How do I auto starting a vm?

[TerryE]

You can redirect port 80 on Windows hosts but not Linux. However, one way to get around this is to use a Host IF bridged rather than NAT.

[Ram]

Terry, as I understand that restriction is with VB not Linux. I should be able to do the forwarding YaST on the Host OS. Once I've tried a few different configs at redirecting port 80 to port 80, I'll have ago at doing 8080 to 80.

I am using Host not NAT networking and playing with the NICs to see what I can and can't do

[TerryE]

I understand that restriction is with VB not Linux.

Not quite: only root processes can connect to ports <1000 and VB was designed to run as a user mode process.

[Ram]

I understand that restriction is with VB not Linux.

Not quite: only root processes can connect to ports <1000 and VB was designed to run as a user mode process.

That makes sense. Howerver, I'd have thought that setting the routing/forwarding in YaST would have been sufficient. The basic rule in YaST would be source IP/Port redirected to Dest IP/Port which to my thinking would take place before VB gets involved. So incoming requests from the internet:80 get push it to the VMs assigned IP:80.

But alas I failed to get it working , that could because of the firewall. As I tried NAT as per the manual and have it partially working using the external IP from the LAN, it does not work from the internet yet. Need to look at the firewall again.

Edit
Network side sorted, I had to place a forward from External NIC to Internal NIC so in fact it's using 3 IPs in total.

[Ram]

For the start, put this in a script that is executed on boot, so it runs with root privileges.

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su -u <your username> VBoxHeadless -startvm <vmname> -p <vrdp port to listen to>

That should do it, but I can't give you a guarantee that it works. The VM will be accessible through RDP if you want. See VBoxHeadless --help for more info, and the manual too.

Not tried to auto start via a script yet but have it running headless after login out of the host, issue the following from a cmd line then logout.

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nohup VBoxHeadless -startvm <vmname> 

Need to read up on vrdp not,

Thanks Guys.

Ram

[Max Rebo]

I'd like to have a vm auto start when my host is rebooted so I don't to login into my server and start it.

Is this possible?

I am running openSUSE11 with the 2.1 VB

I use the following to auto-start my VM(s) during linux boot. You can't just use boot.local because some required services might not be available when boot.local is executed. This is running under openSuSE 10.3 running VirtualBox OSE 2.0.4 . This handles startup of the guest on boot of the host and stopping of the guest (savestate) on shutdown of the host.

Put the following script in file ~someuser/Documents/virtualbox.conf and symbolically link it to /etc/sysconfig/vboxstart . You have to edit this file to point to the VirtualBox VMs you want to start (two lines of text per machine).

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## Path:        ~someuser/vboxstart.conf
## Description: VirtualBox Virtual Machines to autostart on linux boot
## Type:        string
## Default:     vboxstart
## ServiceReload: vboxstart
## ServiceRestart: vboxstart
#
IDENT="vboxstart"
## Type:        string
## Default:     "vboxstart daemon"
DESCRIPTIVE="vboxstart VirtualBox boot daemon"
## Type:        string
## Default:     ""
#
# Clear the arrays for the VM and VMUSER definitions.
unset VM VMUSER
# Define VirtualBox VMs (by UUID) to start and their linux user owners
# When properly defined here these VirtualBox VMs will be started at system
# boot and run in the background.  When linux is shut down the current state
# of the Virtual Machines will be saved and the VMs shut down.  Make sure
# the VMs and VMUSERs are defined in pairs so that each machine is paired with
# its linux owner.  Copy the following line pair and append it to the end of
# this file to add each Virtual Machine to be started during the boot process.
# To get the UUID for a VirtualBox VM, type the following command:
#    VBoxManage list vms
#VM=("${VM[@]}" "[VirtualBox Virtual Machine UUID]")
#VMUSER=("${VMUSER[@]}" "VM-Owner")
VM=("${VM[@]}" "330cd373-2201-4437-6634-998837cb2c5a")
VMUSER=("${VMUSER[@]}" "someuser")
VM=("${VM[@]}" "[UUID for second VM]")
VMUSER=("${VMUSER[@]}" "[owner for second VM]")

Put the following script in file ~someuser/Documents/virtualbox and symbolically link it to /etc/init.d/vboxstart . This is based on the /etc/init.d/skeleton template file for services.

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#!/bin/sh
#
#     Template SUSE system startup script for example service/daemon vbstart
#     Copyright (C) 1995--2005  Kurt Garloff, SUSE / Novell Inc.
#          
#     This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
#     under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
#     the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at
#     your option) any later version.
#			      
#     This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
#     WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#     MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
#     Lesser General Public License for more details.
#      
#     You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
#     License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
#     Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307,
#     USA.
#
# /etc/init.d/vboxstart
#   and its symbolic link
# /(usr/)sbin/vboxstart
#
# Template system startup script for some example service/daemon FOO
#
# LSB compatible service control script; see http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/
# 
# Note: This template uses functions rc_XXX defined in /etc/rc.status on
# UnitedLinux/SUSE/Novell based Linux distributions. If you want to base your
# script on this template and ensure that it works on non UL based LSB 
# compliant Linux distributions, you either have to provide the rc.status
# functions from UL or change the script to work without them.
# See skeleton.compat for a template that works with other distros as well.
#
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          vboxstart
# Required-Start:    vboxdrv
# Required-Stop:     vboxdrv
# Default-Start:     3 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 2 6
# Short-Description: VirtualBox autostart VM
# Description:       Start VirtualBox Machine on System Boot
### END INIT INFO
# 
# Any extensions to the keywords given above should be preceeded by 
# X-VendorTag- (X-UnitedLinux- X-SuSE- for us) according to LSB.
# 
# Notes on Required-Start/Should-Start:
# * There are two different issues that are solved by Required-Start
#    and Should-Start
# (a) Hard dependencies: This is used by the runlevel editor to determine
#     which services absolutely need to be started to make the start of
#     this service make sense. Example: nfsserver should have
#     Required-Start: $portmap
#     Also, required services are started before the dependent ones.
#     The runlevel editor will warn about such missing hard dependencies
#     and suggest enabling. During system startup, you may expect an error,
#     if the dependency is not fulfilled.
# (b) Specifying the init script ordering, not real (hard) dependencies.
#     This is needed by insserv to determine which service should be
#     started first (and at a later stage what services can be started
#     in parallel). The tag Should-Start: is used for this.
#     It tells, that if a service is available, it should be started
#     before. If not, never mind.
# * When specifying hard dependencies or ordering requirements, you can 
#   use names of services (contents of their Provides: section)
#   or pseudo names starting with a $. The following ones are available
#   according to LSB (1.1):
#	$local_fs		all local file systems are mounted
#				(most services should need this!)
#	$remote_fs		all remote file systems are mounted
#				(note that /usr may be remote, so
#				 many services should Require this!)
#	$syslog			system logging facility up
#	$network		low level networking (eth card, ...)
#	$named			hostname resolution available
#	$netdaemons		all network daemons are running
#   The $netdaemons pseudo service has been removed in LSB 1.2.
#   For now, we still offer it for backward compatibility.
#   These are new (LSB 1.2):
#	$time			the system time has been set correctly	
#	$portmap		SunRPC portmapping service available
#   UnitedLinux extensions:
#	$ALL			indicates that a script should be inserted
#				at the end
# * The services specified in the stop tags 
#   (Required-Stop/Should-Stop)
#   specify which services need to be still running when this service
#   is shut down. Often the entries there are just copies or a subset 
#   from the respective start tag.
# * Should-Start/Stop are now part of LSB as of 2.0,
#   formerly SUSE/Unitedlinux used X-UnitedLinux-Should-Start/-Stop.
#   insserv does support both variants.
# * X-UnitedLinux-Default-Enabled: yes/no is used at installation time
#   (%fillup_and_insserv macro in %post of many RPMs) to specify whether
#   a startup script should default to be enabled after installation.
#   It's not used by insserv.
#
# Note on runlevels:
# 0 - halt/poweroff 			6 - reboot
# 1 - single user			2 - multiuser without network exported
# 3 - multiuser w/ network (text mode)  5 - multiuser w/ network and X11 (xdm)
# 
# Note on script names:
# http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/refspecs/LSB_1.3.0/gLSB/gLSB/scrptnames.html
# A registry has been set up to manage the init script namespace.
# http://www.lanana.org/
# Please use the names already registered or register one or use a
# vendor prefix.


# Check for missing binaries (stale symlinks should not happen)
# Note: Special treatment of stop for LSB conformance
#FOO_BIN=/usr/sbin/vboxstart
FOO_BIN=/etc/init.d/vboxstart
test -x $FOO_BIN || { echo "$FOO_BIN not installed"; 
	if [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then exit 0;
	else exit 5; fi; }

# Check for existence of needed config file and read it
#FOO_CONFIG=/etc/sysconfig/vboxstart.conf
FOO_CONFIG=/etc/sysconfig/vboxstart
test -r $FOO_CONFIG || { echo "$FOO_CONFIG not existing";
	if [ "$1" = "stop" ]; then exit 0;
	else exit 6; fi; }

# Read config	
. $FOO_CONFIG

# Source LSB init functions
# providing start_daemon, killproc, pidofproc, 
# log_success_msg, log_failure_msg and log_warning_msg.
# This is currently not used by UnitedLinux based distributions and
# not needed for init scripts for UnitedLinux only. If it is used,
# the functions from rc.status should not be sourced or used.
#. /lib/lsb/init-functions

# Shell functions sourced from /etc/rc.status:
#      rc_check         check and set local and overall rc status
#      rc_status        check and set local and overall rc status
#      rc_status -v     be verbose in local rc status and clear it afterwards
#      rc_status -v -r  ditto and clear both the local and overall rc status
#      rc_status -s     display "skipped" and exit with status 3
#      rc_status -u     display "unused" and exit with status 3
#      rc_failed        set local and overall rc status to failed
#      rc_failed <num>  set local and overall rc status to <num>
#      rc_reset         clear both the local and overall rc status
#      rc_exit          exit appropriate to overall rc status
#      rc_active        checks whether a service is activated by symlinks
. /etc/rc.status

# Reset status of this service
rc_reset

# Return values acc. to LSB for all commands but status:
# 0	  - success
# 1       - generic or unspecified error
# 2       - invalid or excess argument(s)
# 3       - unimplemented feature (e.g. "reload")
# 4       - user had insufficient privileges
# 5       - program is not installed
# 6       - program is not configured
# 7       - program is not running
# 8--199  - reserved (8--99 LSB, 100--149 distrib, 150--199 appl)
# 
# Note that starting an already running service, stopping
# or restarting a not-running service as well as the restart
# with force-reload (in case signaling is not supported) are
# considered a success.

case "$1" in
    start)
        cat /dev/null >/tmp/VirtualBox.Start
        cat /dev/null >/tmp/VirtualBox.Stop
	echo -n "Starting vboxstart "
        for((i=0;i<${#VM[@]};i++)); do
		sudo -b -u ${VMUSER[$i]} -i VBoxHeadless --startvm ${VM[$i]} >>/tmp/VirtualBox.Start 2>&1
	done
	## Start daemon with startproc(8). If this fails
	## the return value is set appropriately by startproc.
	#/sbin/startproc $FOO_BIN

	# Remember status and be verbose
	rc_status -v
	;;
    stop)
	echo -n "Shutting down vboxstart "
	## Stop daemon with killproc(8) and if this fails
	## killproc sets the return value according to LSB.

	#/sbin/killproc -TERM $FOO_BIN
        for((i=0;i<${#VM[@]};i++)); do
		sudo -u ${VMUSER[$i]} -i VBoxManage controlvm ${VM[$i]} savestate >>/tmp/VirtualBox.Stop 2>&1
	done

	# Remember status and be verbose
	rc_status -v
	;;
    try-restart|condrestart)
	## Do a restart only if the service was active before.
	## Note: try-restart is now part of LSB (as of 1.9).
	## RH has a similar command named condrestart.
	if test "$1" = "condrestart"; then
		echo "${attn} Use try-restart ${done}(LSB)${attn} rather than condrestart ${warn}(RH)${norm}"
	fi
	$0 status
	if test $? = 0; then
		$0 restart
	else
		rc_reset	# Not running is not a failure.
	fi
	# Remember status and be quiet
	rc_status
	;;
    restart)
	## Stop the service and regardless of whether it was
	## running or not, start it again.
	$0 stop
	$0 start

	# Remember status and be quiet
	rc_status
	;;
    force-reload)
	## Signal the daemon to reload its config. Most daemons
	## do this on signal 1 (SIGHUP).
	## If it does not support it, restart the service if it
	## is running.

	echo -n "Reload service vboxstart "
	## if it supports it:
	/sbin/killproc -HUP $FOO_BIN
	#touch /var/run/FOO.pid
	rc_status -v

	## Otherwise:
	#$0 try-restart
	#rc_status
	;;
    reload)
	## Like force-reload, but if daemon does not support
	## signaling, do nothing (!)

	# If it supports signaling:
	echo -n "Reload service vboxstart "
	/sbin/killproc -HUP $FOO_BIN
	#touch /var/run/FOO.pid
	rc_status -v
	
	## Otherwise if it does not support reload:
	#rc_failed 3
	#rc_status -v
	;;
    status)
	echo -n "Checking for service vboxstart "
	## Check status with checkproc(8), if process is running
	## checkproc will return with exit status 0.

	# Return value is slightly different for the status command:
	# 0 - service up and running
	# 1 - service dead, but /var/run/  pid  file exists
	# 2 - service dead, but /var/lock/ lock file exists
	# 3 - service not running (unused)
	# 4 - service status unknown :-(
	# 5--199 reserved (5--99 LSB, 100--149 distro, 150--199 appl.)
	
	# NOTE: checkproc returns LSB compliant status values.
	/sbin/checkproc $FOO_BIN
	# NOTE: rc_status knows that we called this init script with
	# "status" option and adapts its messages accordingly.
	rc_status -v
	;;
    probe)
	## Optional: Probe for the necessity of a reload, print out the
	## argument to this init script which is required for a reload.
	## Note: probe is not (yet) part of LSB (as of 1.9)

	test /etc/FOO/FOO.conf -nt /var/run/FOO.pid && echo reload
	;;
    *)
	echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|try-restart|restart|force-reload|reload|probe}"
	exit 1
	;;
esac
rc_exit

As root do the following:

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cd /etc/init.d
insserv vboxstart

This will insert the service into the boot process of the linux box running openSuSE10.3 . I would hope things are still the same for version 11.

You can test the script by typing "/etc/init.d/vboxstart start" . You can replace start parameter with stop or restart. This runs the VMs in the background. Use VBoxManage to control VMs. Use VNC to use the VMs.

The VirtualBox guest will start upon boot-up and be safely closed (via savestate) during shutdown of the host. This makes for a faster shutdown and subsequent restart.

I have vncserver running on the guest. When I have done a "/etc/init.d/vboxstart restart" the tightvnc session I have attached to the guest does not notice the short amount of time that the guest is down.

I have probably not dotted all of my i's and crossed all of my t's but it works well for me. It is resiliant as it needs to be for my purposes. I have only added changes for the start|stop portion of the service script and am still researching how this really needs to be done correctly (using startproc).

I would appreciate hearing about any simple improvements that can be made.

[heikowtb]

First let me thank you for your script an explanations, that is exactly what I was looking for for two nights.

Unfortuantely it does not work "out-of-the-box", here is what I have done under OpenSuse 11.1:

- The symlink at /etc/sysconfig should be named "vboxstart"
- The symlink at /etc/sysconfig should be also named "vboxstart"

After renaming the symlinks, the scripts works fine when called as root, starting, stopping and restarting works.

When shutting down the system, it also works, the vm is saved.

Unfortunately it does not work when starting the box. Output in /tmp/virtualbox.start:

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VirtualBox Headless Interface 2.1.0
(C) 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved

Listening on port 3389
Error: failed to start machine. Error message: Cannot open host device '/dev/sr0' for readonly access. Check the permissions of that device ('/bin/ls -l /dev/sr0'): Most probably you need to be member of the device group. Make sure that
you logout/login after changing the group settings of the current user (VERR_ACCESS_DENIED).
Unknown error creating VM (VERR_ACCESS_DENIED)

/dev/sr0 ist the DVD in my box. I had to add my user to the group "disk" and now it works!

Thank you again for the work!

Regards,
Heiko

[Max Rebo]

Heiko,

Thanks for the review. I edited my post to fix the filenames that I listed in error. I posted this after I had it working on my linux box, and I totally missed my typos.

I am glad it works so well for you, I find it great.

I do need to properly change the init.d/vboxstart script but for now it works just fine for its narrow purposes. I will post my changes when I feel I have done them as proscribed and they are tested.