VBoxHeadless in 10.6

[MacJL]

Before upgrading to Snow Leopard, I could launch VM in Headless mode by ssh with a not graphically logged user via the command :

Code: Select all

VboxManage startvm Toto -type vrdp

Now in 10.6, when I do that command by ssh with a not logged user, I have this message :

Code: Select all

VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.0.4
(C) 2005-2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Waiting for the remote session to open...
Remote session has been successfully opened.
Tue Sep  1 10:23:17 BatCha-Serveur.local VBoxManage[281] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.

If the user is graphically logged, no problem with Headless VMs. But when the session is closed, all running headless VMs are killed. Any ideas?

[Sasquatch]

it's the same reason as when you do it on Linux. All the processes that you start from SSH are forked from one process, the connection. If you close that connection, the parent process is killed and the whole child tree goes with it. I'm guessing that this is new in SL compared to previous versions of Mac OS X. You can try it with VBoxHeadless instead of VBoxManage to see if the VM keeps running. Else run the VM through a screen session, which is kept through SSH and local use, as long as you detach it properly. You can resume screen sessions so you can continue with where you were.

[mcptron]

i've got the same problem with the

VBoxManage[744] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.

error message on 10.6.1 server with vb 3.0.6

unfortunately this means that i need a console autologon for the vbox user inside which the vm runs to start the vm at host startup time. will this issue be fixed at some release so that headless mode without graphical session will be possible under osx 10.6 again?

thx & rg.
michael

Edit: : i've created now an issue for the error message: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/5002

[poetzsch]

The problem is fixed in SVN & the fix will be included in the next minor release.

[ae3265]

I think I'm seeing the same or related thing with VB 3.0.8 on SL 10.6.1.

When I create the launchagent to fire up my VM's, I get the same error. Is this supposed to be fixed in 3.0.8, or 3.0.9?

Thanks!

[tcorning]

The processes under your ssh session are getting killed, as Sasquatch mentioned. But this may depend on what your default shell is.

If you prepend "nohup" to your command, it should allow the VM to continue after the ssh session logs out. For example:

$ nohup VboxManage startvm Toto -type vrdp &

This makes the forked process ignore the "SIGHUP" signal that is sent to the child processes when you log off. Note that some shells (tcsh, for example) automatically set children to ignore SIGHUP so "nohup" may not be needed. However bash and sh would need it.

Hope this helps.

Ted