virtualbox.org

I've been exploring, trying to figure out how to run a decently simple configuration (a quick read, but still somewhat new to this side of it) in which I can run virtualbox on a Windows10 or Linux distro and then setup a RPi4 as a thin client. What I haven't figured out is how to start the vm....stopping is easy-shutdown while you're logged in, but starting I'm not sure....Can Vbox be set to start a vm when the thin client is booting? I currently have WTWare running and it seems to be a valid product at the moment. Maybe someone else has a better recommendation.

Thanks

It sounds like you want to run a Virtualbox guest, and have the WTware thin-client device RDP into the guest over the network. You wish to have the Virtualbox guest start automatically when the thin-client starts or begins RDP.

Virtualbox does not have a 'auto-start-on-RDP' function. Virtualbox can start a guest through the command line, but you would need to get a 3rd-party program to issue the command line when the thin-client starts RDP requests. Or you would need to roll your own script.

It might be simpler to have the guest start automatically when the host PC is turned on and stay running all the time. See "VboxVMservice" viewtopic.php?f=32&t=8595 for a third-party VM-as-a-service app. Then the thin-client can remote in whenever it wants to. If the guest is allowed to run all the time it can do its housekeeping as needed, too.

All of this is true. Ideally I don't want the guest VM running all of the time actually....that's why I was hoping there was an easy way to remote start it.