VBoxHeadless - Running Virtual Machines With VirtualBox 4.0 On A Headless Debian Squeeze Server

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
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Last edited 05/09/2011

This guide explains how you can run virtual machines with VirtualBox 4.0 on a headless Debian Squeeze server. Normally you use the VirtualBox GUI to manage your virtual machines, but a server does not have a desktop environment. Fortunately, VirtualBox comes with a tool called VBoxHeadless that allows you to connect to the virtual machines over a remote desktop connection, so there's no need for the VirtualBox GUI.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

I have tested this on a Debian Squeeze server (host system) with the IP address 192.168.0.100 where I'm logged in as a normal user (user name administrator in this example) instead of as root.

If you only have a root account, but no normal user account, create one as follows (user administrator, group administrator)...

# groupadd administrator
# useradd -d /home/administrator -m -g administrator -s /bin/bash administrator

... create a password for the new user...

# passwd administrator

... and log in as that user.

2 Installing VirtualBox

To install VirtualBox 4.0 on our Debian Squeeze server, we need root privileges, therefore we run

$ su

Then we add the VirtualBox repository to our apt configuration:

# echo "deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian squeeze contrib non-free" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list

Then we download the VirtualBox public key...

# wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | apt-key add -

... and update our package database:

# apt-get update

Now we bring our system up to date:

# apt-get upgrade

(It is possible that the kernel gets updated. If this is the case, reboot the system...

# reboot

... log in as the normal user again and become root:

$ su

)

Afterwards, we install VirtualBox 4.0 as follows:

# apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential virtualbox-4.0 dkms

(The dkms package ensures that the VirtualBox host kernel modules are properly updated if the Linux kernel version changes.)

Starting with version 4.0, VirtualBox has introduced so called "extension packs" and has outsourced some functionality like remote desktop connection support (VRDP) that was part of VirtualBox packages before version 4.0 into these extension packs. Because we need remote desktop connections to control our virtual machines, we need to install the appropriate extension pack now. Go to http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads, and you will find a link to the following extension pack:

VirtualBox 4.0.6 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
Support for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards.

Download and install the extension pack as follows:

# cd /tmp
# wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.6/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack
# VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack

(Make sure you grab the latest version from the VirtualBox web site.)

(Make sure you run the last command with root privileges - # VBoxManage extpack install ... - because otherwise you will get an error like this:

administrator@server1:/tmp$ VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack
0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to install "/tmp/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.6-71344.vbox-extpack": The installer failed with exit code 127: Error creating textual authentication agent: Error opening current controlling terminal for the process (`/dev/tty'): No such device or address
administrator@server1:/tmp$

)

Now we must add the user that will run VirtualBox (administrator in this example) to the vboxusers group:

# adduser administrator vboxusers

VirtualBox is now installed and ready to be used.

Type

# exit

to leave the root account and become a normal user (administrator) again.

3 Using VirtualBox On The Command Line

3.1 Creating A VM

To create a VM on the command line, we can use the VBoxManage command. See

$ VBoxManage --help

for a list of available switches and (highly recommended!) take a look at http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html.

I will now create a Debian Squeeze Server VM with 512MB memory and a 10GB hard drive from the Debian Squeeze Netinstall iso image (which I have stored in /home/debian-6.0.1a-amd64-netinst.iso):

$ VBoxManage createvm --name "Debian Squeeze Server" --register
$ VBoxManage modifyvm "Debian Squeeze Server" --memory 512 --acpi on --boot1 dvd --nic1 bridged --bridgeadapter1 eth0
$ VBoxManage createhd --filename Debian_Squeeze_Server.vdi --size 10000
$ VBoxManage storagectl "Debian Squeeze Server" --name "IDE Controller" --add ide
$ VBoxManage storageattach "Debian Squeeze Server" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium Debian_Squeeze_Server.vdi
$ VBoxManage storageattach "Debian Squeeze Server" --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium /home/debian-6.0.1a-amd64-netinst.iso

3.2 Importing An Existing VM

Let's assume you have a VM called examplevm that you want to reuse on this host. On the old host, you should have a directory Machines/examplevm in the VirtualBox directory; Machines/examplevm should contain the examplevm.xml file. Copy the examplevm directory (including the examplevm.xml file) to your new Machines directory (if your user name is administrator, this is /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/Machines - the result should be /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/Machines/examplevm/examplevm.xml).

In addition to that copy the examplevm.vdi file from the old VDI directory to the new one (e.g. /home/administrator/.VirtualBox/VDI/examplevm.vdi).

Afterwards, you must register the imported VM:

$ VBoxManage registervm Machines/examplevm/examplevm.xml

3.3 Starting A VM With VBoxHeadless

Regardless of if you create a new VM or import an old one, you can start it with the command:

$ VBoxHeadless --startvm "Debian Squeeze Server"

(Replace Debian Squeeze Server with the name of your VM.)

VBoxHeadless will start the VM and a VRDP (VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol) server which allows you to see the VM's output remotely on another machine.

To stop a VM, run

$ VBoxManage controlvm "Debian Squeeze Server" poweroff

To pause a VM, run

$ VBoxManage controlvm "Debian Squeeze Server" pause

To reset a VM, run

$ VBoxManage controlvm "Debian Squeeze Server" reset

To learn more about VBoxHeadless, take a look at

$ VBoxHeadless --help

and at http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch07.html#vboxheadless.