| 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="frontends">
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| 4 | <title>Alternative Front-Ends</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | As briefly mentioned in <xref href="features-overview.dita#features-overview"/>,
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| 9 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> has a very flexible internal design that enables
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| 10 | you to use multiple interfaces to control the same virtual
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| 11 | machines. For example, you can start a virtual machine with the
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| 12 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/vbox-mgr"/> window and then stop it from the command line. With
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| 13 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>'s support for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP),
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| 14 | you can even run virtual machines remotely on a headless server
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| 15 | and have all the graphical output redirected over the network.
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| 16 | </p>
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| 17 | <p>
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| 18 | The following front-ends are shipped in the standard
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| 19 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> package:
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| 20 | </p>
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| 21 | <ul>
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| 22 | <li>
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| 23 | <p><b outputclass="bold">VirtualBox.</b> This is the
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| 24 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/vbox-mgr"/>, a graphical user interface that uses the Qt
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| 25 | toolkit. This interface is described throughout this manual.
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| 26 | While this is the simplest and easiest front-end to use, some
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| 27 | of the more advanced <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> features are not included.
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| 28 | </p>
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| 29 | </li>
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| 30 | <li>
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| 31 | <p><b outputclass="bold">VBoxManage.</b> A command-line
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| 32 | interface for automated and detailed control of every aspect
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| 33 | of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. See
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| 34 | <xref href="vboxmanage.dita#vboxmanage"/>.
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| 35 | </p>
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| 36 | </li>
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| 37 | <li>
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| 38 | <p><b outputclass="bold">VBoxHeadless.</b> A front-end
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| 39 | that produces no visible output on the host at all, but can
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| 40 | act as a RDP server if the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension
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| 41 | (VRDE) is installed and enabled for the VM. As opposed to the
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| 42 | other graphical interfaces, the headless front-end requires no
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| 43 | graphics support. This is useful, for example, if you want to
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| 44 | host your virtual machines on a headless Linux server that has
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| 45 | no X Window system installed. See
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| 46 | <xref href="vboxheadless.dita">VBoxHeadless, the Remote Desktop Server</xref>.
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| 47 | </p>
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| 48 | </li>
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| 49 | </ul>
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| 50 | <p>
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| 51 | If the above front-ends still do not satisfy your particular
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| 52 | needs, it is possible to create yet another front-end to the
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| 53 | complex virtualization engine that is the core of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>,
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| 54 | as the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> core neatly exposes all of its features in a
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| 55 | clean API. See <xref href="VirtualBoxAPI.dita"><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> Programming Interfaces</xref>.
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| 56 | </p>
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| 57 | </body>
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| 58 |
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| 59 | </topic>
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