Activate host screensaver from within guest?

[reidpr]

Hi,

Is there some way that I can activate the host's screensaver from within the guest? My hot corners don't work when in the guest (unsurprisingly).

The host screensaver does activate after the specified timeout, but I want to be able to activate it immediately too.

Host = Mac OS X 10.7, guest = Debian Squeeze.

Thanks!

Reid

[mpack]

VMs cannot affect the host, except via standard networking protocols enabled and configured by you. If you can find a network protocol which can do what you want, then you'd be off to a good start. VBoxManage provides the means to affect a guest from the host. Providing an API that works in the opposite direction would be an unacceptable malware risk IMHO.

Anyway, I must confess that I don't know of any way to manually invoke the screensaver on XP host from my host, never mind from a VM! Of course one could configure the timeout to something very short... I can imagine that would be quite annoying.

[Perryg]

AFAIK there are no direct sockets available to the host from the guest as this would be a huge security risk.

[reidpr]

OK, I looked a little more and it turns out you can configure the Keychain Access utility to put a "lock screen" menu item in the menu bar; that's good enough for me, since it's easy to get to the host menu bar from inside the guest, even when it's full screen.

Link: http://thinkingnectar.com/2012/add-a-lo ... -mac-os-x/

Reid

p.s. I think you guys read more than I intended with "within the host". I just want some way to make it happen while I'm *using* the guest. Worrying about direct sockets and security holes is way out of scope. I just wondered if there was some hook like passing hot corner mousing back to the host. And there is, via the host menu bar.

p.p.s. "VMs cannot affect the host" is a bit overstated, no? For example, if I put files in a shared folder, they appear on the host, which certainly affects the host.

[mpack]

p.p.s. "VMs cannot affect the host" is a bit overstated?

You only quoted half that sentence. I wonder why? If you remove the modifier then yes, it's quite possible that the residue is overstated. You realize, I hope, that "Shared folders" is a network protocol, and only available if configured by you?

p.s. I think you guys read more than I intended with "within the host"

Your first post - and indeed the topic title - said "from within guest" not "within the host", and as far as I can tell we only read into it what you wrote. Controlling the host from the guest is precisely what you asked about, so I'm at a bit of a loss to understand your objection to the answers - or the relevance of your solution!