VRDP accessing the VB menu

[penguineer]

I am running several VMs in headless mode accessed only by VRDP remotely. I would like to mount and unmount host CD drives, host USB devices, and other options from the VB guest menu. However, I cannot find how to (or if it is even possible) to bring up the guest menu (Machine, Devices, etc) that I can bring up by pressing the right-ctrl+Home (or using the popup bar when full screen).

Can this menu be accessed when connected via VRDP remotely?

[Perryg]

Is it graphical or CLI?

[penguineer]

Sorry, I forgot to mention. I am running it headless on the host. Is that what you meant? I do have the VB graphical interface open on the host in order to display status of the VMs.

[Perryg]

Actually I was talking about the guest. Do they have desktops, are they graphical or are the in a text console?
If they are graphical then you should be able to vRDP in and have the ability to use the menu. If not then you would need to use the CLI to control the units manually mounting and unmounting.
You do not specify if the are Linux but I assume they are or we would not be having this conversation.

[penguineer]

The host is Ubuntu 8.04 Linux. The guests are Windows XP pro - graphical. When I am connected by VRDP and attempt to bring up the guest menu (Host key+Home) the menu does not appear, indicating that VRDP is apparently not capturing and passing the key press to the VM. I have the VB menu popup set to display when in full screen, but it does not appear when connected via VRDP even though if I run the VM locally on the host (not headless), it does appear there.

[Perryg]

You are correct. I just tried it again myself and they are not visible in vRDP, nor are they in RDP.
I will need to investigate this further. Normally I control these things using VBoxManage at the CLI

[Sasquatch]

Perry seems a bit confused on this subject. The whole menu will not be available on other display methods except for the main graphical program that you get when you open the VB GUI and start a VM from there. Since they are headless and you connect to them using VRDP, the menu won't show no matter what you try.

The only way to get the drives and devices to work, is to use the VBoxManage modifyvm command. E.g. to mount an ISO, use this command.

Code: Select all

VBoxManage modifyvm Windows --dvd /usr/share/virtualbox/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso

That will mount the GA to the VM. To unmount it, use this.

Code: Select all

VBoxManage modifyvm Windows --dvd none

See the VBoxManage section in the manual and the command line output help for more information.

[Perryg]

Like I said I usually use the VBoxManage myself, but I could have swore that the menu was visible in the vRDP/RDP window at least some time ago. I guess I was mistaken though.

[penguineer]

Thanks all. Unfortunately, the normal users would be challenged enough by merely using the menu. Trying to get them to do the command line would be a killer.

I think I may be able to mount the CD drive on all of the machines by default (in configuration), but I imagine that may cause trouble if more than one VM is running and more than one try to access the drive at the same time (especially writing to it).

[Sasquatch]

You can mount an ISO (maybe the physical drive too) multiple times on different VMs and have them all running at the same time. But writing to it requires the physical drive in passthrough mode and that, as you state, is not a desired option.
USB cannot be mounted on several VMs at the same time.