[vbox-dev] witch VMs from foreground to background and vice versa

[Martin Simmons]

>>>>> On Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:20:12 +0100, Andrew Brehm said:
> 
> I would love a feature that would allow me to disconnect the
> VirtualBox GUI from a VM and reconnect it later, similar to the VRDP
> server but integrated into the GUI. (VRDP-based VMs running in the
> background cannot be controlled by the GUI at the moment.)
> 
> I am willing to offer a bounty for this feature on Mac OS X.
> 
> I have no idea how much work it would entail. I am willing to pay for
> development of this feature if someone of the VirtualBox team can tell
> me how much it would be and if the sum is still manageable.
> 
> VMware 2.x on the Mac had this feature unofficially. But it was removed in 3.0.
> 
> Basically I want to be able to start VMs in the GUI and then decide
> whether they should run on the desktop or in the background and
> likewise change that state for each VM at will.
> 
> If anyone will develop such a feature that works on all host platforms
> (or at least on Mac OS X), I am willing to pay for the time. Anyone
> interested please contact me (ajbrehm at gmail.com) so we can work out
> the details.
> 
> Any takers? Ideas?

You might achieve something like that by saving the vm state (either by
closing the GUI window and choosing the right option or by using VBoxManage
controlvm savestate).  The VM can then be restarted in headless mode using
VBoxManage startvm --type headless or in GUI mode from the main window.

That works for me on Linux (though sometimes open tcp sockets stop working).

__Martin