Setting up Virtualbox on ubuntu

This is written for Ubuntu hardy 8.04 and virtualbox 1.6.2

• Download the deb package from virtualbox/sun.  Or install with apt

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian hardy non-free
wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add –

• Install the package: dpkg -i package name, or apt-get install virtualbox-2.0 bridge-utils uml-utilities
• create any machines you want and make any customizations you would like.
• add a few lines to rc.local

# change permissions for vbox

chmod 0666 /dev/net/tun

• add the following to /etc/network/interfaces “that will get you 2 tap devices, enough for two machines”

auto tap1 tap2
iface tap1 inet manual
tunctl_user desktop
iface tap2 inet manual
tunctl_user desktop
auto br0
iface br0 inet dhcp
bridge_ports eth0 tap1 tap2
bridge_maxwait 0

• create /etc/vbox
• nano /etc/vbox/machines_enabled
• put a list of all virtual machines you want started and stopped at boot and shutdown/reboot
• nano /etc/init.d/virtualbox

contents of above file

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: virtualbox_vms
# Required-Start:    $local_fs $syslog $remote_fs
# Required-Stop:     $local_fs $syslog $remote_fs
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      S 0 1 6
# Short-Description: Control VirtualBox Virtual Machine instances
### END INIT INFO
#
# Version 20080531-0 AR
#
################################################################################
# INITIAL CONFIGURATION
VBOXDIR="/etc/vbox"
RUNAS_USER=desktop
SU="su $RUNAS_USER -c"
VBoxMDAEMON="VBoxManage"
VBoxSDAEMON="VBoxHeadless"

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

# Are we running from init?
run_by_init() {
([ "$previous" ] && [ "$runlevel" ]) || [ "$runlevel" = S ]
}

################################################################################
# RUN
case "$1" in
start)
cat $VBOXDIR/machines_enabled | while read VM; do
log_action_msg "Starting VM: $VM ..."
#                su $RUNAS_USER -c "$VBoxSDAEMON startvm \"$VM\" -type vrdp &"
su $RUNAS_USER -c "$VBoxSDAEMON --startvm \"$VM\" &"
done
;;
stop)
# NOTE: this stops all running VM's. Not just the ones listed in the
# config
cat $VBOXDIR/machines_enabled | while read VM; do
log_action_msg "Shutting down VM: $VM ..."
su $RUNAS_USER -c "$VBoxMDAEMON controlvm \"$VM\" savestate"
done
;;
start-vm)
log_action_msg "Starting VM: $2 ..."
su $RUNAS_USER -c "$VBoxSDAEMON --startvm \"$2\" > /dev/null 2 >&1"
;;
stop-vm)
log_action_msg "Stopping VM: $2 ..."
su $RUNAS_USER -c "$VBoxMDAEMON controlvm \"$2\" savestate"
;;
poweroff-vm)
log_action_msg "Powering off VM: $2 ..."
$VBoxMDAEMON "controlvm \"$2\" poweroff"
;;
status)
log_action_msg "The following virtual machines are currently running:"
echo "Still thinking about what to do here."
#$VBoxMDAEMON "list runningvms" | while read VM; do
#echo -n "$VM ("
# not yet figured this out
#echo -n `"$VBoxMDAEMON showvminfo $VM|grep Name:|sed -e 's/^Name:\s*//g'"`
#echo ')'
#done
;;
*)
log_failure_msg "Usage: $0 {start|stop|status|start-vm <VM name>|stop-vm <VM name>|poweroff-vm"
exit 3
esac
exit 0

• chmod 755 /etc/init.d/virtualbox
• update-rc.d virtualbox defaults
• one last adjustment to make sure there is enough time between the vboxdrv and vboxnet starting and virtualbox: mv /etc/rc2.d/S20virtualbox /etc/rc2/d/S99virtualbox
• That should be it. Now when you shutdown the virtualmachines should be saved and when you boot the virtualmachines should start up.

Init script created by a great co-worker of mine. Could not have done this without his help. It works great, think I like this setup better than vmware.