Script to check assigned MAC-addresses in .vbox config

[myhobby]

I'm using VirtualBox for almost everything so I have a lot of VM's. Normally I create a master guest which is copied in case I need a new environment. Currently I have approx 35-40 machines all bridged and most of them via DHCP.

I would like to verify that each machine has it own unique MAC-address assigned. If I'm correct, the assign MAC-address can be found in .vbox XML config file. In my machine all located in /home/vbox. Is there a script or tool available to list the assigned MAC-addresses so we can check if these are all unique ?

[socratis]

Not as a standard feature, no, but you could quickly write one yourself. I don't know your host, but it could be something like:

1. List the VMs with 'VBoxManage list vms'
2. For every VM in that output get the VM info with 'VBoxManage showvminfo'
3. Pass that output to 'grep' to look for "MAC"
4. Pass that output to 'awk' to print only the MAC address

For example on my OSX host, the following prints all MAC addresses of all my VMs:

Code: Select all

IFS=$'\t\n';
for i in `VBoxManage list vms | sort | cut -d'"' -f2`; do
	VBoxManage showvminfo "$i" | grep MAC | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d',' -f1
done

Thanks for the "idea" BTW, I had never thought of checking that aspect. There were no duplicates among all of my 192 different MACs

[socratis]

I added another "layer" of information if you want; the VM's name after the MAC address. You could then open the output with a text editor and search for the duplicates, put it in a spreadsheet and sort them or anything else that you might like:

Code: Select all

IFS=$'\t\n';
for i in `VBoxManage list vms | sort | cut -d'"' -f2`; do
	for j in `VBoxManage showvminfo "$i" | grep MAC | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d',' -f1`; do
		echo "$j	$i";
	done
done

Sample output:

080027FB7E77	AndroVM-TPApps
080027E0866C	AndroVM-TPApps
08002791F8B3	Android 4.4.4
0800276C8311	Android 4.4.4
0800278BFB55	Android 7.1
080027254047	Android
080027A1664A	Android
080027CC978B	Android
080027763292	Android
0800274ADFC4	ChromeOS
...

[myhobby]

This is great help... Let my try this and provide some feedback so others can use this also

[myhobby]

Running Clearos 6.7, created a script and made it executable...
and executed as user vbox

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

IFS=$'\t\n';
for i in `VBoxManage list vms | sort | cut -d'"' -f2`; do
   for j in `VBoxManage showvminfo "$i" | grep MAC | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d',' -f1`; do
      echo "$j   $i";
   done
done

This indeed creates an overview of the VM machines and it is clearly what I was looking for.... everything listed in VirtualBox.xml is detailed. Machines manually copied and not in the xml are not listed (which is more than fine).

The only small weird thing that happens is an unexpected entry (red). This machine only exists once in the XML.

• 080027E7881E   FreePBX Visual Dialplan Licensed
  for   FreePBX Visual Dialplan Licensed
  080027EFAFF2   Machine - Download

Code: Select all

bash-4.1$  VBoxManage list vms | sort
"FreePBX 14 Home PRD" {2d0cb8ba-26ce-487f-a48c-86c0a0cc35b0}
"FreePBX Praktijk Visual Dialplan Licensed" {71494983-3c29-43ea-ab8c-39fb056fa715}
"Machine - Download" {1d8e0ecf-a271-4d31-971c-0303bcf1a7a8}
etc
etc

Code: Select all

bash-4.1$ VBoxManage showvminfo "FreePBX Praktijk Visual Dialplan Licensed" | grep MAC | awk '{print $4}'     

Results in:

Code: Select all

080027E7881E,
for

No clue what is causing this, but it works !

[socratis]

Machines manually copied and not in the xml are not listed (which is more than fine).

It's not about "fine", it's that VirtualBox doesn't have a clue about that VM, it's not registered.

This machine only exists once in the XML.

I'm not sure what that means. The only thing I can think of is that there might be something wrong with the VM name. It there maybe a "tab" character in the name which causes the parsing to fail? I have no clue, my bash scripting abilities are minimal.