Starting a Virtual Machine in Jenkins via batch script causes immediate crash and result in aborted state

[MTaylor]

Symptom

Whenever I try and start a VM from the Execute Windows Batch Command inside a freestyle Jenkins job, my VM immediately crashes.

Details

Trying to execute a batch script inside a Jenkins job that starts a Virtual Machine via a batch script will immediately crash and go to the aborted state.

However, the same exact batch script can be ran by the host machine with the same variable and parameters perfectly fine manually.

Also another workaround is to have the Virtual Box GUI interface open and running and the VM will seem to start.

Is this a permissions issue?

Steps to be able to duplicate the bug

1. Have an instance of Jenkins running on the host machine.
2. Create a freestyle Job that will allow you to execute Windows batch scripts
3. Then create a batch script as such

cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"
VBoxManage.exe "Name_OF_VM"

4. save and build the job
5. Observer that it starts up but then immediately crashes and goes to the abort state.

Versions Affected

• Windows 8.1 64-bit (Host and Guest)
• Version 4.3.22

Workaround

Please see Details for any workarounds at the moment.