| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="autostart-windows">
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| 4 | <title>Windows: Starting the Autostart Service</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | On Windows, autostart functionality consist of two components.
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| 9 | The first component is a configuration file where the
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| 10 | administrator can both set a delayed start for the VMs and
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| 11 | temporarily disable autostarting for a particular user. The
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| 12 | configuration file should be located in a folder accessible by
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| 13 | all required users but it should have permissions allowing only
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| 14 | reading by everyone but administrators. The configuration file
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| 15 | contains several options. The <codeph>default_policy</codeph>
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| 16 | controls whether the autostart service allows or denies starting
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| 17 | of a VM for users that are not in the exception list. The
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| 18 | exception list starts with <codeph>exception_list</codeph> and
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| 19 | contains a comma separated list with usernames. Furthermore, a
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| 20 | separate startup delay can be configured for every user to avoid
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| 21 | overloading the host. A sample configuration is given below:
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| 22 | </p>
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| 23 | <pre xml:space="preserve"> # Default policy is to deny starting a VM, the other option is "allow".
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| 24 | default_policy = deny
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| 25 |
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| 26 | # Bob is allowed to start virtual machines but starting them
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| 27 | # will be delayed for 10 seconds
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| 28 | bob = {
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| 29 | allow = true
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| 30 | startup_delay = 10
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| 31 | }
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| 32 |
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| 33 | # Alice is not allowed to start virtual machines, useful to exclude certain users
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| 34 | # if the default policy is set to allow.
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| 35 | alice = {
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| 36 | allow = false
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| 37 | }
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| 38 | </pre>
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| 39 | <p>
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| 40 | The user name can be specified using the following forms:
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| 41 | "user", "domain\user", ".\user" and "user@domain". An
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| 42 | administrator must add the
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| 43 | <codeph>VBOXAUTOSTART_CONFIG</codeph> environment variable
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| 44 | into system variables containing the path to the configuration
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| 45 | file described above. The environment variable tells the
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| 46 | autostart services which configuration file is used.
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| 47 | </p>
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| 48 | <p>
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| 49 | The second component of autostart functionality is a Windows
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| 50 | service. Every instance of this works on behalf of a particular
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| 51 | user using their credentials.
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| 52 | </p>
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| 53 | <p>
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| 54 | To enable autostarting for a particular user, a member of the
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| 55 | administrators group must run the following command:
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| 56 | </p>
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| 57 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxAutostartSvc install --user=<varname>user</varname> [--password-file=<varname>password_file</varname>]</pre>
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| 58 | <p>
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| 59 | The password file should contain the password followed by a line
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| 60 | break. The rest of the file is ignored. The user will be asked
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| 61 | for a password if the password file is not specified.
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| 62 | </p>
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| 63 | <p>
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| 64 | To disable autostarting for particular user, a member of the
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| 65 | administrators group must run the following command:
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| 66 | </p>
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| 67 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxAutostartSvc delete --user=<varname>user</varname>
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| 68 | </pre>
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| 69 | <p>
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| 70 | If a user has changed their password then a member of the
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| 71 | administrators group must either reinstall the service or change
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| 72 | the service credentials using Windows Service Manager. Due to
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| 73 | Windows security policies, the autostart service cannot be
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| 74 | installed for users with empty passwords.
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| 75 | </p>
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| 76 | <p> Finally, the user should define which VMs should be started at boot. The user should run the
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| 77 | following command for every VM they want to start at boot: </p>
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| 78 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage modifyvm <varname>VM name or UUID</varname> --autostart-enabled on</pre>
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| 79 | <p>
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| 80 | The user can remove a particular VM from the VMs starting at
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| 81 | boot by running the following command:
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| 82 | </p>
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| 83 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage modifyvm <varname>VM name or UUID</varname> --autostart-enabled off</pre>
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| 84 | <note>
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| 85 | <p> On Windows hosts, starting VMs by using the autostart service might cause some issues, as
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| 86 | the virtual machines are starting within the same session as VBoxSVC. For more information
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| 87 | see <xref href="vboxsvc-session-0.dita#vboxsvc-session-0"/>. </p>
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| 88 | </note>
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| 89 | </body>
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| 90 |
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| 91 | </topic>
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