Display Guest IP Address in Title Bar of VBox Guest Window

[boktai1000]

Hello,

I have been looking for a way to do this through VitualBox and haven't found out how to do it as well as after searching I don't believe this to be a currently implemented feature, so consider this my feature request.

At a glance, I would like to be able to see the IP Address of a Guest VM from the Title Bar of the window for the respective guest.

I assume this could have a negative UX impact if there are say multiple IP Addresses, or interfaces, etc. Maybe allow this to be customizable- I would assume that in most cases the first listed IP address would probably solve most use cases where someone would find this useful (probably only using a single IPv4/IPv6 address).

Thank you for taking the time to read my feature request! There are probably ways to improve upon this, and maybe if you have some ideas on how to make this better I would love to hear it. I also personally would like to be able to quickly find at a glance the IP Address without having the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager window open and up and running, so please keep that in mind.

[socratis]

As you noted there might be usability issues with this. For example, on OSX, there's no title bar and you'd have to go to the menu "Window" to see a list of all the available open windows, and you wouldn't be able to quickly see which is which.

There is although another way to quickly see what you're looking for; hovering over the network icon in the status bar (), will give you a tooltip with all the available NICs, attached to, IPs, and connection state that are known to VirtualBox.

For example, if I hover over the icon for a Mint VM that I have, I get:

Adapter 1 (Host-Only Adapter)
IP:       192.168.20.124
Cable:    Connected
Adapter 2 (Internal Network)
IP:       192.168.30.110
Cable:    Connected
Adapter 3 (NAT Network)
IP:       192.168.40.107
Cable:    Connected
Adapter 4 (Bridged Adapter)
IP:       10.0.0.109
Cable:    Connected

[DenisF]

Hello,
And when we are in full screen mode, this status bar should be shown in minitoolbar as asked in:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=55668

[michaln]

"Guest IP address" is a pretty ill-defined concept. For one thing, a guest may have no IP address, or it may have several.

Such a feature would also be a bit less than useful for VMs using NAT (and again, a VM may have multiple NICs, some using NAT and some not).

[socratis]

And @DenisF, please do not hijack other threads. The next time I'm going to simply remove your message.

[boktai1000]

Ultimately I'm looking for a quick way at a glance to identify known IPs, ideally without having to log into the VM and run a command or check within the guest.

If hovering over the status bar icon is the best it's going to get, so be it! I thought I'd thrown my idea into the hat but I was aware of the possible negative UX implications. I still think it would be neat, but at some point I do understand that not everything under the sun should be that customizable.

Either way, appreciate your reply, suggestion, and taking the time to read my idea and thoughts.

[rf28723]

Disclaimer: is this considered hijacking, should I create a new topic, or can I safely reply in support of boktai1000's suggestion ?

Could we somehow implement this, not in the VBox Guest Window , but in the VirtualBox Manager GUI ?
In my guests, it appears on adapter 1 gets populated.
Why not add a field to the VM's settings window, it already shows -everything- for each adapter , bar the used IP address.
Technically, it should not be too difficult to add the output of "vboxmanage guestproperty get <vm> /VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/<adapternumber>/V[46]/IP" to it ?

Hope this will be considered for implementation.

Thanks,
Rene

[socratis]

is this considered hijacking, should I create a new topic, or can I safely reply in support of boktai1000's suggestion?

René, if you had created a new topic, you would have forced me to merge it with the thread from "boktai1000", and no, it's not hijacking because it talks about the exact same subject, it's the perfect choice!

But, I already mentioned how this is already covered. What you're suggesting maybe useful in your case, but it's "too much information" for everyone else that couldn't care less what their IP is:

There is although another way to quickly see what you're looking for; hovering over the network icon in the status bar (), will give you a tooltip with all the available NICs, attached to, IPs, and connection state that are known to VirtualBox.

[rf28723]

ok, no new functionality. sometimes my VMs GUI is bust, in which case I need to SSH , for which I need the IP.
Either way, the existing functionality you refer to is broken. o
In my environment only adapter 1 shows the IP, adapter 2 and 3 do not show their IP.


Cheers,
René

[socratis]

René,
What you're proposing is not going to happen. So, you got to find another solution to your specific problem. A suggestion to modify unsuccessfully the GUI, just because you're facing an issue, is never going to fly.

Try with:

• 
  VBoxManage guestproperty enumerate

but now we're getting away from the Suggestions sphere. If you have a specific problem, open a new thread.

[rf28723]

You’re right. Sorry. Raised new topic