vboxmanage-intro.dita@ 105300

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1	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2	<!DOCTYPE topic
3	PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
4	<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="vboxmanage-intro">
5	<title>Introduction</title>
6
7	<body>
8	<p>As briefly mentioned in <xref href="frontends.dita#frontends"/>, <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> is
9	the command-line interface to <ph conkeyref = "vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>. With it, you can completely control <ph conkeyref = "vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> from the
10	command line of your host operating system. <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> supports all the features that the
11	graphical user interface gives you access to, but it supports a lot more than that. It exposes all the features of
12	the virtualization engine, even those that cannot be accessed from the GUI. </p>
13	<p>You will need to use the command line if you want to do the
14	following:
15	</p>
16	<ul>
17	<li>
18	<p>
19	Use a different user interface than the main GUI such as the
20	VBoxHeadless server.
21	</p>
22	</li>
23	<li>
24	<p>
25	Control some of the more advanced and experimental
26	configuration settings for a VM.
27	</p>
28	</li>
29	</ul>
30	<p>There are two main things to keep in mind when using <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput>. First,
31	<userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> must always be used with a specific subcommand, such as
32	<userinput>list</userinput> or <userinput>createvm</userinput> or <userinput>startvm</userinput>. All the
33	subcommands that <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> supports are described in detail in <xref
34	href="vboxmanage.dita#vboxmanage"/>. </p>
35	<p>Second, most of these subcommands require that you specify a particular virtual machine after the
36	subcommand. There are two ways you can do this: </p>
37	<ul>
38	<li>
39	<p>
40	You can specify the VM name, as it is shown in the
41	<ph conkeyref = "vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> GUI. Note that if that name contains spaces,
42	then you must enclose the entire name in double quotes. This
43	is always required with command line arguments that contain
44	spaces. For example:
45	</p>
46	<pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage startvm "Windows XP"</pre>
47	</li>
48	<li>
49	<p>
50	You can specify the UUID, which is the internal unique
51	identifier that <ph conkeyref = "vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> uses to refer to the virtual
52	machine. Assuming that the VM called "Windows XP" has the UUID
53	shown below, the following command has the same effect as the
54	previous example:
55	</p>
56	<pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage startvm 670e746d-abea-4ba6-ad02-2a3b043810a5</pre>
57	</li>
58	</ul>
59	<p>
60	You can enter <userinput>VBoxManage list vms</userinput> to have all
61	currently registered VMs listed with all their settings, including
62	their respective names and UUIDs.
63	</p>
64	<p>
65	Some typical examples of how to control <ph conkeyref = "vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> from the
66	command line are listed below:
67	</p>
68	<ul>
69	<li>
70	<p>
71	To create a new virtual machine from the command line and
72	immediately register it with <ph conkeyref = "vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>, use
73	<userinput>VBoxManage createvm</userinput> with the
74	<!--option not processed within -->--register option, as follows:
75	</p>
76	<pre xml:space="preserve">$ VBoxManage createvm --name "SUSE 10.2" --register
77	VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version <varname>version-number</varname>
78	(C) 2005-2018 Oracle Corporation
79	All rights reserved.
80
81	Virtual machine 'SUSE 10.2' is created.
82	UUID: c89fc351-8ec6-4f02-a048-57f4d25288e5
83	Settings file: '/home/username/.config/VirtualBox/Machines/SUSE 10.2/SUSE 10.2.xml'</pre>
84	<p>
85	As can be seen from the above output, a new virtual machine
86	has been created with a new UUID and a new XML settings file.
87	</p>
88	<p>
89	For more details, see
90	<xref href="vboxmanage-createvm.dita"/>.
91	</p>
92	</li>
93	<li>
94	<p>
95	To show the configuration of a particular VM, use
96	<userinput>VBoxManage showvminfo</userinput>. See
97	<xref href="vboxmanage-showvminfo.dita"/> for details
98	and an example.
99	</p>
100	</li>
101	<li>
102	<p>
103	To change settings while a VM is powered off, use
104	<userinput>VBoxManage modifyvm</userinput>. For example:
105	</p>
106	<pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows XP" --memory 512</pre>
107	<p>
108	See also <xref href="vboxmanage-modifyvm.dita"/>.
109	</p>
110	</li>
111	<li>
112	<p>
113	To change the storage configuration, such as to add a storage
114	controller and then a virtual disk, use <userinput>VBoxManage
115	storagectl</userinput> and <userinput>VBoxManage
116	storageattach</userinput>. See
117	<xref href="vboxmanage-storagectl.dita"/> and
118	<xref href="vboxmanage-storageattach.dita"/>.
119	</p>
120	</li>
121	<li>
122	<p>
123	To control VM operation, use one of the following:
124	</p>
125	<ul>
126	<li>
127	<p>
128	To start a VM that is currently powered off, use
129	<userinput>VBoxManage startvm</userinput>. See
130	<xref href="vboxmanage-startvm.dita"/>.
131	</p>
132	</li>
133	<li>
134	<p>
135	To pause or save a VM that is currently running or change
136	some of its settings, use <userinput>VBoxManage
137	controlvm</userinput>. See
138	<xref href="vboxmanage-controlvm.dita"/>.
139	</p>
140	</li>
141	</ul>
142	</li>
143	</ul>
144	</body>
145
146	</topic>

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