VBoxTool

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Provides effective control of virtual machines of VirtualBox icon-external-link.png (virtualization solution) on a Linux headless server, published as free and open source software.

Currently VirtualBox lacks a decent management environment for controlling virtual sessions on a headless server environment. VBoxTool mimics partly Virtual Machine Manager icon-external-link.png which controls sessions for other virtualization solutions like Qemu, KVM, etc. Unfortunately, VirtualBox is not in the list of supported engines (nor will be in the near future).

Features

Heart of the framework is a script which can do several actions (start, save, backup, etc.) on all registered VirtualBox sessions in batch mode. It is a wrapper around VBoxManage (the command line interface of VirtualBox), so execution is also by command line. 
  • Show info. Name, status (running, saved, etc.) and other info of all registered sessions like the configured VRDP port are shown with the command 'vboxtool show'. When a session is running, also CPU load and memory usage are shown. As an alternative, 'vboxtool showrun' shows info only of running sessions.
  • Mass operation: save, start, stop. Save all running sessions with one command without any configuration: 'vboxtool save'. Start all saved sessions with 'vboxtool start'. Stop all running sessions with 'vboxtool stop'.
  • Mass backup. Backup all sessions using rsync with one command: 'vboxtool backup'. When a session is running, it is saved and restarted after the backup. The next level of backup, could mean that on line backup (thus without bringing the session off line) is possible*.
  • Batch start. Controlled start of several sessions, defined in a configuration file, /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf. Only sessions named in that file will be started by 'vboxtool autostart'.
  • Mass configuration of VRDP port and port forwarding. Configure VRDP port and port forwarding for all sessions, all at once in one command: 'vboxtool autostart'. Configuration takes place in /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf. When using port forwarding, there's no need for host interfacing anymore (in Linux, a tedious, complex task).
  • Autostart at host boot. When the host boots, all sessions registered in /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf will be started in the background, issuing a 'vboxtool autostart' command under the named vbox_user in /etc/vboxtool/vboxtool.conf. 
  • Autosave at host halt. When the host has a controlled down, i.e. halted, all running sessions are automatically saved.
  • *System monitoring. Monitor server status, session cpu load and memory in a graphical image. This will be done by developing and implementing a Munin plugin. Munin icon-external-link.png is a system monitoring  platform with a plugin structure.
  • *Webserver. Next to develop is a webserver which points to the automation script. With this you can activate all functions from the script, all by a web page, so without requiring shell access.
* Not (yet) implemented.

Usage

$ vboxtool help
Usage: vboxtool OPTION [session]
Show info about VirtualBox sessions or control those sessions.

Options:
  show              Show status of all sessions.
  showrun           Only show status of running sessions.
  showconfig        Show configuration.
  start [session]   Start all saved sessions or only the given session.
                    When no session name is given, all saved sessions will be
                    started; powered off and aborted sessions are left alone.
  autostart         Starts all sessions in a predefined configuration file.
  save [session]    Save all running sessions or only the given session.
  stop [session]    Stop all running sessions or only the given session.
  backup [session]  Backup all running sessions or only the given session.
  --version|version Version info.
  --help|help       This help.

*Configuration. vboxtool depends on two config files, located in /etc/vboxtool.

Configuration file /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf:
- Each line in this file is a separate machine.
- Structure of each line: <session name>,<vrdp port>,<host port>-<guest port>|...
- Do not use spaces before and after the ',' delimiter.
- Lines can be commented out by '#'

Example for /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf:
Ubuntu Desktop,3391
Ubuntu JeOS,3392,2022-22|80-80

Example for /etc/vboxtool/vboxtool.conf
vbox_user='user'
backup_folder=/home/user/vboxbackup

*Autostart. Sessions can be started in a controlled way from the command line,
only the echo sessions in /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf will be started. As a bonus,
the VRDP port and port forwarding can be set at startup time. These
options are controlled by /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf. The given ports
are set statically to the session, prior to starting. When VRDP port has to be
changed, state is discarded when session is in savestate.

*Start at boot, save on halt. VBoxTool is capable for autostart sessions at
boot time and autosave sessions when host is stopped. This depends on
/etc/vboxtool/vboxtool.conf. In here, the variable vbox_user must be filled:
vbox_user='<user name>'
Note the quotes. Fill for <user name> the name of the user under which
sessions are installed/running.

When vboxtool.conf is not present, no session will start at boot, nor will
auto save on host down take place. When vboxtool.conf is present, all sessions
in machines.conf will be started because actually, a 'vboxtool autostart'
command is issued. Saving sessions when host goes down does not depend on
machines.conf: all running sessions will be saved by a 'vboxtool save' command.

*Stopping sessions. Saving sessions is preferred above stopping: this
is faster when restoring and safer because session can appear to be cold booted.

*The backup command copies all session files to a safe location. This includes
the configuration file(s), main VDI file and all snapshots. Running sessions
are saved and started after backup has completed. The default backup folder is
relative to the vbox folder: <vbox_folder>/.backup. Underneith, subfolders VDI and
Machines are created.
A different folder can be used, by defining this in /etc/vboxtool/vboxtool.conf:
backup_folder=/home/user/vboxbackup

*Logging. All commands will be logged to /home/user/.VirtualBox/vboxtool.log

See http://vboxtool.sourceforge.net for more details.

Facts

  • Minimal requirements:
    • Linux (kernel & distro agnostic, although developed and tested only on Ubuntu)
    • VirtualBox 1.6.x
  • Project status: Production. Script is in use in several production environments, ranging from Ubuntu, to Debian, Suse, CentOS and OpenSolaris.
  • Copyright: Mark Baaijens mark.baaijens@gmail.com
  • License: GNU Public License version 3

News

See changelog.txt icon-external-link.png for complete revision information.
  • 2009-07-04 Version 0.4
    • Major bug fixes
      • Auto start en stop stopped working in Ubuntu Jaunty (bug 2789649)
      • VBoxTool is working again with VirtualBox >= 2.2 (bug 2775886)
      • Command 'vboxtool stop' stops sessions (by poweroff). (bug 2317852)
    • Enhancements
      • Configurable backup folder (feature request 2213713)
      • Added logging (feature request 2275101).
      • Added option 'vboxtool showconfig' (feature request 2275280)
      • Sessions are paused in stead of saved prior to backup (feature request 2805829).
    • Minor bug fixes & enhancements
      • Extracting of default folders is working again; due to changed CLI-output from VBoxManage (bug 2815159)
      • Output of vboxtool does now contain 'backup' (feature request 2813155)
      • Modifying vboxtoolinit to work with OpenSolaris/Solaris (bug 2527710).
      • Backup destination path is shown in logfile (feature request 2806034)
      • Added a generic -nologo for VBoxManage command (feature request 2393874).
      • Expanded readme.txt, added configuration details (feature request 2275085).
      • When issuing vboxtoolinit, it produced an error. (bug 2317839).
      •  Documented backup option in help (feature request 2216423).
      • Pause state was not detected. (bug 2318332).
      • Modified output of 'show' and 'showrun' command for consistency and easy text manipulation
      • Code refactoring, changed all variable name: consistent separator '_'
  • 2008-10-16 Version 0.3
  • 2008-10-02 Version 0.2
    • Configurable port forwarding
    • Lines in /etc/vboxtool/machines.conf can be commented out by '#'
  • 2008-09-23 Version 0.1
    • First public release
  • 2008-09-20 Start of the VBoxTool project

Documentation

Links