Autostart VM's with VirtualBox 5.2.8 and Ubuntu 18.04

[antonto]

Hi All!
I faced up with trouble with autostart VM on Ubuntu 18.04 and look like I've got the solution:

VirtualBox installed from repos. Ver 5.2.8
Ubuntu 18.04 beta

First point: The method described in official VirtualBox manuals for run VM's at start is not working. I can't understand why, but looks like the Ubuntu deb-package does not include vboxautostart-service
Ok, I've wrote my own, as described here: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2326419
But it also has not worked properly. I've got the error at system start:
/etc/systemd/system/vboxauto.service:

мар 16 11:27:28 atx systemd[1]: Starting Autostart VirtualBox machines...
мар 16 11:27:28 atx systemd[1]: Started Autostart VirtualBox machines.
мар 16 11:27:28 atx root[1164]: WARNING: The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist.
мар 16 11:27:28 atx root[1164]:          Please install the virtualbox-dkms package and the appropriate
мар 16 11:27:28 atx root[1164]:          headers, most likely linux-headers-generic.
мар 16 11:27:28 atx root[1164]: 
мар 16 11:27:28 atx root[1164]:          You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.
мар 16 11:27:29 atx root[1164]: VBoxHeadless: Error -1908 in suplibOsInit!
мар 16 11:27:29 atx root[1164]: VBoxHeadless: Kernel driver not installed
мар 16 11:27:29 atx root[1164]: 
мар 16 11:27:29 atx root[1164]: VBoxHeadless: Tip! Make sure the kernel module is loaded. It may also help to reinstall VirtualBox.

If I run service manually it working fine:

sudo systemctl start vboxauto.service

Looks like I've tried to start VM before vboxdrv loaded. So I inspect the order of loaded services and found that virtualbox.service run towards the end of the list. So all, that we need is wait for virtualbox.service and then start the VM!
The correct service file here:

[Unit]
Description=Autostart VirtualBox machines
After=virtualbox.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes

ExecStart=/usr/bin/vbox.sh start
ExecStop=/usr/bin/vbox.sh stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

I'm use additional script /usr/bin/vbox.sh for graceful VM shutdown and other small hacks, but you can start and stop VM directly:

...
ExecStart=/usr/bin/VBoxHeadless --startvm "virtualserver"
ExecStop=/usr/bin/VBoxManage controlvm "virtualserver" poweroff
...

tip: You can see all running services, orders and timings with command systemd-analyze plot >temp.xml and then open tmp.xml with any web-browser.

vbox.sh:

vm="virtualserver"
# how long in seconds we will wait for gracefull shutdown before force poweroff
timeout=20

#logger "$0 running with [$*]..."

start() {
  # we place EXEC for hack. We need to hide VBoxHeadless PID from systemd. In the other case, in the stop() we must wait until VBoxHeadless exit, but we do not need it.
  exec VBoxHeadless --startvm "$vm" 2>&1 | logger & 
  exit $?
}

stop() {
  echo -n "Try to stop VM..."
  vboxmanage controlvm "$vm" acpipowerbutton
  #vboxmanage controlvm "$vm" savestate
  # next, we need to wait until VM is stopped
  for i in `seq 1 $timeout`;
  do
    if ! VBoxManage list runningvms | grep $vm >/dev/null; then
       echo "done!"
       #sleep 1      
       exit 0
    fi
    echo -n .
    sleep 1;
  done    
  echo "save state failed. Forced poweroff."
  vboxmanage controlvm "$vm" poweroff
  sleep 1 
  exit 0
}

status() {
  echo "Running machines:"
  vboxmanage list runningvms     
}

case $1 in
  start|stop|status) "$1" 
   ;;
  *) echo "Usage: $0 [sart|stop|status]"
     exit 1
   ;;
esac

[blazeag]

Mega-thank-you!