Install VirtualBox on server without GUI

[Anubite]

Please help me .
Can I install VirtualBox on Ubuntu Server 10.04.1 LTS 64bit ??
When I follow this tutorial

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http://www.howtoforge.com/vboxheadless-running-virtual-machines-with-virtualbox-4.0-on-a-headless-ubuntu-10.10-server

Install with virtualbox-4.0 all GUI cca 580 Mb ?
I don't want install GUI only for virtualbox....

Has anybody a solution ?
Thanks

[airvb]

Even if it's in french, maybe it can help you !

http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=439063

[Anubite]

Even if it's in french, maybe it can help you !

http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?id=439063

This tutorial describe : create and run vm machine on CLI .
I need tutorial when desctibe install virtualbox on server without gui.

Thanks

[williamx]

OK I done a similar setup some weeks ago. In my case I used Ubuntu server 10.10LTS 32bit but it should work also with 64bit.

I used a second PC to do all the setup remotely. when installing the server I also installed OpenSSH on it so i can access the server from my second computer with an SSH client (i used putty). However you can do all the setup at the tty1-6 of the server locally.

First you need to install some dependencies

dkms
build-essential
linux-headers-"yourversion here" (to know your version type "uname -r")

in my case it is 2.6.35-22-generic

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uname -r
2.6.35-22-generic

To install dependencies

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sudo apt-get install dkms build-essential linux-headers-2.6.35-22-generic

Now from my second computer I open my web browser, went to virtualbox.org, click on downloads, linux, and right click on the one corresponding to my linux (in my case is Ubuntu 10.10 maverik i386) and copy the link. Now open putty, ssh to the server, authenticate. Now type wget space and paste the link previously copied, hit enter.

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wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.0/virtualbox-4.0_4.0.0-69151~Ubuntu~maverick_i386.deb 

Now install virtualbox 4.0.0

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sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-4.0_4.0.0-69151~Ubuntu~maverick_i386.deb

if it ask for some dependencies do the following: (perryg was helping me to complete my setup and he recommend me to use the "--nox11" when installing virtualbox but I didn't have that right so I installed all the dependencies and it works)
If you know how to put --nox11 good luck if not the do the following, this will install some X packages but they will be ignored.

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sudo apt-get -f install

edited :: When you run "sudo apt-get -f install" it should install the dependencies and then virtualbox setup, If the VBox setup does not Start.
Then run the installation again.

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sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-4.0_4.0.0-69151~Ubuntu~maverick_i386.deb

After that you have Virtualbox headless installed but you need to add the Extension Pack in order to have vrde and usb support.

First download the Extension Pack

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wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.0.2/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.2-69518.vbox-extpack

(note that this link is for the 4.0.2 and I installed the 4.0.0, this is only informational you should change all of the command according with your linux version and VirtualBox version that you want to install. So if you install Vbox 4.0.0 you should install ExtcPack 4.0.0 or if you install VBox 4.0.2 you should install ExtcPack 4.0.2).

to install it type: VBoxManage extpack install "the name of the extension Pack file"
for example

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VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.2-69518.vbox-extpack

Now yo can create configure and add vrde capabilities to your VMs.

Hope this helps.

[Anubite]

RE : williamx

Thanks for tutorial. This solved my problem !!!!!!

It`s work wery well .

p.s. : switch --nox11 where I use it?

[williamx]

The --nox11 switch was a recommendation that the moderators give my to avoid the installation of the X package but I never find the way to put it so don't worrie about it, anyways I think that that switch is deprecated.

[Perryg]

It's not deprecated. Run the install with --help after to see the CLI switches.
--nox11 tells the installer to not spawn xterm. You still get visual errors but the install should finish and work without the need to install X server and its dependencies. The pre-compiled version of VirtualBox is built with all of the bells and whistles and since servers don't usually have all of these services it makes it a little harder.

You can actually build your own version of VirtualBox without any of the dependencies. I have several tutorials here Building VirtualBox and am working on a build for servers now. This should be up by next week.

[williamx]

Thanks for you explanation perryg, I see it is not deprecated then I just didn't find how to place it on the installation command. I will try to build my own VBox on my next education project, I will let you know how it goes.

[dimitris]

working on a build for servers now. This should be up by next week.

Please excuse the perhaps dumb question: Do you mean that there will be packages available at, for example, the "standard" debian-oriented repositories on download.virtualbox.org for headless installs?

After I updated my Ubuntu server's sources.list and ran aptitude update, I tried to upgrade from 3.2.12 to 4.0.2. In addition to removing 3.2.12 as expected, aptitude wants to install 180 new, mostly UI, packages. 'aptitude show' lists identical dependencies for 3.2.12 and 4.0.2. Did the dependencies on 4.0.2 and 3.2.12 debian packages change with the move from non-free to contrib (for debian-based distributions)?

I'm asking this because I don't remember doing anything special to avoid pulling in UI dependencies when installing 3.x on that server.

Thanks

D.

[dimitris]

After I updated my Ubuntu server's sources.list and ran aptitude update, I tried to upgrade from 3.2.12 to 4.0.2. In addition to removing 3.2.12 as expected, aptitude wants to install 180 new, mostly UI, packages.

Well, I now know this was a dumb question. I just rediscovered aptitude's -R switch (do not treat recommends as dependencies):

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d@greebo:~$ sudo aptitude -R install virtualbox-4.0 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information      
Initializing package states... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  virtualbox-4.0 
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  virtualbox-3.2{a} 
The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
  epdfview evince gv libpulse0 libsdl-ttf2.0-0 okular viewpdf.app xpdf-reader xpdf-utils 
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 57.9MB of archives. After unpacking 13.9MB will be used.

Sorry about the noise.

[Perryg]

Nope. I create these builds and put up instructions so you can actually build your own.
It's a fairly easy task and you get what you want. Only thing that you need to remember is while you do not need X to be able to use VirtualBox headless, you need some x common libraries to be able to support a guest that does have X or some other type of desktop.

I have managed to create the build but it takes a lot of tweaking to get the amount of depends just right, so it may be a while longer.

[biggbuoy]

After reading the above post I am about to embark on the journey... I have a question though... how will I access the virtual machines when I have installed them? If say for example I have installed Windows 7 on a virtualmachine, how do I access it from my sever? I would presume I need some sort of remote desktop solution? Look forward to the replies,

Regards,

Biggbuoy.

[Perryg]

Since all servers have no desktop (x11). You run the guests headless and access them via RDP/vRDP, VNC, SSH, Etc.