Hello listmates,
I am wondering if there is a set of scripts/utilities for automatically starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
Any help much appreciated.
Cheers,
Boris.
On 03/26/2015 10:40 PM, Bob Hepple wrote:
Boris Epstein <borepstein@...> writes: a set of scripts/utilities for automatically
starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
vagrant?
I'm unfamiliar with vagrant, but it's pretty easy to roll your own. email me off list if you'd like a copy of my Frankenstein scripts.
zep <zgreenfelder@...> writes:
vagrant?
I'm unfamiliar with vagrant, but it's pretty easy to roll your own. email me off list if you'd like a copy of my Frankenstein scripts.
I should have provided a link: https://www.vagrantup.com/
vagrant does rather more than just running VM's - automated creation of VM's, starting them up, tearing them down. One use case is disposable VM's typically for developers - spin up a fresh clean VM, pollute it with new code, test and diagnose, tear it down. Rinse, repeat.
Cheers
Bob
On 03/26/2015 07:33 PM, Boris Epstein wrote:
Hello listmates,
I am wondering if there is a set of scripts/utilities for automatically starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
Any help much appreciated.
Cheers,
Boris.
Hi Boris,
The command you want is "vboxmanage"
Usually I'll start a VM in the usual way (using the GUI), configure networking, and then shut it down.
Then, to start it headless (assuming the VM is named "mytestvm1"):
vboxmanage startvm mytestvm1 --type headless
Other commands that I find useful:
vboxmanage list vms (show all the VMs defined)
vboxmanage list runningvms (show the VMs that are running)
There's lots of other subcommands for changing configuration, etc. Typing just "vboxmanage" will show quite a bit of usage information. You can use "vboxmanage controlvm ..." to enable/disable RDP, for example.
-Greg
I am wondering if there is a set of scripts/utilities for automatically starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
You can also get access to a headless VM console via RDP with VRDE (VBox Remote Desktop Extension) available from VBox Extension Pack.
Awesome!
Thanks for your replies everybody.
I was looking more or less at the same options. Just was wondering if there was a ready-made set of scripts somewhere to set all of this in motion to save me a little time - but if not, I will just make one.
Cheers,
Boris.
On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 3:16 AM, Александр Кириллов nevis2us@infoline.su wrote:
I am wondering if there is a set of scripts/utilities for automatically
starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
You can also get access to a headless VM console via RDP with VRDE (VBox Remote Desktop Extension) available from VBox Extension Pack.
On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 6:32 AM, Boris Epstein borepstein@gmail.com wrote:
Awesome!
Thanks for your replies everybody.
I was looking more or less at the same options. Just was wondering if there was a ready-made set of scripts somewhere to set all of this in motion to save me a little time - but if not, I will just make one.
I think it depends on which stage you want automated.
o If you built a vm client and just want to fire it up as needed, the vbox command line should suffice. Just tell it to start headless. Remember you can later on connect to its console using rdesktop if you configured it.
o If you want to create the vm from scratch, you can create the vm itself using vboxmanage (a biased example is shown at http://unixwars.blogspot.com/2012/01/creating-virtualbox-vms-command-line.ht...). Then you could do the initial disk partitioning and installing using, say, kickstart.
o Another way to do the previous suggestion is to use packer. or JuJu. Or Vagrant. Of the 3, I myself have more experience with packer.
Cheers,
Boris.
On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 3:16 AM, Александр Кириллов nevis2us@infoline.su wrote:
I am wondering if there is a set of scripts/utilities for automatically
starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
You can also get access to a headless VM console via RDP with VRDE (VBox Remote Desktop Extension) available from VBox Extension Pack.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
I was looking more or less at the same options. Just was wondering if there was a ready-made set of scripts somewhere to set all of this in motion to save me a little time - but if not, I will just make one.
You can use vboxmanage modifyvm <VM name> --autostart-enabled on and enable vboxautostart-service. However I had to tweak the script to suspend VMs on system reboot/shutdown. Don't know if this works out of the box with newer VBox versions.
I use phpVirtualBox on my Centos 6 system. Works very well.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpvirtualbox/ - A web-based front-end to VirtualBox written in PHP
Cheers Mal
On 27/03/15 13:33, Boris Epstein wrote:
Hello listmates,
I am wondering if there is a set of scripts/utilities for automatically starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
Any help much appreciated.
Cheers,
Boris.
Thanks Malcolm!
I am looking at using this one too.
Boris.
On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 2:04 AM, Malcolm fragbaitmm@gmail.com wrote:
I use phpVirtualBox on my Centos 6 system. Works very well.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpvirtualbox/ - A web-based front-end to VirtualBox written in PHP
Cheers Mal
On 27/03/15 13:33, Boris Epstein wrote:
Hello listmates,
I am wondering if there is a set of scripts/utilities for automatically starting and running headless (no X11) VM's using VirtualBox omn a CentOS 6 server. VNC/RDP access to the VM's would be fine.
Any help much appreciated.
Cheers,
Boris.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
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Bob Hepple -
Boris Epstein -
Greg Bailey -
Malcolm -
Mauricio Tavares -
zep -
Александр Кириллов