This guide
explains how you can run virtual machines with VirtualBox 4.1 on a headless
Ubuntu 12.04 server. Normally you use the VirtualBox GUI to manage your virtual
machines, but a server does not have a desktop environment. Fortunately,
VirtualBox comes with a tool called VBoxHeadless that allows you to connect to
the virtual machines over a remote desktop connection, so there's no need for
the VirtualBox GUI.
I do not
issue any guarantee that this will work for you!
1
Preliminary Note
I have
tested this on an Ubuntu 12.04 server (host system) with the IP address
192.168.0.100 where I'm logged in as a normal user (user name administrator in
this example) instead of as root.
2
Installing VirtualBox
To install
VirtualBox 4.1 on our Ubuntu 12.04 server, we open /etc/apt/sources.list...
sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
... and
add the following line to it:
[...]
deb
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian precise contrib
Then we
download the VirtualBox public key...
wget -q
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo
apt-key add -
... and
update our package database:
sudo
apt-get update
Afterwards,
we install VirtualBox 4.1 as follows:
sudo
apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential virtualbox-4.1 dkms
(The dkms
package ensures that the VirtualBox host kernel modules are properly updated if
the Linux kernel version changes.)
Starting
with version 4.0, VirtualBox has introduced so called "extension
packs" and has outsourced some functionality like remote desktop
connection support (VRDP) that was part of VirtualBox packages before version
4.0 into these extension packs. Because we need remote desktop connections to
control our virtual machines, we need to install the appropriate extension pack
now. Go to http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads, and you will find a link
to the following extension pack:
VirtualBox
4.1.18 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
Support
for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards.
Download
and install the extension pack as follows:
cd /tmp
wget
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.18/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.18-78361.vbox-extpack
sudo
VBoxManage extpack install
Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.18-78361.vbox-extpack
(Make sure
you grab the latest version from the VirtualBox web site.)
(Make sure
you run the last command with sudo - sudo VBoxManage extpack install ... -
because otherwise you will get an error like this:
administrator@server1:/tmp$
VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.18-78361.vbox-extpack
0%...
Progress
state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage:
error: Failed to install
"/tmp/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.1.18-78361.vbox-extpack":
The installer failed with exit code 127: Error creating textual authentication
agent: Error opening current controlling terminal for the process (`/dev/tty'):
No such device or address
administrator@server1:/tmp$
)
Now we
must add the user that will run VirtualBox (administrator in this example) to
the vboxusers group:
sudo
adduser administrator vboxusers
VirtualBox
is now installed and ready to be used.
Managing A
Headless VirtualBox Installation With phpvirtualbox (Ubuntu 12.04)
1
Preliminary Note
I'm
assuming that a headless VirtualBox is already installed on the local Ubuntu
12.04 server, e.g. as described in the tutorial VBoxHeadless - Running Virtual
Machines With VirtualBox 4.1 On A Headless Ubuntu 12.04 Server.
I'm
running all the steps in this tutorial with root privileges, so make sure
you're logged in as root:
sudo su
2
Installing phpvirtualbox
First
create a system user called vbox and add it to the vboxusers group:
useradd -m
vbox -G vboxusers
Create a
password for the vbox user:
passwd
vbox
Create the
file /etc/default/virtualbox and put the line VBOXWEB_USER=vbox in it (so that
the VirtualBox SOAP API which is called vboxwebsrv runs as the user vbox):
vi
/etc/default/virtualbox
VBOXWEB_USER=vbox
Next
create the system startup links for vboxwebsrv and start it:
update-rc.d
vboxweb-service defaults
/etc/init.d/vboxweb-service
start
We need a
web server with PHP support to serve phpvirtualbox - I'm using Apache2 here.
Install Apache2 and PHP5 as follows:
apt-get
install apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2.2-bin apache2.2-common
apache2 apache2-doc apache2-suexec libapache2-mod-php5 libapr1 libaprutil1
libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaprutil1-ldap libapr1 php5-common php5-mysql
php5-suhosin php-pear wget
Restart
Apache2:
/etc/init.d/apache2
restart
I want to
serve phpvirtualbox from Apache's default virtual host with the document root
/var/www (I will install it in /var/www/phpvirtualbox) - if you have a
different document root, you must adjust the following steps:
cd
/var/www
wget
http://phpvirtualbox.googlecode.com/files/phpvirtualbox-4.1-7.zip
Unzip
phpvirtualbox and rename the phpvirtualbox-4.1-7 to phpvirtualbox for ease of
use:
unzip
phpvirtualbox-4.1-7.zip
mv
phpvirtualbox-4.1-7 phpvirtualbox
Next go to
the /var/www/phpvirtualbox/ directory...
cd
/var/www/phpvirtualbox/
... and
create the file config.php by copying it from config.php-example:
cp
config.php-example config.php
Open
config.php and fill in the password you created earlier for the vbox system
user:
vi
config.php
[...]
/*
Username / Password for system user that runs VirtualBox */
var
$username = 'vbox';
var
$password = 'secret';
[...]
That's it
already - you can now open a browser and access phpvirtualbox as follows:
http://www.example.com/phpvirtualbox/
The
default username is admin, the password is admin as well:
This is
how phpvirtualbox looks - much like the native VirtualBox GUI:
The first
thing you should do is change the admin password. Go to File > Change
Password:
Type in
the old password and specify a new one:
If you
know the native VirtualBox GUI, it's now very easy to use phpvirtualbox. For
example, if you want to create a new virtual machine, you have the same wizard
as you have in the VirtualBox GUI:
