Installing VirtualBox and extension packs”.
To add a new extension pack, use VBoxManage
extpack install <.vbox-extpack>. This command
will fail if an older version of the same extension pack is already
installed. The optional --replace
parameter can be used to uninstall the old package before the new
package is installed.
To remove a previously installed extension pack, use
VBoxManage extpack uninstall
<name>. You can use
VBoxManage list extpacks to show
the names of the extension packs which are currently installed;
please see the section called “VBoxManage list” also. The optional
--force parameter can be used to
override the refusal of an extension pack to be uninstalled.
The VBoxManage extpack
cleanup command can be used to remove temporary
files and directories that may have been left behind if a previous
install or uninstall command failed.
The following commands show examples how to list extension packs and remove one:
$ VBoxManage list extpacks Extension Packs: 1 Pack no. 0: Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack Version: 4.1.12 Revision: 77218 Edition: Description: USB 2.0 Host Controller, VirtualBox RDP, PXE ROM with E1000 support. VRDE Module: VBoxVRDP Usable: true Why unusable: $ VBoxManage extpack uninstall "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack" 0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100% Successfully uninstalled "Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack".
[35] For details, see the section called “VBoxManage createvm”.
[36] Before VirtualBox 4.0, it was necessary to call VBoxManage openmedium before a medium could be attached to a virtual machine; that call "registered" the medium with the global VirtualBox media registry. With VirtualBox 4.0 this is no longer necessary; media are added to media registries automatically. The "closemedium" call has been retained, however, to allow for explicitly removing a medium from a registry.
[37] Image resizing was added with VirtualBox 4.0.