VirtualBox Desktop Pools

[Lee123]

Hi there

Im just wondering if it is possible to create the following....

I wish to have say 5 Virtual Machines (say win XP desktops), within a pool. Users then access these virtual desktops using say RDP.

However, Im wondering if it is possible to access these virtual machines using the same IP address???

The scenario is :-

User 1
======
RDP using IP address = 192.168.1.101 -
Virtual Box presents Virtual Machine 1 to User 1

User 2
======
RDP using IP address = 192.168.1.101 (This is the same IP).
Because Virtual box knows Virtual Machine 1 is in use, it presents Virtual Machine 2 to User 2

User 3
=======
RDP using IP address = 192.168.1.101 (This is the same IP).
If either User 1 or User 2 has logged off, the User 3 is presented with Virtual Machine 1 or 2 accordingly. If not, they are presented with Virtual Machine 3

The reason for this, is so that I can roll out onto users desktops a preconfigured Remote Desktop Icon, with the IP 192.168.1.101.

If it is not possible, then does anyone have any other suggestions/workarounds???

Many thanks

Lee

[scottgus1]

I'm not certain if your idea of using the same ip address and rolling over to a usable remote desktop will work, but I don't know much about networking. Some of the conversations here imply to me there's a lot more stuff a network can do than just link computers together.

But I'd try using a script on the remote computers to comunicate with a script on the Virtualbox host which also maintains communication with the guests to tell which ones are in use. The guest scripts inform the host script when they're logged on (Event Viewer can be queried, I think, to tell if the guest OS is logged on or not). then the host script, upon receiving a request from a remote-computer script for an open guest, looks to see what guests may be available, marks the guest as in use, then passes the ip address to the remote computer's script. The remote computer's script then passes the received IP address to the Remote Desktop Connection program. While such a setup could be established with communication "pipes" and such, it could also be set up with flag files stored in a shared folder, which get deleted and written as needed by the various scripts. (flag files are what I would use, since i don't know how to make a pipe in vbscript....)

[Lee123]

Hi there

Yeah, after some thought Id came up with a similiar idea. Im a Dephi programmer so would create a server app to monitor Virtual Machines. Id then pass data packets to/from virtual machine, host and remote PCs.

The reason I asked, was that I dont want to reinvent the wheel. If virtual box supplied such a system, with a few tick boxes, then life would of been much simplier!!

Thanks again for the suggestion.

Lee