[CentOS] headless VirtualBox on Centos

[Greg Bailey]

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