Table of Contents
As briefly mentioned in Section 1.17, “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,[37] like this:
$ VBoxManage createvm --name "SUSE 10.2" --register VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 5.2.18 (C) 2005-2018 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. Virtual machine 'SUSE 10.2' is created. UUID: c89fc351-8ec6-4f02-a048-57f4d25288e5 Settings file: '/home/username/.config/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 Section 8.5, “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 512
For details, see Section 8.8, “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 Section 8.19, “VBoxManage storagectl” and Section 8.18, “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 Section 8.12, “VBoxManage startvm” for details.
To pause or save a VM that is currently running or change
some of its settings, use VBoxManage
controlvm; see Section 8.13, “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
[@<response-file>] load arguments from the given response file (bourne style)
Commands:
list [--long|-l] [--sorted|-s] vms|runningvms|ostypes|hostdvds|hostfloppies|
intnets|bridgedifs|hostonlyifs|natnets|dhcpservers|
hostinfo|hostcpuids|hddbackends|hdds|dvds|floppies|
usbhost|usbfilters|systemproperties|extpacks|
groups|webcams|screenshotformats
showvminfo <uuid|vmname> [--details]
[--machinereadable]
showvminfo <uuid|vmname> --log <idx>
registervm <filename>
unregistervm <uuid|vmname> [--delete]
createvm --name <name>
[--groups <group>, ...]
[--ostype <ostype>]
[--register]
[--basefolder <path>]
[--uuid <uuid>]
modifyvm <uuid|vmname>
[--name <name>]
[--groups <group>, ...]
[--description <desc>]
[--ostype <ostype>]
[--iconfile <filename>]
[--memory <memorysize in MB>]
[--pagefusion on|off]
[--vram <vramsize in MB>]
[--acpi on|off]
[--pciattach 03:04.0]
[--pciattach 03:04.0@02:01.0]
[--pcidetach 03:04.0]
[--ioapic on|off]
[--hpet on|off]
[--triplefaultreset on|off]
[--apic on|off]
[--x2apic on|off]
[--paravirtprovider none|default|legacy|minimal|
hyperv|kvm]
[--paravirtdebug <key=value> [,<key=value> ...]]
[--hwvirtex on|off]
[--nestedpaging on|off]
[--largepages on|off]
[--vtxvpid on|off]
[--vtxux on|off]
[--pae on|off]
[--longmode on|off]
[--ibpb-on-vm-exit on|off]
[--ibpb-on-vm-entry on|off]
[--spec-ctrl on|off]
[--l1d-flush-on-sched on|off]
[--l1d-flush-on-vm-entry on|off]
[--cpu-profile "host|Intel 80[86|286|386]"]
[--cpuid-portability-level <0..3>
[--cpuid-set <leaf[:subleaf]> <eax> <ebx> <ecx> <edx>]
[--cpuid-remove <leaf[:subleaf]>]
[--cpuidremoveall]
[--hardwareuuid <uuid>]
[--cpus <number>]
[--cpuhotplug on|off]
[--plugcpu <id>]
[--unplugcpu <id>]
[--cpuexecutioncap <1-100>]
[--rtcuseutc on|off]
[--graphicscontroller none|vboxvga|vmsvga]
[--monitorcount <number>]
[--accelerate3d on|off]
[--accelerate2dvideo on|off]
[--firmware bios|efi|efi32|efi64]
[--chipset ich9|piix3]
[--bioslogofadein on|off]
[--bioslogofadeout on|off]
[--bioslogodisplaytime <msec>]
[--bioslogoimagepath <imagepath>]
[--biosbootmenu disabled|menuonly|messageandmenu]
[--biosapic disabled|apic|x2apic]
[--biossystemtimeoffset <msec>]
[--biospxedebug on|off]
[--boot<1-4> none|floppy|dvd|disk|net>]
[--nic<1-N> none|null|nat|bridged|intnet|hostonly|
generic|natnetwork]
[--nictype<1-N> Am79C970A|Am79C973|
82540EM|82543GC|82545EM|
virtio]
[--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>]
[--hostonlyadapter<1-N> none|<devicename>]
[--intnet<1-N> <network name>]
[--nat-network<1-N> <network name>]
[--nicgenericdrv<1-N> <driver>
[--natnet<1-N> <network>|default]
[--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|usbmultitouch]
[--keyboard ps2|usb
[--uart<1-N> off|<I/O base> <IRQ>]
[--uartmode<1-N> disconnected|
server <pipe>|
client <pipe>|
tcpserver <port>|
tcpclient <hostname:port>|
file <file>|
<devicename>]
[--lpt<1-N> off|<I/O base> <IRQ>]
[--lptmode<1-N> <devicename>]
[--guestmemoryballoon <balloonsize in MB>]
[--audio none|null|dsound|oss|alsa|pulse|
oss|pulse|coreaudio]
[--audioin on|off]
[--audioout on|off]
[--audiocontroller ac97|hda|sb16]
[--audiocodec stac9700|ad1980|stac9221|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]
[--usbxhci on|off]
[--usbrename <oldname> <newname>]
[--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]
[--usbcardreader on|off]
[--autostart-enabled on|off]
[--autostart-delay <seconds>]
[--videocap on|off]
[--videocapscreens all|<screen ID> [<screen ID> ...]]
[--videocapfile <filename>]
[--videocapres <width> <height>]
[--videocaprate <rate>]
[--videocapfps <fps>]
[--videocapmaxtime <ms>]
[--videocapmaxsize <MB>]
[--videocapopts <key=value> [,<key=value> ...]]
[--defaultfrontend default|<name>]
clonevm <uuid|vmname>
[--snapshot <uuid>|<name>]
[--mode machine|machineandchildren|all]
[--options link|keepallmacs|keepnatmacs|
keepdisknames]
[--name <name>]
[--groups <group>, ...]
[--basefolder <basefolder>]
[--uuid <uuid>]
[--register]
import <ovfname/ovaname>
[--dry-run|-n]
[--options keepallmacs|keepnatmacs|importtovdi]
[more options]
(run with -n to have options displayed
for a particular OVF)
export <machines> --output|-o <name>.<ovf/ova/tar.gz>
[--legacy09|--ovf09|--ovf10|--ovf20|--opc10]
[--manifest]
[--iso]
[--options manifest|iso|nomacs|nomacsbutnat]
[--vsys <number of virtual system>]
[--product <product name>]
[--producturl <product url>]
[--vendor <vendor name>]
[--vendorurl <vendor url>]
[--version <version info>]
[--description <description info>]
[--eula <license text>]
[--eulafile <filename>]
startvm <uuid|vmname>...
[--type gui|sdl|headless|separate]
[-E|--putenv <NAME>[=<VALUE>]]
controlvm <uuid|vmname>
pause|resume|reset|poweroff|savestate|
acpipowerbutton|acpisleepbutton|
keyboardputscancode <hex> [<hex> ...]|
keyboardputstring <string1> [<string2> ...]|
keyboardputfile <filename>|
setlinkstate<1-N> on|off |
nic<1-N> null|nat|bridged|intnet|hostonly|generic|
natnetwork [<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>
[--capturefile <filename>] |
usbdetach <uuid>|<address> |
audioin on|off |
audioout on|off |
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] |
videocap on|off |
videocapscreens all|none|<screen>,[<screen>...] |
videocapfile <file>
videocapres <width>x<height>
videocaprate <rate>
videocapfps <fps>
videocapmaxtime <ms>
videocapmaxsize <MB>
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>
webcam <attach [path [settings]]> | <detach [path]> | <list>
addencpassword <id>
<password file>|-
[--removeonsuspend <yes|no>]
removeencpassword <id>
removeallencpasswords
discardstate <uuid|vmname>
adoptstate <uuid|vmname> <state_file>
snapshot <uuid|vmname>
take <name> [--description <desc>] [--live]
[--uniquename Number,Timestamp,Space,Force] |
delete <uuid|snapname> |
restore <uuid|snapname> |
restorecurrent |
edit <uuid|snapname>|--current
[--name <name>]
[--description <desc>] |
list [--details|--machinereadable] |
showvminfo <uuid|snapname>
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]
[--hotpluggable on|off]
[--bandwidthgroup <name>]
[--forceunmount]
[--server <name>|<ip>]
[--target <target>]
[--tport <port>]
[--lun <lun>]
[--encodedlun <lun>]
[--username <username>]
[--password <password>]
[--passwordfile <file>]
[--initiator <initiator>]
[--intnet]
storagectl <uuid|vmname>
--name <name>
[--add ide|sata|scsi|floppy|sas|usb|pcie]
[--controller LSILogic|LSILogicSAS|BusLogic|
IntelAHCI|PIIX3|PIIX4|ICH6|I82078|
[ USB|NVMe]
[--portcount <1-n>]
[--hostiocache on|off]
[--bootable on|off]
[--rename <name>]
[--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)
showmediuminfo [disk|dvd|floppy] <uuid|filename>
createmedium [disk|dvd|floppy] --filename <filename>
[--size <megabytes>|--sizebyte <bytes>]
[--diffparent <uuid>|<filename>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: VDI)
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
modifymedium [disk|dvd|floppy] <uuid|filename>
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable|
readonly|multiattach]
[--autoreset on|off]
[--property <name=[value]>]
[--compact]
[--resize <megabytes>|--resizebyte <bytes>]
[--move <path]
[--description <description string>]
clonemedium [disk|dvd|floppy] <uuid|inputfile> <uuid|outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|<other>]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--existing]
mediumproperty [disk|dvd|floppy] set <uuid|filename>
<property> <value>
[disk|dvd|floppy] get <uuid|filename>
<property>
[disk|dvd|floppy] delete <uuid|filename>
<property>
encryptmedium <uuid|filename>
[--newpassword <file>|-]
[--oldpassword <file>|-]
[--cipher <cipher identifier>]
[--newpasswordid <password identifier>]
checkmediumpwd <uuid|filename>
<pwd file>|-
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|vmname>
<key>|enumerate
setextradata global|<uuid|vmname>
<key>
[<value>] (no value deletes key)
setproperty machinefolder default|<folder> |
hwvirtexclusive on|off |
vrdeauthlibrary default|<library> |
websrvauthlibrary default|null|<library> |
vrdeextpack null|<library> |
autostartdbpath null|<folder> |
loghistorycount <value>
defaultfrontend default|<name>
logginglevel <log setting>
usbfilter add <index,0-N>
--target <uuid|vmname>|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|vmname>|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|vmname>|global
sharedfolder add <uuid|vmname>
--name <name> --hostpath <hostpath>
[--transient] [--readonly] [--automount]
sharedfolder remove <uuid|vmname>
--name <name> [--transient]
guestproperty get <uuid|vmname>
<property> [--verbose]
guestproperty set <uuid|vmname>
<property> [<value> [--flags <flags>]]
guestproperty delete|unset <uuid|vmname>
<property>
guestproperty enumerate <uuid|vmname>
[--patterns <patterns>]
guestproperty wait <uuid|vmname> <patterns>
[--timeout <msec>] [--fail-on-timeout]
guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> [--verbose|-v] [--quiet|-q]
[--username <name>] [--domain <domain>]
[--passwordfile <file> | --password <password>]
run [common-options]
[--exe <path to executable>] [--timeout <msec>]
[-E|--putenv <NAME>[=<VALUE>]] [--unquoted-args]
[--ignore-operhaned-processes] [--profile]
[--no-wait-stdout|--wait-stdout]
[--no-wait-stderr|--wait-stderr]
[--dos2unix] [--unix2dos]
-- <program/arg0> [argument1] ... [argumentN]]
start [common-options]
[--exe <path to executable>] [--timeout <msec>]
[-E|--putenv <NAME>[=<VALUE>]] [--unquoted-args]
[--ignore-operhaned-processes] [--profile]
-- <program/arg0> [argument1] ... [argumentN]]
copyfrom [common-options]
[--dryrun] [--follow] [-R|--recursive]
<guest-src0> [guest-src1 [...]] <host-dst>
copyfrom [common-options]
[--dryrun] [--follow] [-R|--recursive]
[--target-directory <host-dst-dir>]
<guest-src0> [guest-src1 [...]]
copyto [common-options]
[--dryrun] [--follow] [-R|--recursive]
<host-src0> [host-src1 [...]] <guest-dst>
copyto [common-options]
[--dryrun] [--follow] [-R|--recursive]
[--target-directory <guest-dst>]
<host-src0> [host-src1 [...]]
mkdir|createdir[ectory] [common-options]
[--parents] [--mode <mode>]
<guest directory> [...]
rmdir|removedir[ectory] [common-options]
[-R|--recursive]
<guest directory> [...]
removefile|rm [common-options] [-f|--force]
<guest file> [...]
mv|move|ren[ame] [common-options]
<source> [source1 [...]] <dest>
mktemp|createtemp[orary] [common-options]
[--secure] [--mode <mode>] [--tmpdir <directory>]
<template>
stat [common-options]
<file> [...]
guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> [--verbose|-v] [--quiet|-q]
list <all|sessions|processes|files> [common-opts]
closeprocess [common-options]
< --session-id <ID>
| --session-name <name or pattern>
<PID1> [PID1 [...]]
closesession [common-options]
< --all | --session-id <ID>
| --session-name <name or pattern> >
updatega|updateguestadditions|updateadditions
[--source <guest additions .ISO>]
[--wait-start] [common-options]
[-- [<argument1>] ... [<argumentN>]]
watch [common-options]
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>]]
natnetwork add --netname <name>
--network <network>
[--enable|--disable]
[--dhcp on|off]
[--port-forward-4 <rule>]
[--loopback-4 <rule>]
[--ipv6 on|off]
[--port-forward-6 <rule>]
[--loopback-6 <rule>]
natnetwork remove --netname <name>
natnetwork modify --netname <name>
[--network <network>]
[--enable|--disable]
[--dhcp on|off]
[--port-forward-4 <rule>]
[--loopback-4 <rule>]
[--ipv6 on|off]
[--port-forward-6 <rule>]
[--loopback-6 <rule>]
natnetwork start --netname <name>
natnetwork stop --netname <name>
natnetwork list [<pattern>]
hostonlyif ipconfig <name>
[--dhcp |
--ip<ipv4> [--netmask<ipv4> (def: 255.255.255.0)] |
--ipv6<ipv6> [--netmasklengthv6<length> (def: 64)]]
create |
remove <name>
dhcpserver add|modify --netname <network_name> |
--ifname <hostonly_if_name>
[--ip <ip_address>
--netmask <network_mask>
--lowerip <lower_ip>
--upperip <upper_ip>]
[--enable | --disable]
dhcpserver remove --netname <network_name> |
--ifname <hostonly_if_name>
usbdevsource add <source name>
--backend <backend>
--address <address>
usbdevsource remove <source name>
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> dumpvmcore [--filename=name]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> info <item> [args...]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> injectnmi
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> log [[--release] | [--debug]] [group-settings...]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> logdest [[--release] | [--debug]] [destinations...]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> logflags [[--release] | [--debug]] [flags...]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> osdetect
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> osinfo
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> osdmesg [--lines=lines]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> getregisters [--cpu=id] [reg-set.reg-name...]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> setregisters [--cpu=id] [reg-set.reg-name=value...]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> show [[--human-readable] | [--sh-export] | [--sh-eval] | [--cmd-set]] [settings-item...]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> stack [--cpu=id]
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> statistics [--reset] [--descriptions] [--pattern=pattern]
VBoxManage extpack install [--replace] <tarball>
VBoxManage extpack uninstall [--force] <name>
VBoxManage extpack cleanup
VBoxManage unattended detect <--iso=install-iso> [--machine-readable]
VBoxManage unattended install <uuid|vmname> <--iso=install-iso> [--user=login] [--password=password] [--password-file=file] [--full-user-name=name] [--key=product-key] [--install-additions] [--no-install-additions] [--additions-iso=add-iso] [--install-txs] [--no-install-txs] [--validation-kit-iso=testing-iso] [--locale=ll_CC] [--country=CC] [--time-zone=tz] [--hostname=fqdn] [--package-selection-adjustment=keyword] [--dry-run] [--auxiliary-base-path=path] [--image-index=number] [--script-template=file] [--post-install-template=file] [--post-install-command=command] [--extra-install-kernel-parameters=params] [--language=lang] [--start-vm=session-type]
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.
-v|--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
Section 8.18, “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.
intnets displays information
about the internal networks.
bridgedifs,
hostonlyifs,
natnets and
dhcpservers, respectively, list
bridged network interfaces, host-only network interfaces,
NAT 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 Section 5.3, “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 Section 1.6, “Installing VirtualBox and extension packs” and Section 8.41, “VBoxManage extpack” for more information.
groups displays
details of the VM Groups; see Section 1.10, “Using VM groups”
for more information.
webcams displays a list of
webcams attached to the running VM. The output format is a list of
absolute paths or aliases that were used for attaching the webcams
to the VM using the 'webcam attach' command.
screenshotformats displays a
list of available screenshot formats.
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 that resembles the following example.
$ VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP"
VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 5.2.18
(C) 2005-2018 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.
Name: Windows XP
Guest OS: Other/Unknown
UUID: 1bf3464d-57c6-4d49-92a9-a5cc3816b7e7
Config file: /home/username/.config/VirtualBox/Machines/Windows XP/Windows XP.xml
Memory size: 512MB
VRAM size: 12MB
Number of CPUs: 2
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
...
Use the --machinereadable option
to produce the same output, but in machine readable format: property="value" on a
line by line basis, e.g.:
name="VBoxSDL --startvm OL7.2"
groups="/"
ostype="Oracle (64-bit)"
UUID="457af700-bc0a-4258-aa3c-13b03da171f2"
...
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 .config/VirtualBox/Machines folder
- this folder name may vary depending on the operating system and the
version of VirtualBox which you are using), 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.
If the --group <group>, ...
option is used, the machine will be assigned membership of the specified
VM groups in the list. Note that group ids always start with a
/ and can be nested. By default,
VMs are always assigned membership of the group
/.
If the --ostype <ostype>:
option is used, <ostype> specifies the guest operating system
to run in the VM. To learn about the available OS options,
run VBoxManage list ostypes .
If the --uuid <uuid>:
option is used, <uuid> specifies the VM uuid. This must be
unique within the namespace of the host, or that of the VM Group if
it is assigned to a VM group membership. By default, a unique uuid
within the appropriate namespace is automatically generated.
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 Section 8.13, “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.
--groups <group>, ...:
This changes the group membership of a VM. Groups always start with
a / and can be nested. By default
VMs are in group /.
--description <desc>:
This changes the VM's description, which is a way to record details
about the VM in a way which is meaningful for the user. The GUI
interprets HTML formatting, the command line allows arbitrary
strings potentially containing multiple lines.
--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.
--iconfile <filename>:
This specifies the absolute path on the host file system for the VirtualBox
icon to be displayed in the VM.
--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 Section 1.8, “Creating your first virtual machine” for
more information.
--pagefusion on|off:
Enables/disables (default) the Page Fusion feature.
The Page Fusion feature minimises memory duplication between VMs with similar
configurations running on the same host.
See Section 4.9.2, “Page Fusion” for details.
--vram <vramsize>:
This sets the amount of RAM that the virtual graphics card should
have. See Section 3.6, “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 Section 3.5.1, “"Motherboard" tab” for
details.
--pciattach <host PCI address [@ guest
PCI bus address]>: Attaches a specified PCI network
controller on the host to a PCI bus (can specify) on the guest.
See Section 9.6, “PCI passthrough” for details.
--pcidetach <host PCI address>:
Detaches a specified PCI network controller on the host from the attached
PCI bus on the guest. See Section 9.6, “PCI passthrough”
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
Section 3.5.2, “"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.
--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
Section 9.5, “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.
--pae on|off: This
enables/disables PAE. See Section 3.5.2, “"Processor" tab”.
--longmode on|off: This
enables/disables long mode. See Section 3.5.2, “"Processor" tab”.
--ibpb-on-vm-[enter|exit] on|off:
Enables flushing of the indirect branch prediction buffers on every VM enter
or exit respectively. This could be enabled by users overly worried about
possible spectre attacks by the VM. Please note that these options may have
sever impact on performance.
--spec-ctrl on|off: This setting
enables/disables exposing speculation control interfaces to the guest, provided
they are available on the host. Depending on the host CPU and workload, enabling
speculation control may significantly reduce performance.
--l1d-flush-on-sched on|off:
Enables flushing of the level 1 data cache on scheduling EMT for guest execution.
See Section 13.4.1, “CVE-2018-3646”.
--l1d-flush-on-vm-enter on|off:
Enables flushing of the level 1 data cache on VM enter.
See Section 13.4.1, “CVE-2018-3646”.
--cpu-profile <host|intel 80[86|286|386]>:
This enables specification of a profile for guest cpu emulation.
Specify either one based on the host system CPU (host), or one from
a number of older Intel Micro-architectures - 8086, 80286, 80386.
--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 Section 10.3, “Hardware vs. software virtualization”.
--triplefaultreset on|off:
This setting enables resetting of the guest instead of triggering a
Guru Meditation. Some guests raise a triple fault to reset the
CPU so sometimes this is desired behavior. Works only for non-SMP
guests.
--apic on|off:
This setting enables(default)/disables IO APIC. With
I/O APIC, operating systems can use more than 16 interrupt
requests (IRQs) thus avoiding IRQ sharing for improved
reliability. See Section 3.5.1, “"Motherboard" tab”.
--x2apic on|off:
This setting enables(default)/disables CPU x2APIC support.
CPU x2APIC support helps operating systems run more efficiently on high
core count configurations, and optimizes interrupt
distribution in virtualized environments. Disable when using host/guest
operating systems incompatible with x2APIC support.
--paravirtprovider
none|default|legacy|minimal|hyperv|kvm: This
setting specifies which paravirtualization interface to provide to
the guest operating system. Specifying
none explicitly turns off exposing
any paravirtualization interface. The option
default, will pick an appropriate
interface depending on the guest OS type while starting the VM.
This is the default option chosen while creating new VMs. The
legacy option is chosen for VMs
which were created with older VirtualBox versions and will pick a
paravirtualization interface while starting the VM with VirtualBox
5.0 and newer. The minimal provider
is mandatory for Mac OS X guests, while
kvm and
hyperv are recommended for Linux
and Windows guests respectively. These options are explained in
detail under Section 10.4, “Paravirtualization providers”.
--paravirtdebug <key=value>
[,<key=value> ...]: This setting specifies debugging
options specific to the paravirtualization provider
configured for this VM. Please refer to the provider specific
options under Section 9.32, “Paravirtualized debugging” for a list of supported
key-value pairs for each provider.
--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 Section 10.7, “Nested paging and VPIDs”
and Section 13.4.1, “CVE-2018-3646”.
--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 Section 10.3, “Hardware vs. software virtualization”.
--vtxux on|off: If
hardware virtualization is enabled, for Intel VT-x only, this
setting enables or disables the use of the unrestricted guest mode
feature for executing your guest.
--accelerate3d on|off:
If the Guest Additions are installed, this setting enables or
disables hardware 3D acceleration; see Section 4.5.1, “Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)”.
--accelerate2dvideo on|off:
If the Guest Additions are installed, this setting enables or
disables 2D video acceleration; see Section 4.5.2, “Hardware 2D video acceleration for Windows guests”.
--chipset piix3|ich9:
By default VirtualBox emulates an Intel PIIX3 chipset. Usually there
is no reason to change the default setting unless this is required to
relax some of its constraints; see Section 3.5.1, “"Motherboard" tab”.
You can influence the BIOS logo that is displayed when a virtual machine starts up with a number of settings. By 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 without color
space information (Windows 3.0 format). The image must not be
bigger than 640 x 480.
--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.
--biosapic
x2apic|apic|disabled: This specifies
the firmware APIC level to be used. Options are: x2apic, apic or
disabled (no apic or x2apic) respectively.
Note that if x2apic is specified and x2apic is unsupported by the VCPU, biosapic downgrades to apic, if supported - otherwise down to 'disabled'. Similarly, if apic is specified, and apic is unsupported a downgrade to 'disabled' results.
--biossystemtimeoffset <ms>:
This specifies a fixed time offset (milliseconds) of the guest relative to
the host time. If the offset is positive, the guest time runs ahead of the
host time.
--biospxedebug on|off:
This option enables additional debugging output when using the
Intel PXE boot ROM. The output will be written to the release log
file (Section 12.1.2, “Collecting debugging information”.
--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.
--rtcuseutc on|off: This
option lets the real-time clock (RTC) operate in UTC time. See
Section 3.5.1, “"Motherboard" tab”.
--graphicscontroller none|vboxvga|vmsvga: This
option specifies use of a graphics controller, and type chosen from vboxvga or vmsvga.
Section 3.5.1, “"Motherboard" tab”).
--snapshotfolder
default|<path>: This option specifies the folder in which
snapshots will be kept for a virtual machine.
--firmware bios|efi|efi32|efi64:
This option specifies which firmware to be used to boot the VM:
Available options are: BIOS, or one of the EFI options: efi, efi32 or efi64.
Use EFI options with care.
--guestmemoryballoon
<size> This option 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 Section 4.9.1, “Memory ballooning”.
--defaultfrontend
default|<name>: This option specifies
the default frontend to be used when starting this VM;
see Section 8.12, “VBoxManage startvm” for details.
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|natnetwork|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),
use the new network address translation engine
(natnetwork),
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 Section 6.2, “Introduction to networking modes”.
--nictype<1-N>
Am79C970A|Am79C973|82540EM|82543GC|82545EM|virtio:
This enables you to specify which networking hardware VirtualBox presents
to the guest for a specified VM virtual network card;
see Section 6.1, “Virtual networking hardware”.
--cableconnected<1-N>
on|off: This enables 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 e.g. 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> the absolute path of the file the trace should be
logged to.
--nicproperty<1-N>
<paramname>="paramvalue":
This option, in combination with "nicgenericdrv" allows you to
pass parameters to rarely-used network backends.
These parameters are backend engine-specific, and are different between UDP Tunnel and the VDE backend drivers. For examples, please see Section 6.8, “UDP Tunnel networking”.
--nicspeed<1-N> <kbps>:
If generic networking has been enabled for a particular virtual network
card (see the --nic option above - otherwise
this setting has no effect), this mode enables access to rarely used networking
sub-modes, such as VDE network or UDP Tunnel. This option specifies the
throughput rate in KBytes/sec.
--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.
--nicpromisc<1-N>
deny|allow-vms|allow-all:
This ernables you to specify how the promiscuous mode is handled for
the specified VM virtual network card.
This setting is only relevant for bridged networking.
deny (default setting) hides
any traffic not intended for this VM.
allow-vms hides all host
traffic from this VM but allows the VM to see traffic from/to other
VMs.
allow-all removes this
restriction completely.
--nicbandwidthgroup<1-N>
none|<name>: This removes/adds an assignment
of a bandwidth group from/to the specified virtual network interface.
Specifying none removes any current
bandwidth group assignment from the specified virtual network interface.
Specifying <name> adds an
assignment of a bandwidth group to the specified virtual network
interface.
For details, please see Section 6.10, “Limiting bandwidth for network I/O”.
--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 Section 6.5, “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 Section 6.7, “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 Section 6.6, “Internal networking”).
--nat-network<1-N> <network
name>: If the networking type is set to
natnetwork (not
nat) then this setting specifies
the name of the NAT network this adapter is connected to. Optional.
--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.
--macaddress<1-N>
auto|<mac>: With this option you can set
the MAC address of a particular network adapter on the VM. Normally, each
network adapter is assigned a random address by VirtualBox at
VM creation.
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.
--natnet<1-N>
<network>|default:
If the networking type is set to nat
(not natnetwork) then this
setting specifies the IP address range to be used for
this network. See Section 9.11, “Fine-tuning the VirtualBox NAT engine” for an
example.
--natpf<1-N>
[<name>],tcp|udp,[<hostip>],<hostport>,[<guestip>],
<guestport>: This setting defines a NAT
port-forwarding rule. See Section 6.3.1, “Configuring port forwarding with NAT”
for details.
--natpf<1-N> delete
<name>: This setting deletes a NAT
port-forwarding rule. See Section 6.3.1, “Configuring port forwarding with NAT”
for details.
--nattftpprefix<1-N>
<prefix>: This setting defines a prefix
for the built-in TFTP server, i.e. where the boot file is
located. See Section 6.3.2, “PXE booting with NAT” and Section 9.11.2, “Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network
interface” for details.
--nattftpfile<1-N>
<bootfile>: This setting defines the TFT
boot file. See Section 9.11.2, “Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network
interface” for
details.
--nattftpserver<1-N>
<tftpserver>: This setting defines the
TFTP server address to boot from. Please see Section 9.11.2, “Configuring the boot server (next server) of a NAT network
interface” for details.
--nattbindip<1-N>
<ip;>: VirtualBox's NAT engine normally routes
TCP/IP packets through the default interface assigned by the host's
TCP/IP stack. Use this setting to instruct the NAT engine to bind
to a specified IP address instead. Please see Section 9.11.3, “Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT” for details.
--natdnspassdomain<1-N>
on|off: This setting specifies whether the
built-in DHCP server passes the domain name for network name
resolution.
--natdnsproxy<1-N>
on|off: This setting makes the NAT engine proxy
all guest DNS requests to the host's DNS servers. Please see
Section 9.11.5, “Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode” for details.
--natdnshostresolver<1-N>
on|off: This setting makes the NAT engine use
the host's resolver mechanisms to handle DNS requests. Please
see Section 9.11.5, “Enabling DNS proxy in NAT mode” for detailsx).
--natsettings<1-N>
[<mtu>],[<socksnd>],[<sockrcv>],[<tcpsnd>],
[<tcprcv>]: This setting controls several
NAT settings. Please see Section 9.11.3, “Tuning TCP/IP buffers for NAT” for
details.
--nataliasmode<1-N>
default|[log],[proxyonly],[sameports]: This
setting 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 Section 9.11.7, “Configuring aliasing of the NAT engine” for details.
The following other hardware settings, such as serial port, audio,
clipboard, drag and drop, monitor and USB settings are available through
VBoxManage modifyvm:
--mouse <ps2|usb|usbtablet|usbmultitouch>:
Specifies the mode of the mouse to be used in the VM. Available options are: ps2, usb,
usbtablet, usbmultitouch.
--keyboard <ps2|usb>:
Specifies the mode of the keyboard to be used in the VM. Available options are: ps2, usb.
--uart<1-N> off|<I/O base>
<IRQ>: With this setting you can configure
virtual serial ports for the VM. See Section 3.10, “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 Section 3.10, “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.
tcpserver
<port>: This
tells VirtualBox to create a TCP socket on the host with TCP
<port> and
connect the virtual serial device to it. Note that UNIX-like
systems require ports over 1024 for normal users.
tcpclient
<hostname:port>: This operates just like
tcpserver ..., except that the
TCP socket is not created by VirtualBox,
but assumed to exist already.
file <file>:
This redirects the serial port output to a raw file <file>
specified by its absolute path on the host file system.
<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.
--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. For Windows hosts, use
a device name like lpt1 while on Linux
hosts you have to use a device name like /dev/lp0
--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. Optional. 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.
--audio none|null|dsound|oss|alsa|pulse|coreaudio:
With this setting, you can specify whether the VM should have audio support, and
– if so – which type. The list of supported audio types depends on the
host and can be determined with VBoxManage modifyvm.
--audiocontroller ac97|hda|sb16: With
this setting, you can specify the audio controller to be used with this
VM.
--audiocodec stac9700|ad1980|stac9221|sb16: With
this setting, you can specify the audio codec to be used with this VM.
--audioin on: With
this setting, you can specify whether capturing audio from the
host is enabled or disabled.
--audioout on: With
this setting, you can specify whether audio playback from the guest
is enabled or disabled.
--clipboard
disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|bidirectional:
With this setting, you can select if and how the guest or host
operating system's clipboard should be shared with the host or guest.
See Section 3.4, “General settings”. This requires that the Guest
Additions be installed in the virtual machine.
--draganddrop
disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|bidirectional:
With this setting, you can specify the current drag and drop mode
being used between the host and the virtual machine.
See Section 4.4, “Drag and Drop”. This requires that the Guest
Additions be installed in the virtual machine.
--monitorcount
<count>: This enables multi-monitor
support. See Section 3.6, “Display settings”.
--usb on|off: This setting
enables or disables the VM's virtual USB controller. See Section 3.11.1, “USB settings” for details.
--usbehci on|off: This
setting enables or disables the VM's virtual USB 2.0 controller.
See Section 3.11.1, “USB settings” for details.
--usbxhci on|off: This
setting enables or disables the VM's virtual USB 3.0 controller.
See Section 3.11.1, “USB settings” for details.
--usbrename
<oldname> <newname>: This
setting enables renaming of the VM's virtual USB controller from <oldname>
to <newname>.
The following settings for changing video recording parameters are
available through VBoxManage modifyvm.
--videocap on|off:
This option enables or disables recording a VM session into a WebM/VP8
file. If this option is enabled, recording will start when the VM
session is started.
--videocapscreens all|<screen ID>
[<screen ID> ...]: This option allows to specify which screens of
the VM are being recorded. Each screen is recorded into a separate file.
--videocapfile <filename>:
This option sets the filename VirtualBox uses to save the recorded content.
--videocapres <width>x<height>:
This option sets the resolution (in pixels) of the recorded video.
--videocaprate <rate>:
This option sets the bitrate in kilobits (kb) per second. Increasing this
value makes the video look better for the cost of an increased file size.
--videocapfps <fps>:
This option sets the maximum number of frames per second (FPS) to be
recorded. Frames with a higher frequency will be skipped. Reducing this
value increases the number of skipped frames and reduces the file size.
--videocapmaxtime <ms>:
This option sets the maximum time in milliseconds the video capturing
will be enabled since activation. The capturing stops when the defined
time interval has elapsed. If this value is zero the capturing is not
limited by time.
--videocapmaxsize <MB>:
This option limits the maximum size of the captured video file (in MB).
The capturing stops when the file size has reached the specified size. If
this value is zero the capturing will not be limited by file size.
--videocapopts <key=value>
[,<key=value> ...]:
This format can be used to specify additional video capturing options.
These options only are for advanced users and must be specified in a
comma-separated key=value format, e.g.
foo=bar,a=b.
The following keys and their corresponding values are available:
ac_enabled:
Enables audio recording when set to true,
otherwise set to false to disable.
This feature is considered being experimental.
The following settings that affect remote machine behavior are
available through VBoxManage
modifyvm:
--vrde on|off:
This enables or disables the VirtualBox remote desktop extension
(VRDE) server.
--vrdeproperty "TCP/Ports|Address=<value>"
sets the port number(s) and IP address on the VM that the VRDE server can bind to.
For TCP/Ports, <value> should be a 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 Section 8.8.5, “Remote machine settings”.
For TCP/Address, <value> should be the IP address of the host network
interface that the VRDE server will bind to. If specified, the server
will accept connections only on the specified host network interface.
For details, see the description for the
--vrdeaddress option in Section 8.8.5, “Remote machine settings”.
--vrdeproperty "VideoChannel/Enabled|Quality|DownscaleProtection=<value>"
sets the VRDP video redirection properties.
For VideoChannel/Enabled, <value> can be set to "1" switching the VRDP video channel on. For details, see Section 7.1.9, “VRDP video redirection”.
For VideoChannel/Quality, <value> should be set between 10 and 100% inclusive, representing a JPEG compression level on the VRDE server video channel. Lower values mean lower quality but higher compression. For details, see Section 7.1.9, “VRDP video redirection”.
For VideoChannel/DownscaleProtection, <value> can be set to "1" to enable the videochannel downscale protection feature. When enabled, if a video's size equals the shadow buffer size, then it is regarded as a full screen video, and is displayed; but if its size is between fullscreen and the downscale threshold - it is NOT displayed, as it could be an application window, which would be unreadable when downscaled. When the downscale protection feature is disabled, an attempt is always made to display videos.
--vrdeproperty "Client/DisableDisplay|DisableInput|DisableAudio|DisableUSB=1"
disables one of the VRDE server features: Display, Input, Audio or USB respectively. To re-enable a feature, use e.g. "Client/DisableDisplay=". For details, see Section 7.1.10, “VRDP customization”.
--vrdeproperty "Client/DisableClipboard|DisableUpstreamAudio=1"
disables one of the VRDE server features: Clipboard or UpstreamAudio respectively. To re-enable a feature, use e.g. "Client/DisableClipboard=". For details, see Section 7.1.10, “VRDP customization”.
--vrdeproperty "Client/DisableRDPDR=1"
disables the VRDE server feature: RDP device redirection for smart cards. To re-enable this feature, use "Client/DisableRDPR=".
--vrdeproperty "H3DRedirect/Enabled=1"
enables the VRDE server feature: 3D redirection. To re-disable this feature, use "H3DRedirect/Enabled=".
--vrdeproperty "Security/Method|ServerCertificate|ServerPrivateKey|CACertificate=<value>"
sets the desired security method/Path of server certificate, path of server private key, path of CA certificate, used for a connection.
--vrdeproperty "Security/Method=<value>"
sets the desired security method, which is used for a connection. Valid values are:
Negotiate - both Enhanced (TLS)
and Standard RDP Security connections are allowed. The security
method is negotiated with the client. This is the default setting.
RDP - only Standard RDP Security is accepted.
TLS - only Enhanced RDP Security is accepted.
The client must support TLS.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
--vrdeproperty "Security/ServerCertificate=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the server certificate.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
--vrdeproperty "Security/ServerPrivateKey=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the server private key.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
--vrdeproperty "Security/CACertificate=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the CA self signed certificate.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
--vrdeproperty "Audio/RateCorrectionMode|LogPath=<value>"
sets the Audio connection mode, or Path of the audio logfile.
--vrdeproperty "Audio/RateCorrectionMode=<value>"
where <value> is the desired rate correction mode, allowed values are:
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_VOID - no mode specified, use to unset any Audio mode already set.
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_RC - rate correction mode.
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_LPF - low pass filter mode.
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_CS - client sync mode to prevent under/overflow of the client queue.
--vrdeproperty "Audio/LogPath=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the Audio log file.
--vrdeextpack default|<name>:
Enables specification of the library for accessing the VM
remotely. The default is to use the RDP code which is part of the
Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack.
--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 the 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.
The setting can be used to specify whether the VRDP server should accept either IPv4, IPv6 or both connections:
only IPv4: --vrdeaddress "0.0.0.0"
only IPv6: --vrdeaddress "::"
both IPv6 and IPv4 (default): --vrdeaddress ""
--vrdeauthtype
null|external|guest: This enables you to indicate
use of authorization, and specify how authorization will be performed;
see Section 7.1.5, “RDP authentication” for details.
--vrdeauthlibrary
default|<name>: This specifies the
library used for RDP authentication, see Section 7.1.5, “RDP authentication” for details.
--vrdemulticon on|off: This
enables multiple connections to be made to the same VRDE server, if the
server supports this feature; see Section 7.1.7, “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 Section 7.1.9, “VRDP video redirection”.
--vrdevideochannelquality
<percent>: Specifies the image quality for video
redirection; see Section 7.1.9, “VRDP video redirection”.
With the following commands for VBoxManage
modifyvm you can configure a machine to be a target for
teleporting. See Section 7.2, “Teleporting” for an
introduction.
--teleporter on|off:
This setting enables/disables the teleporter feature whereby when the
machine is started, it waits to receieve a teleporting request from the
network instead of booting normally; teleporting requests are received on the
port and address specified using the following two parameters.
--teleporterport
<port>, --teleporteraddress
<address>: these settings must be used with
--teleporter and they specify the port and address the virtual machine should
listen to to receive a teleporting request sent 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 setting 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 setting 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 setting 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.
The following settings are only relevant for low-level VM debugging. Regular users will never need these settings.
--tracing-enabled on|off:
Enable the tracebuffer. This consumes some memory for the tracebuffer
and adds extra overhead.
--tracing-config <config-string>:
Enables tracing configuration. In particular, this defines which group of
tracepoints are enabled.
--tracing-allow-vm-access on|off:
Enables/disables(default) VM access to the tracebuffer.
The following setting defines access to a USB Card Reader by the guest environment. USB card readers are typically used for accessing data on memory cards such as CompactFlash (CF), Secure Digital (SD) or MultiMediaCard (MMC).
--usbcardreader on|off:
Enables/disables the USB card reader interface.
These settings configure the VM autostart feature, which automatically starts the VM at host system boot-up. Note that there are pre-requisites that need to be addressed before using this feature. See Section 9.24, “Starting virtual machines during system boot” for more details.
--autostart-enabled on|off:
Enables/disables VM autostart at host system boot-up, using specified user name.
--autostart-delay <seconds>:
Specifies a delay (seconds) following host system boot-up, before VM autostarts.
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 cloned from a snapshot. The next two
options enable specification of the handling of MAC addresses of
every virtual network card. 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 ones, otherwise they are
renamed.
--name <name>: Select a
new name for the new virtual machine. Default is "Original Name
Clone".
--groups <group>, ...
Enables the clone to be assigned membership of the specified
VM groups in the list. Note that group ids always start with a
/ and can be nested. By default,
clones are always assigned membership of the group
/.
--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 to register the new VM later, see
Section 8.6, “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 Section 1.15, “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.
Use of the --options link|keepallmacs|keepnatmacs|keepdisknames:
option enables 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 enable specification of 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 assigned the same names as the originals, otherwise they are
renamed.
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>")
2: End-user license agreement
(display with "--vsys 0 --eula show";
accept with "--vsys 0 --eula accept")
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 Section 1.15, “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,
--version and
--description 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. Other options are
--ovf09, --ovf10, --ovf20.
To specify options controlling the exact content of the appliance
file, you can use --options to request the
creation of a manifest file (encouraged, allows detection of corrupted
appliances on import), the additional export of DVD images, and the
exclusion of MAC addresses. You can specify a list of options, e.g.
--options manifest,nomacs. For details,
check the help output of VBoxManage export.
This command starts a virtual machine that is currently in the "Powered off" or "Saved" states.
The optional --type specifier
determines whether the machine will be started in a window or whether the
output should go through VBoxHeadless,
with VRDE enabled or not; see Section 7.1.2, “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 global or per-VM default value for the VM frontend type will be taken if the type is not explicitly specified. If none of these are set, the GUI variant will be started.
The following values are allowed:
guiStarts a VM showing a GUI window. This is the default.
headlessStarts a VM without a window for remote display only.
sdlStarts a VM with a minimal GUI and limited features.
separateStarts a VM with detachable UI (technically it is a headless VM with user interface in a separate process). This is an experimental feature as it lacks certain functionality at the moment (e.g. 3D acceleration will not work).
If you experience problems with starting virtual machines with particular frontends and there is no conclusive error information, consider starting virtual machines directly by running the respective front-end, as this can give additional error information.
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 Section 8.12, “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 Section 8.12, “VBoxManage startvm”.
VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
acpipowerbutton will send an ACPI shutdown signal to
the VM, as if the power button on a real computer had been pressed.
So long as the VM is running a fairly modern guest operating system
providing ACPI support, this should trigger a proper shutdown mechanism
from within the VM.
VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
keyboardputscancode <hex> [<hex>...]
Sends commands using keycodes to the VM. Keycodes are documented in the
public domain, e.g. http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/scancodes-1.html.
VBoxManage controlvm "VM name" 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 Section 7.2, “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 Section 8.8.6, “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|natnetwork[<devicename>]:
specifies the type of networking that should be made available on the specified VM
virtual network card.
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 natnetwork networking
(natnetwork) or access to rarely used
sub-modes
(generic).
These options correspond to the modes which are described in detail in Section 6.2, “Introduction to networking modes”.
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> the pathname of the file to which the trace should be
logged.
nicpromisc<1-N>
deny|allow-vms|allow-all:
This specifies how the promiscious mode is handled for the specified VM
virtual network card. This setting is only relevant for bridged networking.
deny (default setting) hides
any traffic not intended for this VM.
allow-vms hides all host
traffic from this VM but allows the VM to see traffic from/to other
VMs.
allow-all removes this
restriction completely.
nicproperty<1-N>
<paramname>="paramvalue":
This option, in combination with "nicgenericdrv" enables 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 Section 6.8, “UDP Tunnel networking”.
natpf<1-N>
[<name>],tcp|udp,[<hostip>],<hostport>,[<guestip>],
<guestport>: This option specifies a NAT
port-forwarding rule (please see Section 6.3.1, “Configuring port forwarding with NAT”
for details).
natpf<1-N> delete
<name>: This option deletes a NAT
port-forwarding rule (please see Section 6.3.1, “Configuring port forwarding with NAT”
for details).
The guestmemoryballoon<balloon size in MB>
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 Section 4.9.1, “Memory ballooning”.
usbattach<uuid|address> [--capturefile <filename>]
and usbdetach <uuid|address> [--capturefile <filename>]
make host USB devices visible/invisible 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. Use the --capturefile
option to specify the absolute path of a file for writing activity logging data.
You can use VBoxManage list
usbhost to locate this information.
audioin on: With
this setting, you can select whether capturing audio from the
host is enabled or disabled.
audioout on: With
this setting, you can select whether audio playback from the guest
is enabled or disabled.
clipboard
disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|bidirectional:
With this setting, you can select if and how the guest or host
operating system's clipboard should be shared with the host or guest;
see Section 3.4, “General settings”. This requires that the Guest
Additions be installed in the virtual machine.
draganddrop
disabled|hosttoguest|guesttohost|bidirectional:
With this setting, you can select the current drag and drop mode
being used between the host and the virtual machine;
see Section 4.4, “Drag and Drop”. This requires that the Guest
Additions be installed in the virtual machine.
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 Section 8.8.5, “Remote machine settings”.
vrdeproperty "TCP/Ports|Address=<value>"
sets the port number(s) and IP address on the VM to which the VRDE server can bind.
For TCP/Ports, <value> should be a port or a range of ports to which
the VRDE server can bind; "default" or "0" means port 3389, the standard port for RDP.
For details, see the description for the
--vrdeport option in Section 8.8.5, “Remote machine settings”.
For TCP/Address, <value> should be the IP address of the host network
interface that the VRDE server will bind to. If specified, the server
will accept connections only on the specified host network interface.
For details, see the description for the
--vrdeaddress option in Section 8.8.5, “Remote machine settings”.
vrdeproperty "VideoChannel/Enabled|Quality|DownscaleProtection=<value>"
sets the VRDP video redirection properties.
For VideoChannel/Enabled, <value> can be set to "1" switching the VRDP video channel on. For details, see Section 7.1.9, “VRDP video redirection”.
For VideoChannel/Quality, <value> should be set between 10 and 100% inclusive, representing a JPEG compression level on the VRDE server video channel. Lower values mean lower quality but higher compression. For details, see Section 7.1.9, “VRDP video redirection”.
For VideoChannel/DownscaleProtection, <value> can be set to "1" to enable the videochannel downscale protection feature. When enabled, if a video's size equals the shadow buffer size, then it is regarded as a full screen video, and is displayed; but if its size is between fullscreen and the downscale threshold - it is NOT displayed, as it could be an application window, which would be unreadable when downscaled. When the downscale protection feature is disabled, an attempt is always made to display videos.
vrdeproperty "Client/DisableDisplay|DisableInput|DisableAudio|DisableUSB=1"
disables one of the VRDE server features: Display, Input, Audio or USB respectively. To re-enable a feature, use e.g. "Client/DisableDisplay=". For details, see Section 7.1.10, “VRDP customization”.
vrdeproperty "Client/DisableClipboard|DisableUpstreamAudio=1"
disables one of the VRDE server features: Clipboard or UpstreamAudio respectively. To re-enable a feature, use e.g. "Client/DisableClipboard=". For details, see Section 7.1.10, “VRDP customization”.
vrdeproperty "Client/DisableRDPDR=1"
disables the VRDE server feature: RDP device redirection for smart cards. To re-enable this feature, use "Client/DisableRDPR=".
vrdeproperty "H3DRedirect/Enabled=1"
enables the VRDE server feature: 3D redirection. To re-disable this feature, use "H3DRedirect/Enabled=".
vrdeproperty "Security/Method|ServerCertificate|ServerPrivateKey|CACertificate=<value>"
sets the desired security method/Path of server certificate, path of server private key, path of CA certificate, used for a connection.
vrdeproperty "Security/Method=<value>"
sets the desired security method, which is used for a connection. Valid values are:
Negotiate - both Enhanced (TLS)
and Standard RDP Security connections are allowed. The security
method is negotiated with the client. This is the default setting.
RDP - only Standard RDP Security is accepted.
TLS - only Enhanced RDP Security is accepted.
The client must support TLS.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
vrdeproperty "Security/ServerCertificate=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the server certificate.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
vrdeproperty "Security/ServerPrivateKey=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the server private key.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
vrdeproperty "Security/CACertificate=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the CA self signed certificate.
For details, see Section 7.1.6, “RDP encryption”.
vrdeproperty "Audio/RateCorrectionMode|LogPath=<value>"
sets the Audio connection mode, or Path of the audio logfile.
vrdeproperty "Audio/RateCorrectionMode=<value>"
where <value> is the desired rate correction mode, allowed values are:
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_VOID - no mode specified, use to
unset any Audio mode already set.
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_RC - rate correction mode.
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_LPF - low pass filter mode.
VRDP_AUDIO_MODE_CS - client sync mode to prevent
under/overflow of the client queue.
vrdeproperty "Audio/LogPath=<value>"
where <value> is the absolute path of the Audio log file.
vrdevideochannelquality
<percent>: Sets the image quality for video
redirection; see Section 7.1.9, “VRDP video redirection”.
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.
videocap on|off enables or disables
recording a VM session into a WebM/VP8 file.
videocapscreens all|<screen ID>
[<screen ID> ...]] allows to specify which screens of
the VM are being recorded. This setting
cannot be changed while video capturing is enabled. Each screen is recorded
into a separate file.
videocapfile <file> sets the filename
VirtualBox uses to save the recorded content. This setting cannot be changed
while video capturing is enabled.
videocapres <width> <height>
sets the resolution (in pixels) of the recorded video. This setting cannot be
changed while video capturing is enabled.
videocaprate <rate> sets the
bitrate in kilobits (kb) per second. Increasing this value makes the video
look better for the cost of an increased file size. This setting cannot be
changed while video capturing is enabled.
videocapfps <fps> sets the
maximum number of frames per second (FPS) to be recorded. Frames with a
higher frequency will be skipped. Reducing this value increases the number
of skipped frames and reduces the file size. This setting cannot be changed
while video capturing is enabled.
videocapmaxtime <ms> sets
the maximum time in milliseconds the video capturing will be enabled
since activation.
The capturing stops when the defined time interval has elapsed. If this
value is zero the capturing is not limited by time. This setting cannot
be changed while video capturing is enabled.
videocapmaxsize <MB> limits
the maximum size of the captured video file (in MB). The capturing stops
when the file size has reached the specified size. If this value is zero
the capturing will not be limited by file size. This setting cannot be
changed while video capturing is enabled.
videocapopts <key=value>[,<key=value> ...]
can be used to specify additional video capturing options. These options
only are for advanced users and must be specified in a comma-separated
key=value format, e.g. foo=bar,a=b.
This setting cannot be changed while video capturing is enabled.
The setcredentials operation is
used for remote logons in Windows guests. For details, please refer to
Section 9.2, “Automated guest logons”.
teleport --host <name> --port <port>
can be used to configure a VM as a target for teleporting.
<name> specifies the virtual machine name. <port> specifies the port on the
virtual machine which should listen for teleporting requests from other
virtual machines. It can be any free TCP/IP port number (e.g. 6000);
See Section 7.2, “Teleporting” for an introduction.
--maxdowntime <msec>:
specifies the maximum downtime (milliseconds) for the
teleporting target VM. Optional.
--password
<password>:
indicates that the teleporting request will only succeed if the
source machine specifies the same password as the one given with
this command. Optional.
--passwordfile
<password file>:
indicates that the teleporting request will only succeed if the
source machine specifies the same password as the one specified
in the password file with the path specified with this command.
Use stdin to read the password
from stdin. Optional.
plugcpu|unplugcpu
<id>: If CPU hot-plugging is enabled, 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. CPU 0 can never be removed.
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.
webcam
attach <path|alias> [<key=value>[;<key=value>...]]: This operation
attaches a webcam to a running VM. Specify the absolute path of the
webcam on the host operating system, or use its alias (obtained by using the command: VBoxManage
list webcams).
Note that alias '.0' means default video input device on the host operating system, '.1', '.2', etc. mean first, second, etc. video input device. The device order is host-specific.
The optional settings parameter is a ';' delimited list of name/value pairs, enabling configuration of the emulated webcam device.
The following settings are supported:
MaxFramerate (default no maximum limit) - this specifies the highest rate (frames/sec) at which video frames are sent to the guest. Higher frame rates increase CPU load, so this setting can be useful when there is a need to reduce CPU load. Its default 'value' is 'no maximum limit', thus enabling the guest to use all frame rates supported by the host webcam.
MaxPayloadTransferSize (default 3060 bytes) - this specifies the maximum number of bytes the emulated webcam can send to the guest in one buffer. The default is used by some webcams. Higher values can slightly reduce CPU load, if the guest is able to use larger buffers. Note that higher MaxPayloadTransferSize values may be not supported by some guest operating systems.
webcam
detach <path|alias>: This operation
detaches a webcam from a running VM. Specify the absolute path of the
webcam on the host, or use its alias (obtained from webcam list below).
Note the points below relating to specific Host Operating Systems:
Windows hosts
When the webcam device is detached from the host, the emulated webcam device is automatically detached from the guest.
Mac OS X hosts
OS X version 10.7 or newer is required.
When the webcam device is detached from the host, the emulated webcam device remains attached to the guest and must be manually detached using the VBoxManage controlvm "VM name" webcam detach command.
Linux hosts
When the webcam is detached from the host, the emulated webcam device is automatically detached from the guest only if the webcam is streaming video. If the emulated webcam is inactive, it should be manually detached using the VBoxManage controlvm "VM name" webcam detach command.
webcam list: This operation
lists webcams attached to the running VM.
The output is a list of absolute paths or aliases that were used for attaching the webcams
to the VM using the 'webcam attach' command above.
addencpassword
<id> <password file>|- [--removeonsuspend <yes|no>]: This operation
supplies an encrypted VM specified by <id> with the encryption password to enable a headless start.
Either specify the absolute path of a password file on the host file system: <password file>, or
use a '-' to instruct VBoxManage to prompt the user for the encryption password.
--removeonsuspend <yes|no> specifies whether to remove/keep
the password from/in VM memory when the VM is suspended. If the VM has been suspended and the password has
been removed, the user needs to resupply the password before the VM can be resumed. This feature is useful
in cases where the user doesn't want the password to be stored in VM memory, and the VM is suspended by a
host suspend event.
Note: On VirtualBox versions 5.0 and later, data stored on hard disk images can be transparently encrypted for the guest. VirtualBox uses the AES algorithm in XTS mode and supports 128 or 256 bit data encryption keys (DEK). The DEK is stored encrypted in the medium properties, and is decrypted during VM startup by supplying the encryption password.
The "VBoxManage encryptmedium" operation is used to create a DEK encrypted medium. See Section 9.31.2, “Encrypting disk images”" for details. When starting an encrypted VM from a VirtualBox GUI app, the user will be prompted for the encryption password.
For a headless encrypted VM start, use:
VBoxManage startvm "vmname" --type headless
followed by:
VBoxManage "vmname" controlvm "vmname" addencpassword ...
to supply the encryption password required.
removeencpassword <id>: This operation
removes encryption password authorization for password <id> for all encrypted media
attached to the VM.
removeallencpasswords: This operation
removes encryption password authorization for all passwords for all
encrypted media attached to the VM.
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 separate 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.
VBoxManage snapshot <uuid|vmname>
take <name> [--description <desc>] [--live]
[--uniquename Number,Timestamp,Space,Force] |
delete <uuid|snapname> |
restore <uuid|snapname> |
restorecurrent |
edit <uuid|snapname>|--current
[--name <name>]
[--description <desc>] |
list [--details|--machinereadable]
showvminfo <uuid|snapname>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
--description parameter allows to
describe the snapshot. If --live
is specified, the VM will not be stopped during the snapshot creation
(live snapshotting).
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.
The list operation shows all
snapshots of a virtual machine.
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.[38]
VBoxManage closemedium [disk|dvd|floppy] <uuid|filename>
[--delete]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|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]
[--hotpluggable on|off]
[--bandwidthgroup name|none]
[--forceunmount]
[--server <name>|<ip>]
[--target <target>]
[--tport <port>]
[--lun <lun>]
[--encodedlun <lun>]
[--username <username>]
[--password <password>]
[--passwordfile <file>]
[--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:
uuid|vmnameThe VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.
--storagectlName of the storage controller. Mandatory. The list of the
storage controllers currently attached to a VM can be obtained
with VBoxManage showvminfo; see
Section 8.5, “VBoxManage showvminfo”.
--portThe number of the storage controller's port which is to be modified. Mandatory, unless the storage controller has only a single port.
--deviceThe number of the port's device which is to be modified. Mandatory, unless the storage controller has only a single device per port.
--typeDefine 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.
--mediumSpecifies 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 Section 8.4, “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.
--mtypeDefines how this medium behaves with respect to snapshots and write operations. See Section 5.4, “Special image write modes” for details.
--commentAny 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.
--setuuid, --setparentuuidModifies 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.
--passthroughFor a virtual DVD drive only, you can enable DVD writing support (currently experimental; see Section 5.9, “CD/DVD support”).
--tempejectFor 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.
--nonrotationalThis 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.
--discardThis switch enables the auto-discard feature for the virtual hard disks. This specifies that a VDI image will be shrunk in response to the trim command from the guest OS. The following requirements must be met:
The disk format must be VDI.
The size of the cleared area must be at least 1MB.
VirtualBox will only trim whole 1MB blocks. The VDIs themselves are organized into 1MB blocks, so this will only work if the space being TRIM-ed is at least a 1MB contiguous block at a 1MB boundary. On Windows, occasional defrag (with "defrag.exe /D"), or under Linux running "btrfs filesystem defrag" as a background cron job may be beneficial.
Notes: the Guest OS must be configured to issue trim command, and typically this means that the guest OS is made to 'see' the disk as an SSD. Ext4 supports -o discard mount flag; OSX probably requires additional settings. Windows ought to automatically detect and support SSDs - at least in versions 7, 8 and 10. Linux exFAT driver (courtesy of Samsung) supports the trim command.
It is unclear whether Microsoft's implementation of exFAT supports this feature, even though that file system was originally designed for flash.
Alternatively, there are ad hoc methods to issue trim, e.g. Linux fstrim command, part of util-linux package. Earlier solutions required a user to zero out unused areas, e.g. using zerofree, and explicitly compact the disk - only possible when the VM is offline.
--bandwidthgroupSets the bandwidth group to use for the given device; see Section 5.8, “Limiting bandwidth for disk images”.
--forceunmountFor 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 Section 5.9, “CD/DVD support” for details.
When "iscsi" is used with the
--medium parameter for iSCSI support --
see Section 5.10, “iSCSI servers” --, additional parameters must or can
be used:
--serverThe host name or IP address of the iSCSI target; required.
--targetTarget name string. This is determined by the iSCSI target and used to identify the storage resource; required.
--tportTCP/IP port number of the iSCSI service on the target. Optional.
--lunLogical Unit Number of the target resource. Optional. Often, this value is zero.
--encodedlunHex encoded Logical Unit Number of the target resource. Optional. Often, this value is zero.
--username, --password, --passwordfileUsername 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. Alternatively to providing the password on the command line, a reference to a file containing the text can be provided instead via the passwordfile option.
--initiatoriSCSI Initiator (optional). Note:
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator is a system, such as a server that attaches to an IP network and initiates requests and receives responses from an iSCSI target. The SAN components in Microsoft iSCSI Initiator are largely analogous to Fibre Channel SAN components, and they include the following:/
To transport blocks of iSCSI commands over the IP network, an iSCSI driver must be installed on the iSCSI host. An iSCSI driver is included with Microsoft iSCSI Initiator.
A gigabit Ethernet adapter that transmits 1000 megabits per second (Mbps) is recommended for the connection to an iSCSI target. Like standard 10/100 adapters, most gigabit adapters use a pre-existing Category 5 or Category 6E cable. Each port on the adapter is identified by a unique IP address.
An iSCSI target is any device that receives iSCSI commands. The device can be an end node, such as a storage device, or it can be an intermediate device, such as a network bridge between IP and Fibre Channel devices. Each port on the storage array controller or network bridge is identified by one or more IP addresses
--intnetIf specified, connect to the iSCSI target via Internal Networking. This needs further configuration which is described in Section 9.9.3, “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|sas|usb|pcie]
[--controller LSILogic|LSILogicSAS|BusLogic|
IntelAhci|PIIX3|PIIX4|ICH6|I82078|
USB|NVMe]
[--portcount <1-30>]
[--hostiocache on|off]
[--bootable on|off]
[--rename <name>]
[--remove]where the parameters mean:
uuid|vmnameThe VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.
--nameSpecifies the name of the storage controller. Mandatory.
--addSpecifies the type of the system bus to which the storage controller must be connected.
--controllerEnables a choice of chipset type being emulated for the given storage controller.
--portcountThis specifies the number of ports the storage controller should support.
--hostiocacheConfigures the use of the host I/O cache for all disk images attached to this storage controller. For details, please see Section 5.7, “Host I/O caching”.
--bootableSpecifies whether this controller is bootable.
--renameSpecifies a new name for the storage controller.
--removeRemoves 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 a 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. Use the --machinereadable
option to produce the same output, but in machine readable format. This is of the
form: name="value" on a line by line basis.
The parameters mean:
uuid|vmnameThe VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.
--nameName of the bandwidth group. Mandatory.
--typeType of the bandwidth group. Mandatory. Two types are
supported: disk and
network. See
Section 5.8, “Limiting bandwidth for disk images” or
Section 6.10, “Limiting bandwidth for network I/O” for the description of a
particular type.
--limitSpecifies the limit for the given bandwidth group. This 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 the running VM.
This command shows information about a medium, 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 "showmediuminfo" command.
VBoxManage showmediuminfo [disk|dvd|floppy] <uuid|filename>
The medium 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,
VBoxManage list dvds,
or VBoxManage list floppies, as appropriate.
(see Section 8.4, “VBoxManage list”
for more information).
This command creates a new medium. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage createmedium [disk|dvd|floppy] --filename <filename>
[--size <megabytes>|--sizebyte <bytes>]
[--diffparent <uuid>|<filename>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD] (default: VDI)
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]where the parameters mean:
--filename <filename>Specifies a file name <filename> as an absolute path on the host file system. Mandatory.
--size <megabytes><megabytes> Specifies the image capacity, in 1 MB units. Optional.
--diffparent <uuid>|<filename>Specifies the differencing image parent, either as a UUID or by the absolute pathname of the file on the host file system. Useful for sharing a base box disk image among several VMs.
--format VDI|VMDK|VHDSpecifies the file format for the output file. Available options are VDI, VMDK, VHD. Default is VDI. Optional.
--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESXSpecifies any required file format variant(s) for the output file. It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all combinations are supported, and specifying mutually incompatible flags results in an error message. Optional.
For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the "createvdi" and "createhd" commands are also supported and mapped internally to the "createmedium" command.
With the modifymedium command, you can
change the characteristics of a disk image after it has been
created:
VBoxManage modifymedium [disk|dvd|floppy] <uuid|filename>
[--type normal|writethrough|immutable|shareable|
readonly|multiattach]
[--autoreset on|off]
[--property <name=[value]>]
[--compact]
[--resize <megabytes>|--resizebyte <bytes>]
[--move <path>For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the "modifyvdi" and "modifyhd" commands are also supported and mapped internally to the "modifymedium" 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 Section 8.4, “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 Section 5.4, “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 Section 5.4, “Special image write modes”). The default
is "on".
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
diskutil secureErase freespace 0 / command line
from an elevated Terminal.
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.[39] 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.
The --move <path> option
can be used to relocate a medium to a different location <path> on the
host file system. The path can be either relative to the current directory or
absolute.
This command duplicates a virtual disk/DVD/floppy medium to a new medium (usually an 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 Section 5.3, “The Virtual Media Manager” and Section 5.6, “Cloning disk images”. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage clonemedium [disk|dvd|floppy] <uuid|inputfile> <uuid|outputfile>
[--format VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW|<other>]
[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
[--existing]The medium 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 Section 8.4, “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:
--formatAllow to choose a file format for the output file different from the file format of the input file.
--variantAllow 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.
--existingPerform 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" and "clonehd" commands are still supported and mapped internally to the "clonehd disk" command.
This command sets up, gets or deletes a medium property. The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage mediumproperty [disk|dvd|floppy] set <uuid|filename>
<property> <value>Use <disk|dvd|floppy> to optionally specify
the type of medium: disk (hard drive), dvd or floppy.
Use <uuid|filename> to supply either the uuid
or absolute path of the medium/image to be encrypted.
Use <property> to supply the name of the
property.
Use <value> to supply the property value.
VBoxManage mediumproperty [disk|dvd|floppy] get <uuid|filename>
<property>Use <disk|dvd|floppy> to optionally specify
the type of medium: disk (hard drive), dvd or floppy.
Use <uuid|filename> to supply either the uuid
or absolute path of the medium/image to be encrypted.
Use <property> to supply the name of the
property.
VBoxManage mediumproperty [disk|dvd|floppy] delete <uuid|filename>
<property>Use <disk|dvd|floppy> to optionally specify
the type of medium: disk (hard drive), dvd or floppy.
Use <uuid|filename> to supply either the uuid
or absolute path of the medium/image.
Use <property> to supply the name of the
property.
This command is used to create a DEK encrypted medium/image. See Section 9.31.2, “Encrypting disk images”" for details.
The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage encryptmedium <uuid|filename>
[--newpassword <file|->]
[--oldpassword <file|->]
[--cipher <cipher id>]
[--newpasswordid <password id>]use <uuid|filename> to supply the
uuid or absolute path of the medium/image to be encrypted.
Use --newpassword <file|-> to supply a new
encryption password; either specify the absolute pathname of a password file on the host operating system,
or - to prompt you for the password on the command line.
Always use the --newpasswordid option with this option.
use --oldpassword <file|-> to supply any old
encryption password; either specify the absolute pathname of a password file on the host operating system,
or - to prompt you for the old password on the command line.
Use this option to gain access to an encrypted medium/image to change its password using
--newpassword and/or change its encryption using
--cipher.
Use --cipher <cipher> to specify the cipher to use for
encryption; this can be either AES-XTS128-PLAIN64 or
AES-XTS256-PLAIN64.
Use this option to change any existing encryption on the medium/image, or setup new encryption on it for the 1st time.
Use --newpasswordid <password id> to supply the new password identifier.
This can be freely chosen by the user, and is used for correct identification when supplying multiple
passwords during VM startup.
If the user uses the same password when encrypting multiple images and also the same password identifier, the user needs to supply the password only once during VM startup.
This command is used to check the current encryption password on a DEK encrypted medium/image. See Section 9.31.2, “Encrypting disk images”" for details.
The syntax is as follows:
VBoxManage checkmediumpwd <uuid|filename>
<pwd file|->Use <uuid|filename> to supply the uuid or absolute path of the
medium/image to be checked.
Use <pwd file|-> to supply the password identifier to be checked. Either
specify the absolute pathname of a password file on the host operating system, or - to
prompt you for the password on the command line.
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:
--bytesThe size of the image file, in bytes, provided through stdin.
--formatSelect the disk image format to create. Default is VDI. Other options are VMDK and VHD.
--variantAllow 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.
--uuidAllow 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 5.2.18 (C) 2005-2018 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. Value: 2006.01.01
You could retrieve the information for all keys as follows:
VBoxManage getextradata Fedora5 enumerate
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:
machinefolderThis specifies the default folder in which virtual machine definitions are kept; see Section 10.1, “Where VirtualBox stores its files” for details.
hwvirtexclusiveThis specifies whether VirtualBox will make exclusive use of the hardware virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) of the host system's processor; see Section 10.3, “Hardware vs. software virtualization”. If you wish to share these extensions with other hypervisors running at the same time, you must disable this setting. Doing so has negative performance implications.
vrdeauthlibraryThis specifies which library to use when "external" authentication has been selected for a particular virtual machine; see Section 7.1.5, “RDP authentication” for details.
websrvauthlibraryThis 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).
vrdeextpackThis specifies which library implements the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension.
loghistorycountThis selects how many rotated (old) VM logs are kept.
autostartdbpathThis selects the path to the autostart database. See Section 9.24, “Starting virtual machines during system boot”.
defaultfrontendThis selects the global default VM frontend setting. See Section 8.12, “VBoxManage startvm”.
logginglevelThis configures the VBoxSVC release logging details.[40]
VBoxManage usbfilter add <index,0-N>
--target <uuid|vmname>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>]
VBoxManage usbfilter modify <index,0-N>
--target <uuid|vmname>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>]
VBoxManage usbfilter remove <index,0-N>
--target <uuid|vmname>global
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 VMs
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.
The following is a list of the additional
usbfilter add and
usbfilter modify options, with detailed
explanations on how to use them.
--action ignore|holdSpecifies
whether devices that fit the filter description are allowed access by
machines ("hold"), or have access denied ("ignore"). Applies to
global filters only.
--active yes|noSpecifies whether
the USB Filter is active or temporarily disabled. For
usbfilter create the default is
active.
--vendorid <XXXX>|""Specifies
a vendor ID filter - the string representation for the exact matching
has the form XXXX, where X is the hex digit (including leading zeroes).
--productid <XXXX>|""Specifies
a product ID filter - The string representation for the exact matching has
the form XXXX, where X is the hex digit (including leading zeroes).
--revision <IIFF>|""Specifies
a revision ID filter - the string representation for the exact matching has
the form IIFF, where I is the decimal digit of the integer part of the revision,
and F is the decimal digit of its fractional part (including leading and trailing zeros).
Note that for interval filters, it's best to use the hex form, because the revision is
stored as a 16 bit packed BCD value; so the expression int:0x0100-0x0199 will match
any revision from 1.0 to 1.99 inclusive.
--manufacturer <string>|""Specifies
a manufacturer ID filter, as a string.
--product <string>|""Specifies
a product ID filter, as a string.
--remote yes|no""Specifies
a remote filter - indicating whether the device is physically connected to a
remote VRDE client or to a local host machine. Applies to VM filters only.
--serialnumber <string>|""Specifies
a serial number filter, as a string.
--maskedinterfaces <XXXXXXXX>Specifies
a masked interface filter, for hiding one or more USB interfaces from the guest.
The value is a bit mask where the set bits correspond to the USB interfaces that
should be hidden, or masked off. This feature only works on Linux hosts.
VBoxManage sharedfolder add <uuid|vmname>
--name <name> --hostpath <hostpath>
[--transient] [--readonly] [--automount]
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.
Parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>
Specifies the UUID or name of the VM whose guest operating system will be
sharing folders with the host computer. Mandatory.
--name <name>
Specifies the name of the share. Each share has a unique name within the
namespace of the host operating system. Mandatory.
-hostpath <hostpath>
Specifies the absolute path on the host operating system of the
folder/directory to be shared with the guest operating system.
Mandatory.
-transient
Specifies that the share is 'transient', meaning that it can be added
and removed at runtime and does not persist after the VM has stopped.
Optional.
-readonly
Specifies that the share has only read-only access to files at the host path.
By default, shared folders have read/write access to the files at the host path. More specifically, on Linux distros - shared folders are mounted with 770 io permissions with root user and vboxsf as the group, and using this option the io permissions change to 700. Optional.
-automount
Specifies that the share will be automatically mounted. On Linux distros, this will
be to either /media/USER/sf_<name> or /media/sf_<name> - depending on
your guest OS. Where <name> is the share name. Optional.
VBoxManage sharedfolder remove <uuid|vmname>
--name <name> [--transient]
This command allows you to delete shared folders on the host computer shares with the guest operating systems. For this, the guest systems must have a version of the VirtualBox Guest Additions installed which supports this functionality.
Parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>
Specifies the UUID or name of the VM whose guest operating system is
sharing folders with the host computer. Mandatory.
--name <name>
Specifies the name of the share to be removed. Each share has a unique name within the
namespace of the host operating system. Mandatory.
-transient
Specifies that the share is 'transient', meaning that it can be added
and removed at runtime and does not persist after the VM has stopped.
Optional.
Shared folders are described in detail in Section 4.3, “Shared folders”.
The "guestproperty" commands allow you to get or set properties of a running virtual machine. Please see Section 4.7, “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> <property>
: 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.
delete <vm> <property>
: Deletes a formerly set guest property.
The guestcontrol commands enable
control of the guest from the host. Please see Section 4.8, “Guest control” for an introduction.
guestcontrol has two sets of subcommands. The first set requires guest credentials to be specified, the second does not.
The first set of subcommands is of the form:
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> <sub-command>
[--username <name> ]
[--passwordfile <file> | --password <password>]
[--domain <domain> ]
[-v|--verbose] [-q|quiet] ...
The "common-options" are:
[--username <name> ]
[--passwordfile <file> | --password <password>]
[--domain <domain> ]
[-v|--verbose] [-q|quiet]
Where details of the common options for the first set of subcommands are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--username <name>Specifies the user name on guest OS under which the process should run. This user name must already exist on the guest OS. If unspecified, the host user name is used. Optional
--passwordfile <file>|--passwordSpecifies the absolute path on guest file system of password file containing the password for the specified user account or password for the specified user account. Optional. If both are omitted, empty password is assumed.
--domain <domain>User domain for Windows guests. Optional.
-v|--verboseMakes the subcommand execution more verbose. Optional
-q|--quietMakes the subcommand execution quieter. Optional.
The first set of subcommands:
run
Executes a guest program - forwarding stdout, stderr and stdin to/from the host
until it completes.
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> run [common-options]
--exe <path to executable> [--timeout <msec>]
[-E|--putenv <NAME>[=<VALUE>]] [--unquoted-args]
[--ignore-operhaned-processes] [--profile]
[--no-wait-stdout|--wait-stdout]
[--no-wait-stderr|--wait-stderr]
[--dos2unix] [--unix2dos]
-- <program/arg0> [argument1] ... [argumentN]]
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--exe <path to executable>Specifies the absolute path of the executable on the guest OS file system. Mandatory. e.g.:
C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe.
--timeout <msec>Specifies the maximum time (microseconds) that the executable can run, during which VBoxManage receives its output. Optional. If unspecified, VBoxManage waits indefinitely for the process to end, or an error occurs.
-E|--putenv <NAME>=<VALUE>
Sets/modifies/unsets environment variable(s) in the environment in which the program will run. Optional.
The guest process is created with the standard default guest OS environment.
Use this option to modify that default environment. To set/modify a variable use:
<NAME>=<VALUE>.
To unset a variable use:
<NAME>=
Any spaces in names/values should be enclosed by quotes.
To set/modify/unset multiple variables, use multiple instances of the
--E|--putenv option.
--unquoted-argsDisables escaped double quoting (e.g. \"fred\") on arguments passed to the executed program. Optional.
--ignore-operhaned-processesIgnore orphaned processes. Not yet implemented. Optional.
--profileUse Profile. Not yet implemented. Optional.
--no-wait-stdout|--wait-stdoutDoes not wait/waits until the guest process ends and receives its exit code and reason/flags. In the case of --wait-stdout - while the process runs, VBoxManage receives its stdout. Optional.
--no-wait-stderr|--wait-stderrDoes not wait/waits until the guest process ends and receives its exit code and reason/flags. In case of --wait-stderr - while the process runs, VBoxManage receives its stderr. Optional.
--dos2unixConverts output from DOS/Windows guests to UNIX/Linux-compatible line endings (CR + LF → LF). Not yet implemented. Optional.
--unix2dosConverts output from a UNIX/Linux guests to DOS/Windows-compatible line endings (LF → CR + LF). Not yet implemented. Optional.
[-- <program/arg0> [<argument1>] ... [<argumentN>]]Specifies program name, followed by one or more arguments to pass to the program. Optional.
Note: Any spaces in arguments should be enclosed by quotes.
On Windows there are certain limitations for graphical applications; please see Chapter 14, Known limitations for more information.
Examples:
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol "My VM" run --exe "/bin/ls"
--username foo --passwordfile bar.txt --wait-exit --wait-stdout -- -l /usr
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol "My VM" run --exe "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).
start
Executes a guest program until it completes.
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> start [common-options]
[--exe <path to executable>] [--timeout <msec>]
[-E|--putenv <NAME>[=<VALUE>]] [--unquoted-args]
[--ignore-operhaned-processes] [--profile]
-- <program/arg0> [argument1] ... [argumentN]]
Where the options are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--exe <path to executable>Specifies the absolute path of the executable on the guest OS file system. Mandatory. e.g.:
C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe
--timeout <msec>Specifies the maximum time (microseconds) that the executable can run. Optional. If unspecified, VBoxManage waits indefinitely for the process to end, or an error occurs.
-E|--putenv <NAME>=<VALUE>
Sets/modifies/unsets environment variable(s) in the environment in which the program will run. Optional.
The guest process is created with the standard default guest OS environment.
Use this option to modify that default environment. To set/modify a variable use:
<NAME>=<VALUE>.
To unset a variable use:
<NAME>=
Any spaces in names/values should be enclosed by quotes.
To set/modify/unset multiple variables, use multiple instances of the
--E|--putenv option.
--unquoted-argsDisables escaped double quoting (e.g. \"fred\") on arguments passed to the executed program. Optional.
--ignore-operhaned-processesIgnores orphaned processes. Not yet implemented. Optional.
--profileUse a profile. Not yet implemented. Optional.
[-- <program/arg0> [<argument1>] ... [<argumentN>]]Specifies program name, followed by one or more arguments to pass to the program. Optional.
Note: Any spaces in arguments should be enclosed by quotes.
On Windows there are certain limitations for graphical applications; please see Chapter 14, Known limitations for more information.
Examples:
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol "My VM" start --exe "/bin/ls"
--username foo --passwordfile bar.txt --wait-exit --wait-stdout -- -l /usr
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol "My VM" start --exe "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).
copyfrom
Copies files from the guest to the host file system.
(Note - only with Guest Additions 4.0 or later installed).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> copyfrom [common-options]
[--dryrun] [--follow] [--R|recursive]
--target-directory <host-dst-dir>
<guest-src0> [<guest-src1> [...]] Where the parameters are:
<uid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--dryrunInstructs VBoxManage to perform a dry run instead of an actual file copying operation. Optional.
--followEnables symlink following on the guest file system. Optional.
-R|--recursiveEnables recursive copying of files/directories from the specified guest file system directory. Optional.
--target-directory <host-dst-dir>Specifies the absolute path of the host file system destination directory. Mandatory. e.g.
C:\Temp.
<guest-src0> [<guest-src1> [...]]Specifies the absolute path(s) of guest file system file(s) to be copied. Mandatory. e.g.
C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe.
Wildcards can be used in the expression(s), e.g.
C:\Windows\System*\*.dll.
copyto
Copies files from the host to the guest file system.
(Note - only with Guest Additions 4.0 or later installed).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> copyto [common-options]
[--dryrun] [--follow] [--R|recursive]
--target-directory <guest-dst>
<host-src0> [<host-src1> [...]] Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--dryrunInstructs VBoxManage to perform a dry run instead of an actual file copying operation. Optional.
--followEnables symlink following on the host file system. Optional.
-R|--recursiveEnables recursive copying of files/directories from the specified host file system directory(ies). Optional.
--target-directory <guest-dst>Specifies the absolute path of the guest file system destination directory. Mandatory. e.g.
C:\Temp.
<host-src0> [<host-src1> [...]]Specifies the absolute path(s) of host file system file(s) to be copied. Mandatory. e.g.
C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe.
Wildcards can be used in the expression(s), e.g.
C:\Windows\System*\*.dll.
md|mkdir|createdir|createdirectory
Creates one or more directory(ies) on the guest file system.
(Note - only with Guest Additions 4.0 or later installed).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> md|mkdir|createdir|createdirectory [common-options]
[--parents] [--mode <mode>]
<guest-dir0> [<guest-dir1> [...]] Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--parentsCreates any absent parent directory(ies) of the specified directory. Optional.
e.g. If specified directory is D:\Foo\Bar
and D:\Foo is absent, it will
be created. In such a case, had the --parents
option not been used, this command would have failed.
--mode <mode>Specifies the permission mode on the specified directory(ies) (and any parents,
where --parents option used).
Currently octal modes (e.g. 0755) only are
supported.
<guest-dir0> [<guest-dir1> [...]]Specifies list of absolute path(s) of directory(ies) to be created on
guest file system. Mandatory.
e.g. D:\Foo\Bar.
All parent directories must already exist
unless switch --parents used.
(e.g. in the above example D:\Foo).
The specified user must have sufficient rights to create the
specified directory(ies), and any parents that need
to be created.
rmdir|removedir|removedirectory
Deletes specified guest file system directories. (Only with installed Guest Additions 4.3.2 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> rmdir|removedir|removedirectory [common-options]
[--recursive|-R]
<guest-dir0> [<guest-dir1> [...]]
Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--recursiveRecursively removes directories and contents. Optional.
<guest-dir0> [<guest-dir1> [...]]Specifies list of the absolute path(s) of directory(ies) to be deleted on
guest file system. Mandatory. Wildcards are allowed. e.g. D:\Foo\*Bar.
The specified user must have sufficient rights to delete the
specified directory(ies).
rm|removefile
Deletes specified files on the guest file system. (Only with installed Guest
Additions 4.3.2 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> rm|removefile [common-options]
[-f|--force]
<guest-file0> [<guest-file1> [...]] Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
-f|--forceEnforce operation (override any requests for confirmations). Optional.
<guest-file0> [<guest-file1> [...]]Specifies list of absolute path(s) of file(s) to be deleted on guest file system. Mandatory.
Wildcards are allowed. e.g. D:\Foo\Bar\text*.txt.
The specified user should have sufficient rights to delete the specified file(s).
mv|move|ren|rename
This subcommand renames file(s) and/or directory(ies) on the guest file system. (Only with installed Guest
Additions 4.3.2 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> mv|move|ren|rename [common-options]
<guest-source0> [<guest-source1> [...]] <guest-dest>Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
<guest-source0> [<guest-source1> [...]]Specifies absolute path(s) of file(s) and/or single directory to be moved/renamed on guest file system. Mandatory. Wildcards are allowed in file names(s). The specified user should have sufficient rights to access the specified file(s).
<dest>Specifies the absolute path of the destination file/directory to which the file(s) are to be moved. Mandatory. If only one file to be moved, <dest> can be file or directory, else it must be a directory. The specified user must have sufficient rights to access the destination file/directory.
mktemp|createtemp|createtemporary
Creates a temporary file/directory on the guest file system, to assist subsequent
copying of files from the host to the guest file systems. By default, the file/directory
is created in the guest's platform specific temp directory. Not currently supported.
(Only with installed Guest Additions 4.2 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> mktemp|createtemp|createtemporary [common-options]
[--directory] [--secure] [--mode <mode>] [--tmpdir <directory>]
<template>
The parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--directoryCreates a temporary directory instead of a file, specified by the <template> parameter. Optional.
--secure
Enforces secure file/directory creation. Optional. The permission mode is set to
0755. Operation fails if it cannot be performed securely.
--mode <mode>Specifies the permission mode of the specified directory. Optional.
Currently only octal modes (e.g. 0755)
are supported.
--tmpdir <directory>Specifies the absolute path of the directory on the guest file system into which the file/directory specified in will be created. Optional. If unspecified, the platform-specific temp directory is used.
<template>Specifies a file name without a directory path, containing at least one sequence comprising three consecutive 'X' characters, or ending in 'X'. Mandatory.
stat
Displays file or file system status(es) on the guest.
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> stat [common-options]
<file0> [<file1> [...]]Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
<file0> [<file1> [...]]Specifies absolute path(s) of file(s) and/or file system(s) on guest file system. Mandatory.
e.g. /home/foo/a.out.
The specified user should have sufficient rights to access
the specified file(s)/file system(s).
The second set of subcommands is of the form:
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> <sub-command>
[-v|--verbose] [-q|quiet] ...
The "common-options" are:
[-v|--verbose] [-q|--quiet]
Where details of the common options for the second set of subcommands are:
-v|--verboseMakes the sub-command execution more verbose. Optional.
-q|--quietMakes the sub-command execution quieter. Optional.
The second set of subcommands:
list
Lists guest control configuration and status data, e.g. open guest sessions,
guest processes and files.
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> list [common-opts]
<all|sessions|processes|files> Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
all|sessions|processes|filesIndicates whether to list all available data or guest sessions, processes or files. Mandatory.
closeprocess
Terminates guest processes specified by PID(s))running in guest session(s),
specified by the session ID or name(s).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> closeprocess [common-options]
--session-id <ID> | --session-name <name or pattern>
<PID0> [<PID1> [...]] Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--session-id <ID>Specifies the guest session by its ID. Optional.
--session-name <name or pattern>Specifies the guest session by its name, or multiple sessions using a pattern containing wildcards. Optional.
<PID0> [<PID1> [...]]Specifies a list of process identifiers (PIDs) of guest processes to be terminated. Mandatory.
closesession
Closes specified guest sessions, specified either by session ID or name.
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> closesession [common-options]
--session-id <ID> | --session-name <name or pattern> | --all Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--session-id <ID>Specifies the guest session to be closed by ID. Optional.
--session-name <name or pattern>Specifies the guest session to be closed by name. Optional. Multiple sessions can be specified by using a pattern containing wildcards.
--allClose all guest sessions. Optional.
updatega|updateadditions|updateguestadditions
Ugrades Guest Additions already installed on the guest.
(Only already installed Guest Additions 4.0 and later).
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> updatega|updateadditions|updateguestadditions [common-options]
[--source <New .ISO path>]
[--wait-start]
[-- <argument0> [<argument1> [...]]]Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
--source <New .ISO path>Specifies the absolute path on guest file system of the .ISO file for Guest Additions update. Mandatory.
--wait-startIndicates that VBoxManage starts the usual updating process on the guest and then waits until the actual Guest Additions updating begins, at which point VBoxManage self-terminates. Optional.
Default behavior is that VBoxManage waits for completion of the Guest Additions update before terminating. Use of this option is sometimes necessary, as a running VBoxManage can affect the interaction between the installer and the guest OS.
[-- <argument0> [<argument1> [...]]]Specifies optional command line arguments to be supplied to the Guest Additions updater. Useful for retrofitting features which are not currently installed.
Arguments containing spaces should be enclosed by quotes.
watch
This subcommand prints current guest control activity.
VBoxManage guestcontrol <uuid|vmname> watch [common-options]
Where the parameters are:
<uuid|vmname>Specifies the VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.
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:
listThis subcommand shows the parameters of the currently existing metrics. Note that VM-specific metrics are only available when a particular VM is running.
setupThis 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.
enableThis 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.
disableThis 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.
queryThis 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.
collectThis 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.
NAT networks use the Network Address Translation (NAT) service - which works in a similar way to a home router. It groups systems using it into a network and prevents outside systems from directly accessing those inside, while letting systems inside communicate with each other and outside systems using TCP and UDP over IPv4 and IPv6.
A NAT service is attached to an internal network. Virtual machines to make use of one should be attached to it. The name of an internal network is chosen when the NAT service is created, and the internal network will be created if it does not already exist. An example command to create a NAT network:
VBoxManage natnetwork add --netname natnet1 --network "192.168.15.0/24" --enable
Here, "natnet1" is the name of the internal network to be used and "192.168.15.0/24" is the network address and mask of the NAT service interface. By default, in this static configuration - the gateway will be assigned the address 192.168.15.1 (the address after the interface address), though this is subject to change.
To add a DHCP server to the NAT network after creation:
VBoxManage natnetwork modify --netname natnet1 --dhcp on
Below are the subcommands for VBoxManage natnetwork
VBoxManage natnetwork add --netname <name>
[--network <network>]
[--enable|--disable]
[--dhcp on|off]
[--port-forward-4 <rule>]
[--loopback-4 <rule>]
[--ipv6 on|off]
[--port-forward-6 <rule>]
[--loopback-6 <rule>]
VBoxManage natnetwork add
Creates a new internal network interface, and adds a NAT network service. This command is a
prerequisite for enabling attachment of VMs to the NAT network. Parameters:
--netname <name>Where <name> is the name of the new internal network interface on the host OS.
--network <network>Where <network> specifies the static(default)/DHCP network address and mask of the NAT service interface.
--enable|--disableEnables/disables the NAT network service.
--dhcp on|offEnables/disables DHCP server specified by --netname; its use also indicates that it is a DHCP server.
--port-forward-4 <rule>Enables IPv4 port forwarding, rule specified by <rule>.
--loopback-4 <rule>Enables IPv4 loopback interface, rule specified by <rule>.
--ipv6 on|offEnables/disables IPv6 (default is IPv4, disables gives IPv4).
--port-forward-6 <rule>Enables IPv6 port forwarding, rule specified by <rule>.
--loopback-6 <rule>Enables IPv6 loopback interface, rule specified by <rule>.
VBoxManage natnetwork remove --netname <name>
VBoxManage natnetwork remove
Removes a NAT network service, parameters:
--netname <name>Where <name> specifies an existing NAT network service. Does not remove any DHCP server enabled on the network.
VBoxManage natnetwork modify --netname <name>
[--network <network>]
[--enable|--disable]
[--dhcp on|off]
[--port-forward-4 <rule>]
[--loopback-4 <rule>]
[--ipv6 on|off]
[--port-forward-6 <rule>]
[--loopback-6 <rule>]
VBoxManage natnetwork modify
Modifies an existing NAT network service, parameters:
--netname <name>Where <name> specifies an existing NAT network service.
--network <network>Where <network> specifies the new static(default)/DHCP network address and mask of the NAT service interface.
--enable|--disableEnables/disables the NAT network service.
--dhcp on|offEnables (and if absent, adds)/disables (if any) DHCP server.
--port-forward-4 <rule>Enables IPv4 port forwarding, rule specified by <rule>.
--loopback-4 <rule>Enables IPv4 loopback interface, rule specified by <rule>.
--ipv6 on|offEnables/disables IPv6 (default is IPv4, disables gives IPv4).
--port-forward-6 <rule>Enables IPv6 port forwarding, rule specified by <rule>.
--loopback-6 <rule>Enables IPv6 loopback interface, rule specified by <rule>.
VBoxManage natnetwork start --netname <name>
VBoxManage natnetwork start
Starts specified NAT network service and any associated DHCP server, parameters:
--netname <name>Where <name> specifies an existing NAT network service.
VBoxManage natnetwork stop --netname <name>
VBoxManage natnetwork stop
Stops specified NAT network service and any DHCP server, parameters:
--netname <name>Where <name> specifies an existing NAT network service.
VBoxManage natnetwork list [<pattern>]
VBoxManage natnetwork list
Lists all NAT network services with optional filtering, parameters:
[<pattern>]Where <pattern> is optional filtering pattern.
With "hostonlyif" you can change the IP configuration of a host-only network interface. For a description of host-only networking, please refer to Section 6.7, “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 following list summarizes the available subcommands:
ipconfig "<name>"Configure a hostonly interface
createCreates a new vboxnet<N> interface on the host OS. This command is essential before you can attach VMs to host-only network.
remove vboxnet<N>Removes a vboxnet<N> interface from the host OS.
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 Section 8.4, “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. This has the same parameters as
VBoxManage dhcpserver add.
The "usbdevsource" commands enables you to add and remove USB devices globally.
The following command adds a USB device.
VBoxManage usbdevsource add <source name>
--backend <backend>
--address <address>
Where the command line options are:
<source name> specifies the ID of the 'source' USB device to be added. Mandatory.
--backend <backend> specifies the USB proxy service backend to use. Mandatory.
--address <address> specifies the backend specific address. Mandatory.
The following command removes a USB device.
VBoxManage usbdevsource remove <source name>
Where the command line options are:
<source name> specifies the ID of the 'source' USB device to be removed. Mandatory.
Introspection and guest debugging.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> show [[--human-readable] | [--sh-export] | [--sh-eval] | [--cmd-set]] [settings-item...]
The "debugvm" commands are for experts who want to tinker with the exact details of virtual machine execution. Like the VM debugger described in Section 12.1.3, “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.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> dumpvmcore [--filename=name]
Creates a system dump file of the specified VM. This file will have the standard ELF core format (with custom sections); see Section 12.1.4, “VM core format”.
This corresponds to the writecore command in the debugger.
--filename=filename
The name of the output file.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> info <item> [args...]
Displays info items relating to the VMM, device emulations and associated drivers.
This corresponds to the info command in the debugger.
info
Name of the info item to display. The special name
help will list all the available info items and
hints about optional arguments.
args
Optional argument string for the info item handler. Most info items does not take any extra arguments. Arguments not recognized are generally ignored.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> injectnmi
Causes a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) to be injected into the guest. This 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.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> log [[--release] | [--debug]] [group-settings...]
Changes the group settings for either debug (--debug)
or release (--release) logger of the VM process.
The group-settings are typically strings on the form
em.e.f.l, hm=~0
and -em.f. Basic wildcards are supported for
group matching. The all group is an alias for
all the groups.
Please do keep in mind that the group settings are applied as modifications to the current ones.
This corresponds to the log command in the debugger.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> logdest [[--release] | [--debug]] [destinations...]
Changes the destination settings for either debug (--debug)
or release (--release) logger of the VM process. For details
on the destination format, the best source is src/VBox/Runtime/common/log/log.cpp.
The destinations is one or more mnemonics, optionally
prefixed by "no" to disable them. Some of them take values after a ":" or "="
separator. Multiple mnemonics can be separated by space or given as separate
arguments on the command line.
List of available destination:
file[=file], nofile
Specifies a log file. It no filname is given, one will be generated based on the current UTC time and VM process name and placed in the current directory of the VM process. Note that this will currently not have any effect if the log file has already been opened.
dir=directory, nodir
Specifies the output directory for log files. Note that this will currently not have any effect if the log file has already been opened.
history=count, nohistory
A non-zero value enables log historization, with the value specifying how many old log files to keep.
histsize=bytes
The max size of a log file before it is historized. Default is infinite.
histtime=seconds
The max age (in seconds) of a log file before it is historized. Default is infinite.
ringbuffer, noringbuffer
Only log to the log buffer until an explicit flush (e.g. via an assertion) occurs. This is fast and saves diskspace.
stdout, nostdout
Write the log content to standard output.
stdout, nostdout
Write the log content to standard error.
debugger, nodebugger
Write the log content to the debugger, if supported by the host OS.
com, nocom
Writes logging to the COM port. This is only applicable for raw-mode and ring-0 logging.
user, nouser
Custom destination which has no meaning to VM processes..
This corresponds to the logdest command in the debugger.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> logflags [[--release] | [--debug]] [flags...]
Changes the flags on either debug (--debug) or release
(--release) logger of the VM process. Please note that the
modifications are applied onto the existing changes, they are not replacing them.
The flags are a list of flag mnemonics, optionally
prefixed by a "no", "!", "~" or "-" to negate their meaning. The "+" prefix
can be used to undo previous negation or use as a separator, though better use
whitespace or separate arguments for that.
List of log flag mnemonics, with their counter form where applicable (asterisk indicates defaults):
enabled*, disabled
Enables or disables logging.
buffered, unbuffered*
Enabling buffering of log output before it hits the destinations.
writethrough(/writethru)
Whether to open the destination file with writethru buffering settings or not.
flush
Enables flushing of the output file (to disk) after each log statement.
lockcnts
Prefix each log line with lock counts for the current thread.
cpuid
Prefix each log line with the ID of the current CPU.
pid
Prefix each log line with the current process ID.
flagno
Prefix each log line with the numberic flags corresponding to the log statement.
flag
Prefix each log line with the flag mnemonics corresponding to the log statement.
groupno
Prefix each log line with the log group number for the log statement producing it.
group
Prefix each log line with the log group name for the log statement producing it.
tid
Prefix each log line with the current thread identifier.
thread
Prefix each log line with the current thread name.
time
Prefix each log line with the current UTC wall time.
timeprog
Prefix each log line with the current monotonic time since the start of the program.
msprog
Prefix each log line with the current monotonic timestamp value in milliseconds since the start of the program.
ts
Prefix each log line with the current monotonic timestamp value in nanoseconds.
tsc
Prefix each log line with the current CPU timestamp counter (TSC) value.
rel, abs*
Selects the whether ts and
tsc prefixes should be displayed as relative to the
previous log line or as absolute time.
hex*, dec
Selects the whether the ts and
tsc prefixes should be formatted as hexadecimal
or decimal.
custom
Custom log prefix, has by default no meaning for VM processes.
usecrlf, uself*
Output with DOS style (CRLF) or just UNIX style (LF) line endings.
overwrite*, append
Overwrite the destination file or append to it.
This corresponds to the logflags command in the debugger.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> getregisters [--cpu=id] [reg-set.reg-name...]
Retrieves register values for guest CPUs and emulated devices.
reg-set.reg-name
One of more registers, each having one of the following forms:
register-set.register-name.sub-field
register-set.register-name
cpu-register-name.sub-field
cpu-register-name
all
The all form will cause all registers
to be shown (no sub-fields). The registers names are case-insensitive.
--cpu=id
Selects the CPU register set when specifying just a CPU register (3rd and 4th form). The default is 0.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> setregisters [--cpu=id] [reg-set.reg-name=value...]
Changes register values for guest CPUs and emulated devices.
reg-set.reg-name=value
One of more register assignment, each having one of the following forms:
register-set.register-name.sub-field=value
register-set.register-name=value
cpu-register-name.sub-field=value
cpu-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.
--cpu=id
Selects the CPU register set when specifying just a CPU register (3rd and 4th form). The default is 0.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> show [[--human-readable] | [--sh-export] | [--sh-eval] | [--cmd-set]] [settings-item...]
Shows logging settings for the VM.
--human-readable
Selects human readable output.
--sh-export
Selects output format as bourne shell style export commands.
--sh-eval
Selects output format as bourne shell style eval command input.
--cmd-set
Selects output format as DOS style SET commands.
settings-item
What to display. One or more of the following:
logdbg-settings - debug log settings.
logrel-settings - release log settings.
log-settings - alias for both debug and release log settings.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> stack [--cpu=id]
Unwinds the guest CPU stacks to the best of our ability. It is recommended to first run the osdetect command, as this gives both symbols and perhaps unwind information.
--cpu=id
Selects a single guest CPU to display the stack for. The default is all CPUs.
VBoxManage debugvm <uuid|vmname> statistics [--reset] [--descriptions] [--pattern=pattern]
Displays or resets VMM statistics.
Retrieves register values for guest CPUs and emulated devices.
--pattern=pattern
DOS/NT-style wildcards patterns for selecting statistics. Multiple patterns can be specified by using the '|' (pipe) character as separator.
--reset
Select reset instead of display mode.
Extension package management.
VBoxManage extpack install [--replace] <tarball>
Installs a new extension pack on the system. This command will fail if an older
version of the same extension pack is already installed. The
--replace option can be used to uninstall any
old package before the new one is installed.
--replace
Uninstall existing extension pack version.
tarball
The file containing the extension pack to be installed.
VBoxManage extpack uninstall [--force] <name>
Uninstalls an extension pack from the system. The subcommand will also succeed
in the case where the specified extension pack is not present on the system.
You can use VBoxManage list extpacks to show
the names of the extension packs which are currently installed.
--force
Overrides most refusals to uninstall an extension pack
name
The name of the extension pack to be uninstalled.
How to list extension packs:
$ 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:
How to remove an extension pack:
$ 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".
Unattended guest OS installation.
VBoxManage unattended install <uuid|vmname> <--iso=install-iso> [--user=login] [--password=password] [--password-file=file] [--full-user-name=name] [--key=product-key] [--install-additions] [--no-install-additions] [--additions-iso=add-iso] [--install-txs] [--no-install-txs] [--validation-kit-iso=testing-iso] [--locale=ll_CC] [--country=CC] [--time-zone=tz] [--hostname=fqdn] [--package-selection-adjustment=keyword] [--dry-run] [--auxiliary-base-path=path] [--image-index=number] [--script-template=file] [--post-install-template=file] [--post-install-command=command] [--extra-install-kernel-parameters=params] [--language=lang] [--start-vm=session-type]
VBoxManage unattended detect <--iso=install-iso> [--machine-readable]
Detects the guest operating system (OS) on the specified installation ISO and displays the result. This can be used as input when creating a VM for the ISO to be installed in.
--iso=install-iso
The installation ISO to run the detection on.
--machine-readable
Produce output that is simpler to parse from a script.
VBoxManage unattended install <uuid|vmname> <--iso=install-iso> [--user=login] [--password=password] [--password-file=file] [--full-user-name=name] [--key=product-key] [--install-additions] [--no-install-additions] [--additions-iso=add-iso] [--install-txs] [--no-install-txs] [--validation-kit-iso=testing-iso] [--locale=ll_CC] [--country=CC] [--time-zone=tz] [--hostname=fqdn] [--package-selection-adjustment=keyword] [--dry-run] [--auxiliary-base-path=path] [--image-index=number] [--script-template=file] [--post-install-template=file] [--post-install-command=command] [--extra-install-kernel-parameters=params] [--language=lang] [--start-vm=session-type]
Reconfigures the specified VM for installation and optionally starts it up.
uuid|vmname
Either the UUID or the name (case sensitive) of a VM.
--iso=install-iso
The installation ISO to run the detection on.
--user=login
The login name. (default: vboxuser)
--password=password
The login password. This is used for the user given by --user as well as the
root/administrator user. (default: changeme)
--password-file=file
Alternative to --password for providing the password. Special filename
stdin can be used to read the password from standard input.
--full-user-name=name
The full user name. (default: --user)
--key=product-key
The guest OS product key. Not all guest OSes requires this.
--install-additions, --no-install-additionsWhether to install the VirtualBox guest additions. (default: --no-install-addations)
--additions-iso=add-iso
Path to the VirtualBox guest additions ISO. (default: installed/downloaded GAs)
--install-txs, --no-install-txsWhether to install the test execution service (TXS) from the VirtualBox ValidationKit. This is useful when preparing VMs for testing or similar. (default: --no-install-txs)
--validation-kit-iso=testing-iso
Path to the VirtualBox ValidationKit ISO. This is required if --install-txs
is specified.
--locale=ll_CC
The base locale specification for the guest, like en_US, de_CH, or nn_NO. (default: host or en_US)
--country=CC
The two letter country code if it differs from the specified by --location.
--time-zone=tz
The time zone to set up the guest OS with. (default: host time zone or UTC)
--hostname=fqdn
The fully qualified domain name of the guest machine.
(default: vmname.myguest.virtualbox.org)
--package-selection-adjustment=keyword
Adjustments to the guest OS packages/components selection. This can be specfied more than once. Currently
the only recognized keyword is minimal which triggers a minimal installation for
some of the guest OSes.
--dry-run
Do not create any files or make any changes to the VM configuration.
--start-vm=session-type
Start the VM using the front end given by session-type. This is the same as
the --type option for the startvm command, but we have add
none for indicating that the VM should not be started.
(default: none)
Advanced options:
--auxiliary-base-path=path
The path prefix to the media related files generated for the installation.
(default: vm-config-dir/Unattended-vm-uuid-)
--image-index=number
Windows installation image index. (default: 1)
--script-template=file
The unattended installation script template. (default: IMachine::OSTypeId dependent)
--post-install-template=file
The post installation script template. (default: IMachine::OSTypeId dependent)
--post-install-command=command
A single command to run after the installation is completed. The exact format and exactly when this is run is guest OS installer dependent.
--extra-install-kernel-parameters=params
List of extra linux kernel parameters to use during the installation. (default: IMachine::OSTypeId dependent)
--language=lang
Specifies the UI language for a Windows installation. The lang is
generally on the form {ll}-{CC}. See detectedOSLanguages results from VBoxManage unattended detect.
(default: detectedOSLanguages[0])
[37] For details, see Section 8.7, “VBoxManage createvm”.
[38] 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.
[39] Image resizing was added with VirtualBox 4.0.