virtualbox.org

hi all,

I searched long time the web, found multiple messages about the possibility to run a Windows guest inside Virtualbox in headless mode (which seams no problem) but I am not at that stage yet :

I try to have a A-Z procedure to create a VBox VM for Windows-7 guest O/S. These are the commands I run so far :


VBoxManage createvm -name "Win7guest" -register -ostype "Windows7"
VBoxManage modifyvm "Win7guest" --memory "512" --acpi on --boot1 dvd --vrdpport 3389
VBoxManage modifyvm "Win7guest" --cableconnected1 on --nic1 bridged --nictype1 82543GC --bridgeadapter1 bge0
VBoxManage createhd --filename /virtualbox/Win7guest.vdi --size 10000 --format VDI --variant Standard --remember
VBoxManage storagectl Win7guest --name "IDE Controller" --add ide
VBoxManage storageattach Win7guest --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium /virtualbox/Win7guest.vdi
VBoxManage openmedium dvd /tmp/Windows7ProfX86-32bit.iso
VBoxManage storageattach Win7guest --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 0 --device 1 --type dvddrive --medium /tmp/Windows7ProfX86-32bit.iso

So far so good, the resulting VM is as follows :

Name: Win7guest
Guest OS: Windows 7
UUID: 2c3b0245-9e9c-4d20-b17c-b4c4d6f16ad2
Config file: /.VirtualBox/Machines/Win7guest/Win7guest.xml
Hardware UUID: 2c3b0245-9e9c-4d20-b17c-b4c4d6f16ad2
Memory size: 512MB
Page Fusion: off
VRAM size: 8MB
HPET: off
Number of CPUs: 1
Synthetic Cpu: off
CPUID overrides: None
Boot menu mode: message and menu
Boot Device (1): DVD
Boot Device (2): DVD
Boot Device (3): HardDisk
Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
ACPI: on
IOAPIC: off
PAE: on
Time offset: 0 ms
RTC: local time
Hardw. virt.ext: on
Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
Nested Paging: on
Large Pages: off
VT-x VPID: on
State: powered off (since 2010-09-27T23:28:35.000000000)
Monitor count: 1
3D Acceleration: off
Teleporter Enabled: off
Teleporter Port: 0
Teleporter Address:
Teleporter Password:
Storage Controller Name (0): IDE Controller
Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
Storage Controller Instance Number (0): 0
Storage Controller Max Port Count (0): 2
Storage Controller Port Count (0): 2
IDE Controller (0, 0): /virtualbox/Win7guest.vdi (UUID: 2143faff-55e4-49ad-a38b-5e23da642b9e)
IDE Controller (0, 1): /tmp/Windows7ProfX86-32bit.iso (UUID: e1263dba-37a6-4d01-9a25-50d8e5b20f56)
NIC 1: MAC: 080027B62BBA, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'bge0', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82543GC, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0
NIC 2: disabled
NIC 3: disabled
NIC 4: disabled
NIC 5: disabled
NIC 6: disabled
NIC 7: disabled
NIC 8: disabled
Pointing Device: PS/2 Mouse
Keyboard Device: PS/2 Keyboard
UART 1: disabled
UART 2: disabled
Audio: disabled
Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional
VRDP: disabled
USB: disabled

USB Device Filters:

<none>

Shared folders: <none>

Guest:

Configured memory balloon size: 0 MB

=> The weird thing spotted is the line
VRDP: disabled

My questions:
a) I now was hoping to get Windows-7 installed in a CLI/script based way, similar to Solaris 'Jumpstart' or Linux 'kickstart'. Is this possible ?
b) when I startup the (not yet installed) VM with
# VBoxHeadless -startvm "$vmname"
then it says that it is now started and listening for RDP on port 3389
I can open a Remote desktop session from my laptop to the server on that port 3389, but see a black screen (where I would have expected some kind of Windows or BIOS startup messages).
-> ???

thx all in advance for any feedbacks
Rob

Some extra information :

Via an X-server running on my laptop, I launched the VirtualBox GUI from the Solaris server to get at least something on my (laptop) screen, at least some BIOS messages from the VM. Nothing.
I searched the logs of VirtualBox and found messages about failure to allocate memory... Some posts on the web suggested that VirtualBox would be failing to allocate the configured amount of contiguous memory on my server.
My server has 1 GB RAM, I configured the VM with 512MB, and maybe that was too much to find as contiguous space

So I reconfigured the VM to get 256MB and retried the same thing.
Now I noticed that it indeed started the Windows-7 setup in graphical mode, colors and all !
Aside from cursor capture that was not working good (I actually saw 2 cursors on the screen: one from my laptop/X-server, and the other from the Windows instance moving many pixels above the first one... ?? Will try again on a native Solaris desktop session), the Windows setup soon aborted saying that it expects at least 512MB of RAM in the machine. Grrrr

So next stop is the web again, searching for extra DIMMs for my server. I will try to bump it straight to 4GB.

But meanwhile I continued also searching for the CLI based installation of Windows in the VM, not via some GUI. Someone on the web suggested that the method to use is Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). So I will study that and try to make a CLI only installation version of my Windows-7 bundle.

But first the DIMM$$...

cheers
Rob