How do you access headless vm?

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Linux hosts.
ITSM Guy
Posts: 13
Joined: 3. Oct 2021, 23:39

Re: How do you access headless vm?

Post by ITSM Guy »

10.0.0.5 is NOT the ip address.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: How do you access headless vm?

Post by scottgus1 »

Thanks muchly!
ITSM Guy wrote:6.1.26_RPMFusionr145957
Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
Version:      6.1.26
ITSM Guy wrote:      <RemoteDisplay enabled="true">
        <VRDEProperties>
          <Property name="TCP/Address" value="10.0.0.5"/>
          <Property name="TCP/Ports" value="5001"/>
        </VRDEProperties>
      </RemoteDisplay>
"TCP/Address" is not necessary. None of my successfully RDP-able VMs have this property. Try removing it.
Curiously enough, adding the 'Address' does not appear to be in the tutorial posted in the OP. The manual has this on this property:
For TCP/Address, <value> should be the IP address of the host network interface that the VRDE server will bind to. If specified, the server will accept connections only on the specified host network interface.
So this would have been the PC's IP address, not trying to force the VM's address. And it would be blocking RDP, since 10.0.0.5 <> 10.0.0.11. Time to kill that property. I suspect that:
vboxmanage modifyvm "VM name" --vrdeproperty "TCP/Address"
with no value should kill it.

Port 5001 is the only Virtualbox RDP port the VM will listen on. 3389, 5000 and 5002 are not going to work for RDP to Virtualbox's RDP with the present setting.

Just to be sure it's clear, the Virtualbox RDP server that this VM's port 5001 is listening on is not inside the VM. It is served from the host.

The host LAN or loopback IP address are the only IP addresses that will work to access the Virtualbox RDP server. Null authentication will allow connections without authentication.

So the only ways to access the Virtualbox RDP server for the running VM on your present 10.0.0.11 host are:

RDP from the host OS itself:
127.0.0.1:5001
localhost:5001 (if your host OS points 'localhost' at 127.0.0.1)

RDP from other LAN computers:
10.0.0.11:5001 (with port 5001 open in the host OS's firewall)

If none of these works, then there is something non-Virtualbox interfering.
ITSM Guy
Posts: 13
Joined: 3. Oct 2021, 23:39

Re: How do you access headless vm?

Post by ITSM Guy »

That was it! I wasn't able to "unset" the TCP/IP Address value but I did just remove that tag from the file and I am able to xfreerdp /v:localhost:5001 Thanks for your help. While I was waiting to fix this, I just configured it, exported it and imported it on the headless server but I still wasn't able to access it bc I didn't set a static IP before transferring it, smh. Now that doesn't matter. And now I can free up the resources on my desktop. Much appreciated!

Now off to work on Samba AD DC.
fth0
Volunteer
Posts: 5668
Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
Location: Germany

Re: How do you access headless vm?

Post by fth0 »

ITSM Guy wrote:10.0.0.5 is NOT the ip address.
Yes, this is exactly where your problem lies. You've configured VirtualBox on your host to listen to incoming RDP connections with the destination IP address 10.0.0.5 only, but none of the network interfaces of your host have this IP address assigned to them. In consequence, you cannot start a RDP session from anywhere that is able to reach this RDP service.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: How do you access headless vm?

Post by scottgus1 »

Nice! Glad you're up and running!
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