| 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="vboxheadless">
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| 4 | <title>VBoxHeadless, the Remote Desktop Server</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | While any VM started from VirtualBox Manager is capable of running
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| 9 | virtual machines remotely, it is not convenient to have to run
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| 10 | the full GUI if you never want to have VMs displayed locally in
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| 11 | the first place. In particular, if you are running server
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| 12 | hardware whose only purpose is to host VMs, and all your VMs are
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| 13 | supposed to run remotely over VRDP, then it is pointless to have
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| 14 | a graphical user interface on the server at all. This is
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| 15 | especially true for Linux or Oracle Solaris hosts, as the
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| 16 | VirtualBox Manager comes with dependencies on the Qt and SDL libraries.
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| 17 | This is inconvenient if you would rather not have the X Window
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| 18 | system on your server at all.
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| 19 | </p>
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| 20 | <p>
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| 21 | Oracle VM VirtualBox therefore comes with a front-end called
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| 22 | <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput>, which produces no visible
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| 23 | output on the host at all, but still can optionally deliver VRDP
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| 24 | data. This front-end has no dependencies on the X Window system
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| 25 | on Linux and Oracle Solaris hosts.
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| 26 | </p>
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| 27 | <note>
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| 28 | <p>
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| 29 | In legacy releases of Oracle VM VirtualBox, the headless server was
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| 30 | called <userinput>VBoxVRDP</userinput>. For backwards
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| 31 | compatibility, the Oracle VM VirtualBox installation still includes
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| 32 | an executable with that name.
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| 33 | </p>
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| 34 | </note>
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| 35 | <p>
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| 36 | To start a virtual machine with <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput>,
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| 37 | you have the following options:
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| 38 | </p>
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| 39 | <ul>
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| 40 | <li>
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| 41 | <p>
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| 42 | Use the <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> command, as follows:
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| 43 | </p>
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| 44 | <pre xml:space="preserve">$ VBoxManage startvm <varname>VM-name</varname> --type headless</pre>
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| 45 | <p>
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| 46 | The <codeph>--type</codeph> option causes Oracle VM VirtualBox to
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| 47 | use <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput> as the front-end to the
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| 48 | internal virtualization engine, instead of the Qt front-end.
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| 49 | </p>
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| 50 | </li>
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| 51 | <li>
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| 52 | <p>
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| 53 | Use the <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput> command, as follows:
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| 54 | </p>
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| 55 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxHeadless --startvm <varname>uuid</varname>|<varname>vmname</varname>
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| 56 | </pre>
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| 57 | <p>
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| 58 | This way of starting the VM helps troubleshooting problems
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| 59 | reported by <userinput>VBoxManage startvm</userinput>, because
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| 60 | you can sometimes see more detailed error messages,
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| 61 | especially for early failures before the VM execution is
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| 62 | started. In normal situations <userinput>VBoxManage
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| 63 | startvm</userinput> is preferred, since it runs the VM
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| 64 | directly as a background process which has to be done
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| 65 | explicitly when directly starting with
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| 66 | <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput>. <!--The full documentation of
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| 67 | the command is in <xref href="man_vboxheadless.dita#man_vboxheadless"/>.-->
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| 68 | </p>
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| 69 | </li>
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| 70 | <li>
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| 71 | <p>
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| 72 | Start <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput> from VirtualBox Manager, by
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| 73 | pressing the Shift key when starting a virtual machine or by
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| 74 | selecting <b outputclass="bold">Headless Start</b>
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| 75 | from the <b outputclass="bold">Machine</b> menu.
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| 76 | </p>
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| 77 | </li>
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| 78 | </ul>
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| 79 | <p>
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| 80 | When you use the <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput> command to
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| 81 | start a VM, the VRDP server will be enabled according to the VM
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| 82 | configuration. You can override the VM's setting using
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| 83 | <codeph>--vrde</codeph> command line parameter. To enable the
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| 84 | VRDP server, start the VM as follows:
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| 85 | </p>
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| 86 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxHeadless --startvm <varname>uuid</varname>|<varname>vmname</varname> --vrde on</pre>
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| 87 | <p>
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| 88 | To disable the VRDP server:
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| 89 | </p>
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| 90 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxHeadless --startvm <varname>uuid</varname>|<varname>vmname</varname> --vrde off</pre>
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| 91 | <p>
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| 92 | To have the VRDP server enabled depending on the VM
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| 93 | configuration, as for other front-ends:
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| 94 | </p>
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| 95 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxHeadless --startvm <varname>uuid</varname>|<varname>vmname</varname> --vrde config</pre>
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| 96 | <p>
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| 97 | This command is the same as the following:
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| 98 | </p>
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| 99 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxHeadless --startvm <varname>uuid</varname>|<varname>vmname</varname>
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| 100 | </pre>
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| 101 | <p>
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| 102 | If you start the VM with <userinput>VBoxManage startvm</userinput>
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| 103 | then the configuration settings of the VM are always used.
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| 104 | </p>
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| 105 | </body>
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| 106 |
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| 107 | </topic>
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