virtualbox.org

I like the new detachable and headless start modes for VMs. However I have found that neither of these start modes allow clipboard sharing to work properly. Guest additions are installed in the guest VM and copy/paste works when starting the VMs in "normal" start mode.

host: ubuntu 14.04
guests: win7enterprise and winxp

Is this a bug?

I would venture that the feature has not yet been implemented in the detachable mode due to higher priority items. This is not the only item - 3D and Seamless are not implemented right now per example.

After checking myself, it is working fine.
Please read Minimum information needed for assistance and provide zipped attachment of the VM log file and the guest settings.

sorry, should have included that.

The version of VirtualBox you are using, and whether you have installed the Guest Additions (in the guest):
VirtualBox 5.0.2 Guest Additions installed

Host & Guest make and version including 32 or 64 bit, and the amount of memory available to both.
HOST: ubuntu 14.04 64bit 16GB
guest: Windows XP 32bit 512MB
guest: Centos7 64Bit 4GB

shared clipboard setting: bidirectional

VM log files attached. it seems when the guest is started in either headless or detachable mode the clipboard service isn't working. I'm seeing this pattern in the log when doing detachable starts:

ClipConstructX11: X11 DISPLAY variable not set -- disabling shared clipboard

Thanks.

Indeed this seems to be the problem. I would guess the environment variable is not inherited in detachable mode which cause clipboard to be disabled.
I'll try to reproduce on my end on a Linux host tomorrow and debug a bit more if I can reproduce. So far it looks like a bug. If I can confirm, we'll open a ticket for it.

noteirak, did you get a chance to try and reproduce this issue?

Clipboard does currently not work for separate VMs, for the exact reason which was posted above (no X11 display passed to the process). ATM I cannot estimate the effort to fix this.