How to start virtualmachine from terminal?

Question

I can not run a Virtualbox Machine from command line what do I exactly need? I did a bit research first but this command did not work for me:

vboxmanage startvm win7 --type headless

Result is:

VBoxManage: error: Could not find a registered machine named 'win7'
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80bb0001), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee nsISupports
VBoxManage: error: Context: "FindMachine(Bstr(pszVM).raw(), machine.asOutParam())" at line 575 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp

• "win7" is the VM I'm trying to run.
• I can run this VM via phpVirtualBox addon perfectly fine.
• After launching this vm via phpVirtualBox I can perfectly RDM from Linux or Windows.
• I'm running this VM on Ubuntu Server 14.04.03 amd64 headless installation.
• Virtualbox version is: 4.3.34r104062
• I don't know how to register this VM from terminal as its files located in a USB hdd using the NTFS partition.

My aim was to run this vm on system boot, preferably a bit delayed.

I'm ready to provide any other information needed.

Solution

Here is a way to start a virtual machine from terminal :

Open Virtual Box, right-click on the virtual machine. Then click on Create shortcut on desktop.

Go to the desktop, right-click on the shortcut and edit it.

Then copy the command and paste it into the terminal.

/usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox --comment "Ubuntu" --startvm "cea829eb-85fe-4842-b98e-e98603094be0"

or you can start in terminal like this.

Get your UUID of VM

cd "VirtualBox VMs" 
cd your-virtualpc-name
cat your-virtualpc-name.vbox-prev |grep Machine

output should look like this.

neil@ASUS:~/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu$ cat Ubuntu.vbox-prev |grep Machine
  <Machine uuid="{cea829eb-85fe-4842-b98e-e98603094be0}" name="Ubuntu" OSType="Ubuntu" snapshotFolder="Snapshots" lastStateChange="2015-11-22T08:47:08Z">
      <ExtraDataItem name="GUI/RestrictedRuntimeMachineMenuActions" value="SaveState,PowerOff"/>
  </Machine>
neil@ASUS:~/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu$ 

Copy the Machine uuid

and run it in the command like so. With the quote marks

VBoxHeadless --startvm "cea829eb-85fe-4842-b98e-e98603094be0"

Comments

[Arronical]

I think switching between phpVirtualBox and the virtualbox command line is probably causing the issue, though I'm not sure how. I'll delete my answer as I don't think it's helpful in this case. Sorry not to be of more help, good luck!

[Javier Rivera]

Virtual Machines are defined by user. Could it be that phpVirtualBox is running as a different user and the win7 machine is registered only to that user?.

[emrecnl]

@Javier Rivera probably this is the issue. It's using vbuser which isn't my own account. However, shouldn't it be worked with sudo command?

[Javier Rivera]

Yes, it should work with sudo.

[emrecnl]

As I stated in my question, there's no GUI to perform these actions. For the terminal part: /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox --comment "win7" --startvm "43c6cdfe-5175-4a16-80f3-7699234dac6b" Failed to open the X11 display!

[Neil]

@emrecnl then you want to do something like this VBoxHeadless --startvm "43c6cdfe-5175-4a16-80f3-7699234dac6b" --vrdp=off

[emrecnl]

Oracle VM VirtualBox Headless Interface 4.3.34 (C) 2008-2015 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved. Invalid machine name or UUID! This is ridiculous.

[Neil]

@emrecnl you got to have the virtual machine UUID or it won't work.

[emrecnl]

I'm using correct UUID.

[Neil]

@emrecnl made a edit. give that a try

[emrecnl]

I tried many other VMs none of them launching by CLI but they can with phpVirtualBox. This is the guide I followed to install VB probably my setup is missing something. liberiangeek.net/2014/09/…