[vbox-dev] VBoxManage guestproperty enumerate <vmname> - flush cache?

[Michael Thayer]

Hello Andrea,

On 12/05/2011 10:01 PM, Andrea Turli wrote:
> I've still a question regarding this functionality: let's say I restart
> a vm after a change to the NIC (from NAT to bridged) I'd expect to see
> the new IP address immediately, but instead there is a "latency". Is
> there a way to avoid this kind of cache?
Not really, I'm afraid.  The problem is that it is the Guest Additions 
which update the information (I seem to recall that they poll for it 
every few seconds), and that they don't become active until some point 
towards the end of the machine's boot process.  At best you could hack 
the VM setup a bit (say the numbers in the init scripts) to get them 
active earlier in the boot process.

Regards,

Michael

> Thanks,
> Andrea
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Michael Thayer
> <michael.thayer at oracle.com <mailto:michael.thayer at oracle.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hello Andrea,
>
>
>     On 12/04/2011 10:27 PM, Andrea Turli wrote:
>
>         I'm trying to use this command
>         VBoxManage guestproperty  enumerate <vmname>
>         to retrieve the IP address of a machine.
>         Even if the VM is shutdown I retreve the properties of the vm.
>         Is there a way to flush the cache of this command?
>
>     I think this question belonged on
>     <vbox-users-community at lists.__sourceforge.net
>     <mailto:vbox-users-community at lists.sourceforge.net>> or the forums,
>     not the developer list (follow-up there please!)  In any case, Guest
>     Properties are not deleted when a virtual machine shuts down unless
>     they are explicitly marked as "transient", which a quick look at the
>     code suggests is not the case for the IP address (presumably so that
>     people can query the last IP address an adapter in a machine was
>     using before it was shut down).  So there is no cache to delete and
>     this is intended behaviour (so that you don't have to worry about
>     whether a machine is running or not to set or query its properties,
>     and can "leave messages" for a machine which is currently shut down).
>
>     Regards,
>
>     Michael
>     --
>     ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG   Michael Thayer
>     Werkstrasse 24                     VirtualBox engineering
>     71384 Weinstadt, Germany
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>


-- 
ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG   Michael Thayer
Werkstrasse 24                     VirtualBox engineering
71384 Weinstadt, Germany           mailto:michael.thayer at oracle.com

Hauptverwaltung: Riesstr. 25, D-80992 München
Registergericht: Amtsgericht München, HRA 95603

Komplementärin: ORACLE Deutschland Verwaltung B.V.
Hertogswetering 163/167, 3543 AS Utrecht, Niederlande
Handelsregister der Handelskammer Midden-Niederlande, Nr. 30143697
Geschäftsführer: Jürgen Kunz, Marcel van de Molen, Alexander van der Ven