VBox as a service in Lucid

[doas777]

I have an ubuntu Desktop server that I run semi-headless and connect to remotely. upon it I have a Virtual box instance, running an ubuntu server edition server (rsyslogd server).
When I reboot I have to login to the box over freenx to start the log server (and to shut it down prior to shutdown).

I would like to run the logserver instance as a service, and I have investigated several init.d scripts to integrate it, but none of them have worked right for me. I notice that this topic has changed a great deal over the years.

Can anyone point me to an autostart tutorial/script for VBox VMs that is sure to work with lucid x64 hosts?

Thanks

[CharlesA]

Hi,

Have you checked my startup/shutdown script here?

I have it set to run a loop, but if you are starting just one VM, you can modify the script to do that instead.

[doas777]

Hi,

Have you checked my startup/shutdown script here?

I have it set to run a loop, but if you are starting just one VM, you can modify the script to do that instead.

Rock On! I'll give em a try!

[CharlesA]

Let me know if you run into any problems. I tested it on my Lucid box with VBox 4 without any problems, but nothing is perfect.

[doas777]

ok, almost there methinks.

on start the script exits with:

Host:/$ sudo service vmboot start
No Saved VMs to start!
Host:/$ sudo service vmboot status
No VMs Currently Running!

so I started going after the vboxmanage list calls:

Host:/$ vboxmanage list vms | sed -e 's/^".*".*{\(.*\)}/\1/'
b1f339e8-6351-45fb-9edd-5c8A84d346cf
Host:/$ v=`vboxmanage list vms | sed -e 's/^".*".*{\(.*\)}/\1/'`; vboxmanage showvminfo $v | grep saved
Host:/$ v=`vboxmanage list vms | sed -e 's/^".*".*{\(.*\)}/\1/'`; vboxmanage showvminfo $v
Name:            LogServer_Lucid32
Guest OS:        Ubuntu
UUID:            b1f339e8-6351-45fb-9edd-5c81b4d346cf
<snip />

I removed the grep and:

Host:/$ sudo service vmboot start
Waiting for VM "LogServer_Lucid32" to power on...
VM "LogServer_Lucid32" has been successfully started.

so is there any danger to this mod? it seems reasonable, but...

Thanks for your help Charles,
Franklin

[CharlesA]

Nah no danger. The script was designed to start any vm that was in a saved state, which is why it runs grep.

Were you trying to start a vm from a powered off state?

Also, how were you able to get it to run via service? I recall trying that and it not working.

[jizzner]

i cant seem to make it work please help me.. what vbox user am i looking for? iv tried several user but cant make it work.. please help

[JKyleOKC]

The user in these scripts should be the one that owns the VMs. The default installation of vbox puts the VM directories under $HOME of the user who's installing the package, which normally is your own home directory. In that case, VBOXUSER in the scripts should be set to your user name.

Hope this helps...

EDIT: I see that Charles runs his VMs under a different user name, but that may be a bit advanced for you if you're having problems getting the scripts to work. Use a search utility such as find or catfish to locate your *.vdi files, which will be in a subdirectory of some user's home directory. That user will be the one to use.

[CharlesA]

The user in these scripts should be the one that owns the VMs. The default installation of vbox puts the VM directories under $HOME of the user who's installing the package, which normally is your own home directory. In that case, VBOXUSER in the scripts should be set to your user name.

Hope this helps...

EDIT: I see that Charles runs his VMs under a different user name, but that may be a bit advanced for you if you're having problems getting the scripts to work. Use a search utility such as find or catfish to locate your *.vdi files, which will be in a subdirectory of some user's home directory. That user will be the one to use.

This pretty much covers it.

If there is only one user on the machine, the VMs would be run under that user's account.

[CharlesA]

You need to tell it to run as whatever user you have those VMs running as. I have mine running under vboxuser.