virtualbox.org

Hi all,

I have a Mac OS X Lion host and would like to be able to run "VirtualBox" to manage things remotely. As Lion has X11 and I enabled forwarding via ssh, I am able to run "ssh -X vboxuser@mymac" successfully (for example running xeyes or xterm works and they connect to my laptop's X server).

However, when I try to run VirtualBox it claims it can't create the window. Now, I know the GUI is X11-based because when I type "export DISPLAY=:0.0" and launch it, it successfully renders on the host's local console.

Is VirtualBox using some special extension that prevents it from rendering to a remote X Server?

Thanks

P.S.1: My X server is Cygwin/X running on a windows 7 laptop. Like I said, simple stuff like "xeyes" or "xterm" will run on my Mac Mini happily and render on my laptop's window, so it must be something special VirtualBox does...

P.S.2: My goal is not to start guests in the Mac Mini and have them render their windows on the laptop; I gust need to be able to fire up the management GUI to take snapshots, manage virtual devices like CD/DVD isos, change settings... All my guests run headless.

I'd appreciate any help. Can anyone at least confirm that this is possible? Entire message is below:

MacMini:~ vmserver$ VirtualBox
Jan 5 19:25:29 MacMini.local VirtualBox[47223] <Error>: kCGErrorFailure: Set a breakpoint @ CGErrorBreakpoint() to catch errors as they are logged.
_RegisterApplication(), FAILED TO establish the default connection to the WindowServer, _CGSDefaultConnection() is NULL.
2012-01-05 19:25:31.352 VirtualBox[47223:f07] An uncaught exception was raised
2012-01-05 19:25:31.352 VirtualBox[47223:f07] Error (1002) creating CGSWindow on line 263
2012-01-05 19:25:31.353 VirtualBox[47223:f07] (
0 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff89c8d286 __exceptionPreprocess + 198
1 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff84f62d5e objc_exception_throw + 43
2 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff89c8d0ba +[NSException raise:format:arguments:] + 106
3 CoreFoundation 0x00007fff89c8d044 +[NSException raise:format:] + 116
4 AppKit 0x00007fff8c8d290b _NSCreateWindowWithOpaqueShape2 + 755
5 AppKit 0x00007fff8c820224 -[NSWindow _commonAwake] + 1875
6 AppKit 0x00007fff8c79d10d -[NSWindow _makeKeyRegardlessOfVisibility] + 85
7 AppKit 0x00007fff8c79d08d -[NSWindow makeKeyAndOrderFront:] + 27
8 QtGuiVBox 0x000000010193018b _ZN14QWidgetPrivate8show_sysEv + 667
9 QtGuiVBox 0x00000001019e85a8 _ZN14QWidgetPrivate11show_helperEv + 408
10 QtGuiVBox 0x00000001019e9b0f _ZN7QWidget10setVisibleEb + 511
11 VirtualBox.dylib 0x00000001010111fc TrustedMain + 2796
12 VirtualBox 0x0000000100002015 start + 2965
13 VirtualBox 0x00000001000014b4 start + 52
14 ??? 0x0000000000000001 0x0 + 1
)

If you want to manage media and snapshots, you can just as well use the VBoxManage command line.

VB does not mind X forwarding, as I've done it using two Linux machines. I even started a VM that way, running through X forwarding. But, OSX is different and that may be the reason it doesn't work. Maybe it's not full X11 that's running and applications like VB aren't completely X11 compatible either. Can you run Safari or Firefox that way? Then you know.