List all virtual machines on this system using the vboxmanage list vms command:
"OpenBSD" {f3a856cd-ff01-4cdb-8559-85a97e432e9b} "CORE"{17a10a47-df81-4c65-b1a1-b23a6e4486c4} "IMUNES"{f241611c-4e63-4ec8-a520-23118cd20ee7}
Display running virtual machines:
vboxmanage list runningvms
To list all virtual machines with all settings that are on current host, use following command:
vboxmanage list vms -l
The amount of output produces by this is comparable to the show tech-support command.
Power on a virtual machine without the VBox GUI popup window in X - this is called headless, with the vboxmanage startvm command:
Waiting for VM "OpenBSD" to power on... VM "OpenBSD" has been successfully started.
And if you do it wrong:
Waiting for VM "OpenBSD" to power on... VBoxManage: error: The virtual machine 'OpenBSD' has terminated unexpectedly during startup because of signal 6 VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component MachineWrap, interface IMachine
Here it failed to start because probably the --type headless option has been forgotten.
Check if the virtual machine has started:
ping openbsd
PING openbsd (198.51.100.232) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from openbsd (198.51.100.232): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.277 ms
^C
--- openbsd ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
Verify the current status of running vms by using the vboxmanage list runningvms command:
Finally if the work has been done, power off the virtual machine using the vboxmanage controlvm command:
For a CLI jokey it is the best way to operate and manage virtual machines. If you want the kitchen-sink command then just type in and hit enter:
VBoxManage
The version of VBox that has been used:
Oracle VM VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 6.0.14_Gentoo
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