How to Manage Oracle VirtualBox Virtual Machines from Command Line

Introduction

Virtualbox is an open source virtualization product that supports a wide variety of OS's. Among other things, it is supported on my OS of choice, FreeBSD, and allows me to run test environments with Windows 8 and other OS's. Recently, however, I ran into a dbus bug that doesn't allow me to choose the ISO image to boot from. Well, rather than just write up a quick article on how to mount an ISO without the GUI, I figured I would do the whole thing and create a VM from the command line. In this case, we will be creating a KALI linux system for pentration testing.

VBoxManage

We can use VBoxManage command to create and manage a virtual machine. If we execute the VBoxManage command alone, it will generate a very large amount of help, of which only the top part is shown here:

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage

Oracle VM VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 4.2.12_OSE

Usage:

VBoxManage []

General Options:

[-v|--version] print version number and exit

[-q|--nologo] suppress the logo

[--settingspw ] provide the settings password

[--settingspwfile ] provide a file containing the settings password

Commands:

bridgedifs|hostonlyifs|dhcpservers|hostinfo|

usbhost|usbfilters|systemproperties|extpacks|

groups

...

Create the Virtual Machine

The first step is to create the VM and in the case of Kali, it is closest to Debian in that it uses .deb packages so we'll go with that.

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage createvm --name KaliLinux --ostype Debian --register

Virtual machine 'KaliLinux' is created and registered.

UUID: 5d00f26d-98dd-48b7-b2c8-213897960e4e

Settings file: '/home/rnejdl/VirtualBox VMs/KaliLinux/KaliLinux.vbox'

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl>

You can check your machine by running:

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage showvminfo KaliLinux

Name: KaliLinux

Groups: /

Guest OS: Debian

UUID: 5d00f26d-98dd-48b7-b2c8-213897960e4e

Config file: /home/rnejdl/VirtualBox VMs/KaliLinux/KaliLinux.vbox

Snapshot folder: /home/rnejdl/VirtualBox VMs/KaliLinux/Snapshots

Log folder: /home/rnejdl/VirtualBox VMs/KaliLinux/Logs

Hardware UUID: 5d00f26d-98dd-48b7-b2c8-213897960e4e

...

Set Memory

The default memory size is 128M and that is a bit too small. I prefer 1024M and we do that by doing the following:

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage modifyvm KaliLinux --memory 1024

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage showvminfo KaliLinux | grep "Memory size"

Memory size: 1024MB

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl>

Set NIC to Bridging Mode

Sure, you can totally skip this step depending on your configuration but in my case, the default doesn't work so well.

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage modifyvm KaliLinux --bridgeadapter1 msk1

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage modifyvm KaliLinux --nic1 bridged

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage showvminfo KaliLinux | grep "NIC 1"

NIC 1: MAC: 080027B95741, Attachment: Bridged Interface 'msk1', Cable connected: on, Trace: off (file: none), Type: 82540EM, Reported speed: 0 Mbps, Boot priority: 0, Promisc Policy: deny, Bandwidth group: none

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl>

Create the Hard Drive and Attach It

This command will create the drive whereever you are located so I put in the relative path to keep things clean and organized.

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage createhd --filename VirtualBox\ VMs/KaliLinux/KaliLinux.vdi --size 18000 --format VDI

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

Disk image created. UUID: cbaf6757-94cf-4385-bac9-8281dc1adbb0

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage storagectl KaliLinux --name "SATA Controller" --add sata --controller IntelAhci

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage storageattach KaliLinux --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium VirtualBox\ VMs/KaliLinux/KaliLinux.vdi

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl>

Mount CD-ROM

We need to mount a cd/dvd rom to our virtual machine in order to start the OS installation. I've already downloaded the ISO file so I am mounting it here.

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage storagectl KaliLinux --name "IDE Controller" --add ide --controller PIIX4

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage storageattach KaliLinux --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium Desktop/kali-linux-1.0.1-i386.iso

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl>

You can check your work by running:

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage showvminfo KaliLinux

Name: KaliLinux

Groups: /

Guest OS: Debian

UUID: 5d00f26d-98dd-48b7-b2c8-213897960e4e

Config file: /home/rnejdl/VirtualBox VMs/KaliLinux/KaliLinux.vbox

Snapshot folder: /home/rnejdl/VirtualBox VMs/KaliLinux/Snapshots

Log folder: /home/rnejdl/VirtualBox VMs/KaliLinux/Logs

Hardware UUID: 5d00f26d-98dd-48b7-b2c8-213897960e4e

Memory size: 1024MB

...

Start the VM

At this point, you can either start the VM from the GUI or you can start it up using VRDE.

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage modifyvm KaliLinux --vrde on

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxManage modifyvm KaliLinux --vrdemulticon on --vrdeport 3390

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> VBoxHeadless --startvm KaliLinux

Oracle VM VirtualBox Headless Interface 4.2.12_OSE

Connect to It

You can remote desktop now to that machine if you know the IP of it.

[tethys]:/home/rnejdl> rdesktop 192.168.254.101:3390

In my case, I started it up using the GUI and was greeted with:

___________________________________________________________________________________

Overview

Today virtualization is a major component of IT industry. We can see virtualization is gaining popularity in server, network and storage domains. To fulfill users need many open source virtualization solutions came into existence and Oracle VirtualBox is one of them.

In this article we’ll discuss VBoxManage utility which is used to manage VirtualBox from command line interface. Below is the syntax of VBoxManage utility

$ VBoxManage [<general option>] <command>

In above command general option can be verbose mode, suppress logo, response file etc. Command can be various actions like – create vm, list vm, show vm information etc.

Create VM using VBoxManage

Create VM using VBoxManage

To create VM we have to use createvm command with VBoxManage utitlity. Below is the syntax of same:

createvm --name <name>

[--groups <group>, ...]

[--ostype <ostype>]

[--register]

[--basefolder <path>]

[--uuid <uuid>]

We can list supported OS types using below command:

$ VBoxManage list ostypes

Let us create Ubuntu-64 vm from CLI:

$ VBoxManage createvm --name ubuntu-server --ostype Ubuntu_64 --register

When you execute above command it will generate following output:

Virtual machine 'ubuntu-server' is created and registered.

UUID: 7433725a-f314-44c7-8625-91d61cc6125d

Settings file: '/home/linux-techi/VirtualBox VMs/ubuntu-server/ubuntu-server.vbox'

Now we can see newly created VM in VirtualBox Manager

VirtualBox-Manager-Ubuntu-Linux

Update VM

We have successfully created VM from CLI. But this VM is not usable at this moment we can make it usable by assigning NIC, allocating memory and attaching disk to it.

Create network via VBoxManage

To create bridged network execute following two commands:

$ VBoxManage modifyvm ubuntu-server --bridgeadapter1 vmnet1

$ VBoxManage modifyvm ubuntu-server --nic1 bridged

In above example I’ve use vmnet1 network. It is created by default when Oracle VirtualBox is installed.

Allocate memory

To allocate memory execute following command:

$ VBoxManage modifyvm ubuntu-server --memory 2048

Create hard disk

To create hard disk execute following command:

$ VBoxManage createhd --filename VirtualBox\ VMs/ubuntu-server/ubuntu-server.vdi --size 10000 --format VDI

When you execute above command, it will generate following output:

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

Medium created. UUID: 5f530d25-da57-4030-bf56-32d5a29c91b5

This command will create virtual hard disk. At present it is not associated with any VM.

Add SATA controller

In previous section we have created virtual hard disk. We need a SATA controller to attach that disk. Below command creates SATA controller.

$ VBoxManage storagectl ubuntu-server --name "SATA Controller" --add sata --controller IntelAhci

Attach storage

Now we have SATA controller and virtual hard disk in a place. Let us attach virtual disk to SATA controller using below command:

$ VBoxManage storageattach ubuntu-server --storagectl "SATA Controller" --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium VirtualBox\ VMs/ubuntu-server/ubuntu-server.vdi

Add IDE controller for ISO

We are creating fresh VM hence we need to install OS from ISO image. So let us add IDE controller using following command:

$ VBoxManage storagectl ubuntu-server --name "IDE Controller" --add ide --controller PIIX4

Attach ISO image to IDE controller

To attach ISO image to IDE controller execute following command:

$ VBoxManage storageattach ubuntu-server --storagectl "IDE Controller" --port 1 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium /home/linux-techi/ubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso

Start VM

Now VM is configured and it is installation ready. Let us start VM using following command

$ VBoxManage startvm ubuntu-server

This command will open VirtualBox Manager from where OS installation can be done.

Working with snapshots

Snapshot is a point-in time copy of VM. We can take a snapshot using following command:

$ VBoxManage snapshot ubuntu-server take "first-snapshot"

When you execute above command, it will generate following output:

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

Snapshot taken. UUID: cd5dadc1-dd8f-427e-a6b8-5a3e93307ef9

We can see this snapshot in VirtualBox manager:

VirtualBox-VM-Snapshot-Linux

To revert back to snapshot execute following command:

$ VBoxManage snapshot ubuntu-server restore "first-snapshot"

When you execute above command, it will generate following output:

Restoring snapshot ' first-snapshot' (cd5dadc1-dd8f-427e-a6b8-5a3e93307ef9)

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

Delete VM

To delete VM execute following command:

$ VBoxManage unregistervm ubuntu-server --delete

When you execute above command it will generate following output:

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%

Please note that this command will delete all Virtual Machine files (configuration files as well virtual hard disks) from system.

Conclusion

This tutorial is good starting point for VBoxManage utility. Covering each and every detail about it – is beyond the scope of this tutorial. For additional details please refer official document from here

Increasing the Size of a Disk in VirtualBox

Increasing the size of a Disk in VirtualBox can be done with the GUI or the command line. I will cover both methods. Resizing the partitions and filesystems on the virtual machine using the disk is beyond the scope of this guide.

Directly below are quick procedures. If you want a more in depth explanation or screen shots, use one of these links:

•.GUI
•.Command Line

Quick Procedures

Using the GUI:

1.Shutdown the virtual machine that is using the disk.
2.Open the VM VirtualBox Manager (the main window that opens when you launch the GUI)
3.Click File
4.Select Virtual Media Manager from the menu.
5.Select the Hard disks tab.
6.Choose the disk you wish to resize from the list.
7.Click the Properties button.
8.In the Attributes tab, use the slider or text box to specify the new size.
9.Click Apply.