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1	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2	<!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.4//EN"
3	"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd">
4	<chapter id="vboxmanage">
5	<title>VBoxManage</title>
6
7	<sect1>
8	<title>Introduction</title>
9
10	<para>As briefly mentioned in <xref linkend="frontends" />, VBoxManage is
11	the command-line interface to VirtualBox. With it, you can completely
12	control VirtualBox from the command line of your host operating system.
13	VBoxManage supports all the features that the graphical user interface
14	gives you access to, but it supports a lot more than that. It exposes
15	really all the features of the virtualization engine, even those that
16	cannot (yet) be accessed from the GUI.</para>
17
18	<para>You will need to use the command line if you want to</para>
19
20	<para><itemizedlist>
21	<listitem>
22	<para>use a different user interface than the main GUI (for example,
23	VBoxSDL or the VBoxHeadless server);</para>
24	</listitem>
25
26	<listitem>
27	<para>control some of the more advanced and experimental
28	configuration settings for a VM.</para>
29	</listitem>
30	</itemizedlist></para>
31
32	<para>There are two main things to keep in mind when using
33	<computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>: First,
34	<computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> must always be used with a
35	specific "subcommand", such as "list" or "createvm" or "startvm". All the
36	subcommands that <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> supports are
37	described in detail in <xref linkend="vboxmanage" />.</para>
38
39	<para>Second, most of these subcommands require that you specify a
40	particular virtual machine after the subcommand. There are two ways you
41	can do this:</para>
42
43	<itemizedlist>
44	<listitem>
45	<para>You can specify the VM name, as it is shown in the VirtualBox
46	GUI. Note that if that name contains spaces, then you must enclose the
47	entire name in double quotes (as it is always required with command
48	line arguments that contain spaces).</para>
49
50	<para>For example:<screen>VBoxManage startvm "Windows XP"</screen></para>
51	</listitem>
52
53	<listitem>
54	<para>You can specify the UUID, which is the internal unique
55	identifier that VirtualBox uses to refer to the virtual machine.
56	Assuming that the aforementioned VM called "Windows XP" has the UUID
57	shown below, the following command has the same effect as the
58	previous:<screen>VBoxManage startvm 670e746d-abea-4ba6-ad02-2a3b043810a5</screen></para>
59	</listitem>
60	</itemizedlist>
61
62	<para>You can type <computeroutput>VBoxManage list vms</computeroutput> to
63	have all currently registered VMs listed with all their settings,
64	including their respective names and UUIDs.</para>
65
66	<para>Some typical examples of how to control VirtualBox from the command
67	line are listed below:</para>
68
69	<itemizedlist>
70	<listitem>
71	<para>To create a new virtual machine from the command line and
72	immediately register it with VirtualBox, use
73	<computeroutput>VBoxManage createvm</computeroutput> with the
74	<computeroutput>--register</computeroutput> option,<footnote>
75	<para>For details, see <xref
76	linkend="vboxmanage-createvm" />.</para>
77	</footnote> like this:</para>
78
79	<screen>$ VBoxManage createvm --name "SUSE 10.2" --register
80	VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version $VBOX_VERSION_MAJOR.$VBOX_VERSION_MINOR.$VBOX_VERSION_BUILD
81	(C) 2005-$VBOX_C_YEAR $VBOX_VENDOR
82	All rights reserved.
83
84	Virtual machine 'SUSE 10.2' is created.
85	UUID: c89fc351-8ec6-4f02-a048-57f4d25288e5
86	Settings file: '/home/username/.VirtualBox/Machines/SUSE 10.2/SUSE 10.2.xml'
87	</screen>
88
89	<para>As can be seen from the above output, a new virtual machine has
90	been created with a new UUID and a new XML settings file.</para>
91	</listitem>
92
93	<listitem>
94	<para>To show the configuration of a particular VM, use
95	<computeroutput>VBoxManage showvminfo</computeroutput>; see <xref
96	linkend="vboxmanage-showvminfo" /> for details and an example.</para>
97	</listitem>
98
99	<listitem>
100	<para>To change settings while a VM is powered off, use
101	<computeroutput>VBoxManage modifyvm</computeroutput>, e.g. as
102	follows:<screen>VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows XP" --memory "512MB"</screen></para>
103
104	<para>For details, see <xref linkend="vboxmanage-modifyvm" />.</para>
105	</listitem>
106
107	<listitem>
108	<para>To change the storage configuration (e.g. to add a storage
109	controller and then a virtual disk), use <computeroutput>VBoxManage
110	storagectl</computeroutput> and <computeroutput>VBoxManage
111	storageattach</computeroutput>; see <xref
112	linkend="vboxmanage-storagectl" /> and <xref
113	linkend="vboxmanage-storageattach" /> for details.</para>
114	</listitem>
115
116	<listitem>
117	<para>To control VM operation, use one of the following:<itemizedlist>
118	<listitem>
119	<para>To start a VM that is currently powered off, use
120	<computeroutput>VBoxManage startvm</computeroutput>; see <xref
121	linkend="vboxmanage-startvm" /> for details.</para>
122	</listitem>
123
124	<listitem>
125	<para>To pause or save a VM that is currently running or change
126	some of its settings, use <computeroutput>VBoxManage
127	controlvm</computeroutput>; see <xref
128	linkend="vboxmanage-controlvm" /> for details.</para>
129	</listitem>
130	</itemizedlist></para>
131	</listitem>
132	</itemizedlist>
133	</sect1>
134
135	<sect1>
136	<title>Commands overview</title>
137
138	<para>When running VBoxManage without parameters or when supplying an
139	invalid command line, the below syntax diagram will be shown. Note that
140	the output will be slightly different depending on the host platform; when
141	in doubt, check the output of <computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput>
142	for the commands available on your particular host.</para>
143
144	<screen>$VBOX_MANAGE_OUTPUT</screen>
145
146	<para>Each time VBoxManage is invoked, only one command can be executed.
147	However, a command might support several subcommands which then can be
148	invoked in one single call. The following sections provide detailed
149	reference information on the different commands.</para>
150	</sect1>
151
152	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-list">
153	<title>VBoxManage list</title>
154
155	<para>The <computeroutput>list</computeroutput> command gives relevant
156	information about your system and information about VirtualBox's current
157	settings.</para>
158
159	<para>The following subcommands are available with
160	<computeroutput>VBoxManage list</computeroutput>: <itemizedlist>
161	<listitem>
162	<para><computeroutput>vms</computeroutput> lists all virtual
163	machines currently registered with VirtualBox. By default this
164	displays a compact list with each VM's name and UUID; if you also
165	specify <computeroutput>--long</computeroutput> or
166	<computeroutput>-l</computeroutput>, this will be a detailed list as
167	with the <computeroutput>showvminfo</computeroutput> command (see
168	below).</para>
169	</listitem>
170
171	<listitem>
172	<para><computeroutput>runningvms</computeroutput> lists all
173	currently running virtual machines by their unique identifiers
174	(UUIDs) in the same format as with
175	<computeroutput>vms</computeroutput>.</para>
176	</listitem>
177
178	<listitem>
179	<para><computeroutput>ostypes</computeroutput> lists all guest
180	operating systems presently known to VirtualBox, along with the
181	identifiers used to refer to them with the
182	<computeroutput>modifyvm</computeroutput> command.</para>
183	</listitem>
184
185	<listitem>
186	<para><computeroutput>hostdvds</computeroutput>,
187	<computeroutput>hostfloppies</computeroutput>, respectively, list
188	DVD, floppy, bridged networking and host-only networking interfaces
189	on the host, along with the name used to access them from within
190	VirtualBox.</para>
191	</listitem>
192
193	<listitem>
194	<para><computeroutput>bridgedifs</computeroutput>,
195	<computeroutput>hostonlyifs</computeroutput> and
196	<computeroutput>dhcpservers</computeroutput>, respectively, list
197	bridged network interfaces, host-only network interfaces and DHCP
198	servers currently available on the host. Please see <xref
199	linkend="networkingdetails" /> for details on these.</para>
200	</listitem>
201
202	<listitem>
203	<para><computeroutput>hostusb</computeroutput> supplies information
204	about USB devices attached to the host, notably information useful
205	for constructing USB filters and whether they are currently in use
206	by the host.</para>
207	</listitem>
208
209	<listitem>
210	<para><computeroutput>usbfilters</computeroutput> lists all global
211	USB filters registered with VirtualBox -- that is, filters for
212	devices which are accessible to all virtual machines -- and displays
213	the filter parameters.</para>
214	</listitem>
215
216	<listitem>
217	<para><computeroutput>hdds</computeroutput>,
218	<computeroutput>dvds</computeroutput> and
219	<computeroutput>floppies</computeroutput> all give you information
220	about virtual disk images currently in use by VirtualBox, including
221	all their settings, the unique identifiers (UUIDs) associated with
222	them by VirtualBox and all files associated with them. This is the
223	command-line equivalent of the Virtual Media Manager; see <xref
224	linkend="vdis" />.</para>
225	</listitem>
226
227	<listitem>
228	<para><computeroutput>hddbackends</computeroutput> lists all known
229	virtual disk back-ends of VirtualBox. For each such format (such as
230	VDI, VMDK or RAW), this lists the back-end's capabilities and
231	configuration.</para>
232	</listitem>
233
234	<listitem>
235	<para><computeroutput>systemproperties</computeroutput> displays
236	some global VirtualBox settings, such as minimum and maximum guest
237	RAM and virtual hard disk size, folder settings and the current
238	authentication library in use.</para>
239	</listitem>
240
241	<listitem>
242	<para><computeroutput>extpacks</computeroutput> displays all
243	VirtualBox extension packs currently installed; see <xref
244	linkend="intro-installing" /> and <xref
245	linkend="vboxmanage-extpack" /> for more information.</para>
246	</listitem>
247	</itemizedlist></para>
248	</sect1>
249
250	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-showvminfo">
251	<title>VBoxManage showvminfo</title>
252
253	<para>The <computeroutput>showvminfo</computeroutput> command shows
254	information about a particular virtual machine. This is the same
255	information as <computeroutput>VBoxManage list vms --long</computeroutput>
256	would show for all virtual machines.</para>
257
258	<para>You will get information similar to the following:</para>
259
260	<para><screen>$ VBoxManage showvminfo "Windows XP"
261	VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version $VBOX_VERSION_MAJOR.$VBOX_VERSION_MINOR.$VBOX_VERSION_BUILD
262	(C) 2005-$VBOX_C_YEAR $VBOX_VENDOR
263	All rights reserved.
264
265	Name: Windows XP
266	Guest OS: Other/Unknown
267	UUID: 1bf3464d-57c6-4d49-92a9-a5cc3816b7e7
268	Config file: /home/username/.VirtualBox/Machines/Windows XP/Windows XP.xml
269	Memory size: 512MB
270	VRAM size: 12MB
271	Number of CPUs: 2
272	Synthetic Cpu: off
273	Boot menu mode: message and menu
274	Boot Device (1): DVD
275	Boot Device (2): HardDisk
276	Boot Device (3): Not Assigned
277	Boot Device (4): Not Assigned
278	ACPI: on
279	IOAPIC: on
280	PAE: on
281	Time offset: 0 ms
282	Hardw. virt.ext: on
283	Hardw. virt.ext exclusive: on
284	Nested Paging: on
285	VT-x VPID: off
286	State: powered off (since 2009-10-20T14:52:19.000000000)
287	Monitor count: 1
288	3D Acceleration: off
289	2D Video Acceleration: off
290	Teleporter Enabled: off
291	Teleporter Port: 0
292	Teleporter Address:
293	Teleporter Password:
294	Storage Controller (0): IDE Controller
295	Storage Controller Type (0): PIIX4
296	Storage Controller (1): Floppy Controller 1
297	Storage Controller Type (1): I82078
298	IDE Controller (0, 0): /home/user/windows.vdi (UUID: 46f6e53a-4557-460a-9b95-68b0f17d744b)
299	IDE Controller (0, 1): /home/user/openbsd-cd46.iso (UUID: 4335e162-59d3-4512-91d5-b63e94eebe0b)
300	Floppy Controller 1 (0, 0): /home/user/floppy.img (UUID: 62ac6ccb-df36-42f2-972e-22f836368137)
301	NIC 1: disabled
302	NIC 2: disabled
303	NIC 3: disabled
304	NIC 4: disabled
305	NIC 5: disabled
306	NIC 6: disabled
307	NIC 7: disabled
308	NIC 8: disabled
309	UART 1: disabled
310	UART 2: disabled
311	Audio: disabled (Driver: Unknown)
312	Clipboard Mode: Bidirectional
313	VRDP: disabled
314	USB: disabled
315
316	USB Device Filters:
317	<none>
318
319	Shared folders:
320	<none>
321
322	Statistics update: disabled
323	</screen></para>
324	</sect1>
325
326	<sect1>
327	<title>VBoxManage registervm / unregistervm</title>
328
329	<para>The <computeroutput>registervm</computeroutput> command allows you
330	to import a virtual machine definition in an XML file into VirtualBox. The
331	machine must not conflict with one already registered in VirtualBox and it
332	may not have any hard or removable disks attached. It is advisable to
333	place the definition file in the machines folder before registering
334	it.<note>
335	<para>When creating a new virtual machine with
336	<computeroutput>VBoxManage createvm</computeroutput> (see below), you
337	can directly specify the <computeroutput>--register</computeroutput>
338	option to avoid having to register it separately.</para>
339	</note></para>
340
341	<para>The <computeroutput>unregistervm</computeroutput> command
342	unregisters a virtual machine. If
343	<computeroutput>--delete</computeroutput> is also specified, the following
344	files will automatically be deleted as well:<orderedlist>
345	<listitem>
346	<para>all hard disk image files, including differencing files, which
347	are used by the machine and not shared with other machines;</para>
348	</listitem>
349
350	<listitem>
351	<para>saved state files that the machine created, if any (one if the
352	machine was in "saved" state and one for each online
353	snapshot);</para>
354	</listitem>
355
356	<listitem>
357	<para>the machine XML file and its backups;</para>
358	</listitem>
359
360	<listitem>
361	<para>the machine log files, if any;</para>
362	</listitem>
363
364	<listitem>
365	<para>the machine directory, if it is empty after having deleted all
366	the above.</para>
367	</listitem>
368	</orderedlist></para>
369	</sect1>
370
371	<sect1>
372	<title id="vboxmanage-createvm">VBoxManage createvm</title>
373
374	<para>This command creates a new XML virtual machine definition
375	file.</para>
376
377	<para>The <computeroutput>--name <name></computeroutput> parameter
378	is required and must specify the name of the machine. Since this name is
379	used by default as the file name of the settings file (with the extension
380	<computeroutput>.xml</computeroutput>) and the machine folder (a subfolder
381	of the <computeroutput>.VirtualBox/Machines</computeroutput> folder), it
382	must conform to your host operating system's requirements for file name
383	specifications. If the VM is later renamed, the file and folder names will
384	change automatically.</para>
385
386	<para>However, if the <computeroutput>--basefolder
387	<path></computeroutput> option is used, the machine folder will be
388	named <computeroutput><path></computeroutput>. In this case, the
389	names of the file and the folder will not change if the virtual machine is
390	renamed.</para>
391
392	<para>By default, this command only creates the XML file without
393	automatically registering the VM with your VirtualBox installation. To
394	register the VM instantly, use the optional
395	<computeroutput>--register</computeroutput> option, or run
396	<computeroutput>VBoxManage registervm</computeroutput> separately
397	afterwards.</para>
398	</sect1>
399
400	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-modifyvm">
401	<title>VBoxManage modifyvm</title>
402
403	<para>This command changes the properties of a registered virtual machine
404	which is not running. Most of the properties that this command makes
405	available correspond to the VM settings that VirtualBox graphical user
406	interface displays in each VM's "Settings" dialog; these were described in
407	<xref linkend="BasicConcepts" />. Some of the more advanced settings,
408	however, are only available through the
409	<computeroutput>VBoxManage</computeroutput> interface.</para>
410
411	<para>These commands require that the machine is powered off (neither
412	running nor in "saved" state). Some machine settings can also be changed
413	while a machine is running; those settings will then have a corresponding
414	subcommand with the <computeroutput>VBoxManage controlvm</computeroutput>
415	subcommand (see <xref linkend="vboxmanage-controlvm" />).</para>
416
417	<sect2>
418	<title>General settings</title>
419
420	<para>The following general settings are available through
421	<computeroutput>VBoxManage modifyvm</computeroutput>:<itemizedlist>
422	<listitem>
423	<para><computeroutput>--name <name></computeroutput>: This
424	changes the VM's name and possibly renames the internal virtual
425	machine files, as described with <computeroutput>VBoxManage
426	createvm</computeroutput> above.</para>
427	</listitem>
428
429	<listitem>
430	<para><computeroutput>--ostype <ostype></computeroutput>:
431	This specifies what guest operating system is supposed to run in
432	the VM. To learn about the various identifiers that can be used
433	here, use <computeroutput>VBoxManage list
434	ostypes</computeroutput>.</para>
435	</listitem>
436
437	<listitem>
438	<para><computeroutput>--memory
439	<memorysize></computeroutput>: This sets the amount of RAM,
440	in MB, that the virtual machine should allocate for itself from
441	the host. See the remarks in <xref linkend="gui-createvm" /> for
442	more information.</para>
443	</listitem>
444
445	<listitem>
446	<para><computeroutput>--vram <vramsize></computeroutput>:
447	This sets the amount of RAM that the virtual graphics card should
448	have. See <xref linkend="settings-display" /> for details.</para>
449	</listitem>
450
451	<listitem>
452	<para><computeroutput>--acpi on\|off</computeroutput>;
453	<computeroutput>--ioapic on\|off</computeroutput>: These two
454	determine whether the VM should have ACPI and I/O APIC support,
455	respectively; see <xref linkend="settings-motherboard" /> for
456	details.</para>
457	</listitem>
458
459	<listitem>
460	<para><computeroutput>--hardwareuuid
461	<uuid></computeroutput>: The UUID presented to the guest via
462	memory tables (DMI/SMBIOS), hardware and guest properties. By
463	default this is the same as the VM uuid. Useful when cloning a VM.
464	Teleporting takes care of this automatically.</para>
465	</listitem>
466
467	<listitem>
468	<para><computeroutput>--cpus <cpucount></computeroutput>:
469	This sets the number of virtual CPUs for the virtual machine (see
470	<xref linkend="settings-processor" />). If CPU hot-plugging is
471	enabled (see below), this then sets the
472	<emphasis>maximum</emphasis> number of virtual CPUs that can be
473	plugged into the virtual machines.</para>
474	</listitem>
475
476	<listitem>
477	<para><computeroutput>--rtcuseutc on\|off</computeroutput>: This
478	option lets the real-time clock (RTC) operate in UTC time (see
479	<xref linkend="settings-motherboard" />).</para>
480	</listitem>
481
482	<listitem>
483	<para><computeroutput>--cpuhotplug on\|off</computeroutput>: This
484	enables CPU hot-plugging. When enabled, virtual CPUs can be added
485	to and removed from a virtual machine while it is running. See
486	<xref linkend="cpuhotplug" /> for more information.</para>
487	</listitem>
488
489	<listitem>
490	<para><computeroutput>--plugcpu\|unplugcpu
491	<id></computeroutput>: If CPU hot-plugging is enabled (see
492	above), this adds a virtual CPU to the virtual machines (or
493	removes one). <computeroutput><id></computeroutput>
494	specifies the index of the virtual CPU to be added or removed and
495	must be a number from 0 to the maximum no. of CPUs configured with
496	the <computeroutput>--cpus</computeroutput> option. CPU 0 can
497	never be removed.</para>
498	</listitem>
499
500	<listitem>
501	<para><computeroutput>--cpuexecutioncap
502	<1-100></computeroutput>: This setting controls how much cpu
503	time a virtual CPU can use. A value of 50 implies a single virtual
504	CPU can use up to 50% of a single host CPU.</para>
505	</listitem>
506
507	<listitem>
508	<para><computeroutput>--synthcpu on\|off</computeroutput>: This
509	setting determines whether VirtualBox will expose a synthetic CPU
510	to the guest to allow live migration between host systems that
511	differ significantly.</para>
512	</listitem>
513
514	<listitem>
515	<para><computeroutput>--pae on\|off</computeroutput>: This
516	enables/disables PAE (see <xref
517	linkend="settings-processor" />).</para>
518	</listitem>
519
520	<listitem>
521	<para><computeroutput>--hpet on\|off</computeroutput>: This
522	enables/disables a High Precision Event Timer (HPET) which can
523	replace the legacy system timers. This is turned off by default.
524	Note that Windows supports a HPET only from Vista onwards.</para>
525	</listitem>
526
527	<listitem>
528	<para><computeroutput>--hwvirtex on\|off</computeroutput>: This
529	enables or disables the use of hardware virtualization extensions
530	(Intel VT-x or AMD-V) in the processor of your host system; see
531	<xref linkend="hwvirt" />.</para>
532	</listitem>
533
534	<listitem>
535	<para><computeroutput>--hwvirtexexcl on\|off</computeroutput>: This
536	specifies whether VirtualBox will make exclusive use of the
537	hardware virtualization extensions (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) in the
538	processor of your host system; see <xref linkend="hwvirt" />. If
539	you wish to simultaneously share these extensions with other
540	hypervisors, then you must disable this setting. Doing so has
541	negative performance implications.</para>
542	</listitem>
543
544	<listitem>
545	<para><computeroutput>--nestedpaging on\|off</computeroutput>: If
546	hardware virtualization is enabled, this additional setting
547	enables or disables the use of the nested paging feature in the
548	processor of your host system; see <xref
549	linkend="hwvirt" />.</para>
550	</listitem>
551
552	<listitem>
553	<para><computeroutput>--largepages on\|off</computeroutput>: If
554	hardware virtualization <emphasis>and</emphasis> nested paging are
555	enabled, for Intel VT-x only, an additional performance
556	improvement of up to 5% can be obtained by enabling this setting.
557	This causes the hypervisor to use large pages to reduce TLB use
558	and overhead.</para>
559	</listitem>
560
561	<listitem>
562	<para><computeroutput>--vtxvpid on\|off</computeroutput>: If
563	hardware virtualization is enabled, for Intel VT-x only, this
564	additional setting enables or disables the use of the tagged TLB
565	(VPID) feature in the processor of your host system; see <xref
566	linkend="hwvirt" />.</para>
567	</listitem>
568
569	<listitem>
570	<para><computeroutput>--accelerate3d on\|off</computeroutput>: This
571	enables, if the Guest Additions are installed, whether hardware 3D
572	acceleration should be available; see <xref
573	linkend="guestadd-3d" />.</para>
574	</listitem>
575
576	<listitem>
577	<para>You can influence the BIOS logo that is displayed when a
578	virtual machine starts up with a number of settings. Per default,
579	a VirtualBox logo is displayed.</para>
580
581	<para>With <computeroutput>--bioslogofadein
582	on\|off</computeroutput> and <computeroutput>--bioslogofadeout
583	on\|off</computeroutput>, you can determine whether the logo should
584	fade in and out, respectively.</para>
585
586	<para>With <computeroutput>--bioslogodisplaytime
587	<msec></computeroutput> you can set how long the logo should
588	be visible, in milliseconds.</para>
589
590	<para>With <computeroutput>--bioslogoimagepath
591	<imagepath></computeroutput> you can, if you are so
592	inclined, replace the image that is shown, with your own logo. The
593	image must be an uncompressed 256 color BMP file.</para>
594	</listitem>
595
596	<listitem>
597	<para><computeroutput>--biosbootmenu
598	disabled\|menuonly\|messageandmenu</computeroutput>: This specifies
599	whether the BIOS allows the user to select a temporary boot
600	device. <computeroutput>menuonly</computeroutput> suppresses the
601	message, but the user can still press F12 to select a temporary
602	boot device.</para>
603	</listitem>
604
605	<listitem>
606	<para><computeroutput>--boot<1-4>
607	none\|floppy\|dvd\|disk\|net</computeroutput>: This specifies the boot
608	order for the virtual machine. There are four "slots", which the
609	VM will try to access from 1 to 4, and for each of which you can
610	set a device that the VM should attempt to boot from.</para>
611	</listitem>
612
613	<listitem>
614	<para><computeroutput>--snapshotfolder
615	default\|<path></computeroutput>: This allows you to specify
616	the folder in which snapshots will be kept for a virtual
617	machine.</para>
618	</listitem>
619
620	<listitem>
621	<para><computeroutput>--firmware efi\|bios</computeroutput>:
622	Specifies which firmware is used to boot particular virtual
623	machine: EFI or BIOS. Use EFI only if your fully understand what
624	you're doing.</para>
625	</listitem>
626
627	<listitem>
628	<para><computeroutput>--guestmemoryballoon
629	<size></computeroutput> sets the default size of the guest
630	memory balloon, that is, memory allocated by the VirtualBox Guest
631	Additions from the guest operating system and returned to the
632	hypervisor for re-use by other virtual machines. <size> must
633	be specified in megabytes. The default size is 0 megabytes. For
634	details, see <xref linkend="guestadd-balloon" />.</para>
635	</listitem>
636	</itemizedlist></para>
637	</sect2>
638
639	<sect2>
640	<title>Networking settings</title>
641
642	<para>The following networking settings are available through
643	<computeroutput>VBoxManage modifyvm</computeroutput>. With all these
644	settings, the decimal number directly following the option name ("1-N"
645	in the list below) specifies the virtual network adapter whose settings
646	should be changed.<itemizedlist>
647	<listitem>
648	<para><computeroutput>--nic<1-N>
649	none\|null\|nat\|bridged\|intnet\|hostonly\|vde</computeroutput>: With
650	this, you can set, for each of the VM's virtual network cards,
651	what type of networking should be available. They can be not
652	present (<computeroutput>none</computeroutput>), not connected to
653	the host (<computeroutput>null</computeroutput>), use network
654	address translation (<computeroutput>nat</computeroutput>),
655	bridged networking (<computeroutput>bridged</computeroutput>) or
656	communicate with other virtual machines using internal networking
657	(<computeroutput>intnet</computeroutput>), host-only networking
658	(<computeroutput>hostonly</computeroutput>) or on Linux and
659	FreeBSD hosts a Virtual Distributed Ethernet switch
660	(<computeroutput>vde</computeroutput>). These options correspond
661	to the modes which are described in detail in <xref
662	linkend="networkingmodes" />.</para>
663	</listitem>
664
665	<listitem>
666	<para><computeroutput>--nictype<1-N>
667	Am79C970A\|Am79C973\|82540EM\|82543GC\|82545EM\|virtio</computeroutput>:
668	This allows you, for each of the VM's virtual network cards, to
669	specify which networking hardware VirtualBox presents to the
670	guest; see <xref linkend="nichardware" />.</para>
671	</listitem>
672
673	<listitem>
674	<para><computeroutput>--cableconnected<1-N>
675	on\|off</computeroutput>: This allows you to temporarily disconnect
676	a virtual network interface, as if a network cable had been pulled
677	from a real network card. This might be useful for resetting
678	certain software components in the VM.</para>
679	</listitem>
680
681	<listitem>
682	<para>With the "nictrace" options, you can optionally trace
683	network traffic by dumping it to a file, for debugging
684	purposes.</para>
685
686	<para>With <computeroutput>--nictrace<1-N>
687	on\|off</computeroutput>, you can enable network tracing for a
688	particular virtual network card.</para>
689
690	<para>If enabled, you must specify with
691	<computeroutput>--nictracefile<1-N>
692	<filename></computeroutput> what file the trace should be
693	logged to.</para>
694	</listitem>
695
696	<listitem>
697	<para><computeroutput>--bridgeadapter<1-N>
698	none\|<devicename></computeroutput>: If bridged networking
699	has been enabled for a virtual network card (see the
700	<computeroutput>--nic</computeroutput> option above; otherwise
701	this setting has no effect), use this option to specify which host
702	interface the given virtual network interface will use. For
703	details, please see <xref linkend="network_bridged" />.</para>
704	</listitem>
705
706	<listitem>
707	<para><computeroutput>--hostonlyadapter<1-N>
708	none\|<devicename></computeroutput>: If host-only networking
709	has been enabled for a virtual network card (see the --nic option
710	above; otherwise this setting has no effect), use this option to
711	specify which host-only networking interface the given virtual
712	network interface will use. For details, please see <xref
713	linkend="network_hostonly" />.</para>
714	</listitem>
715
716	<listitem>
717	<para><computeroutput>--intnet<1-N>
718	network</computeroutput>: If internal networking has been enabled
719	for a virtual network card (see the
720	<computeroutput>--nic</computeroutput> option above; otherwise
721	this setting has no effect), use this option to specify the name
722	of the internal network (see <xref
723	linkend="network_internal" />).</para>
724	</listitem>
725
726	<listitem>
727	<para><computeroutput>--macaddress<1-N>
728	auto\|<mac></computeroutput>: With this option you can set
729	the MAC address of the virtual network card. Normally, each
730	virtual network card is assigned a random address by VirtualBox at
731	VM creation.</para>
732	</listitem>
733
734	<listitem>
735	<para><computeroutput>--vdenet<1-N>
736	network</computeroutput>: If Virtual Distributed Ethernet is
737	available on the host and has been enabled for a virtual network
738	card (see the <computeroutput>--nic</computeroutput> option above;
739	otherwise this setting has no effect). Use this option to specify
740	the name of a VDE network for the interface to connect to (see
741	<xref linkend="networkingmodes" /> and the VDE
742	documentation).</para>
743	</listitem>
744	</itemizedlist></para>
745
746	<sect3>
747	<title>NAT Networking settings.</title>
748
749	<para>The following NAT networking settings are available through
750	<computeroutput>VBoxManage modifyvm</computeroutput>. With all these
751	settings, the decimal number directly following the option name ("1-N"
752	in the list below) specifies the virtual network adapter whose
753	settings should be changed.<itemizedlist>
754	<listitem>
755	<para><computeroutput>--natpf<1-N>
756	[<name>],tcp\|udp,[<hostip>],<hostport>,[<guestip>],
757	<guestport></computeroutput>: This option defines a NAT
758	port-forwarding rule (please see <xref linkend="natforward" />
759	for details).</para>
760	</listitem>
761
762	<listitem>
763	<para><computeroutput>--natpf<1-N> delete
764	<name></computeroutput>: This option deletes a NAT
765	port-forwarding rule (please see <xref linkend="natforward" />
766	for details).</para>
767	</listitem>
768
769	<listitem>
770	<para><computeroutput>--nattftpprefix<1-N>
771	<prefix></computeroutput>: This option defines a prefix
772	for the built-in TFTP server, i.e. where the boot file is
773	located (please see <xref linkend="nat-tftp" /> and <xref
774	linkend="nat-adv-tftp" /> for details).</para>
775	</listitem>
776
777	<listitem>
778	<para><computeroutput>--nattftpfile<1-N>
779	<bootfile></computeroutput>: This option defines the TFT
780	boot file (please see <xref linkend="nat-adv-tftp" /> for
781	details).</para>
782	</listitem>
783
784	<listitem>
785	<para><computeroutput>--nattftpserver<1-N>
786	<tftpserver></computeroutput>: This option defines the
787	TFTP server address to boot from (please see <xref
788	linkend="nat-adv-tftp" /> for details).</para>
789	</listitem>
790
791	<listitem>
792	<para><computeroutput>--natdnspassdomain<1-N>
793	on\|off</computeroutput>: This option specifies whether the
794	built-in DHCP server passes the domain name for network name
795	resolution.</para>
796	</listitem>
797
798	<listitem>
799	<para><computeroutput>--natdnsproxy<1-N>
800	on\|off</computeroutput>: This option makes the NAT engine proxy
801	all guest DNS requests to the host's DNS servers (please see
802	<xref linkend="nat-adv-dns" /> for details).</para>
803	</listitem>
804
805	<listitem>
806	<para><computeroutput>--natdnshostresolver<1-N>
807	on\|off</computeroutput>: This option makes the NAT engine use
808	the host's resolver mechanisms to handle DNS requests (please
809	see <xref linkend="nat-adv-dns" /> for details).</para>
810	</listitem>
811
812	<listitem>
813	<para><computeroutput>--natnatsettings<1-N>
814	[<mtu>],[<socksnd>],[<sockrcv>],[<tcpsnd>],
815	[<tcprcv>]</computeroutput>: This option controls several
816	NAT settings (please see <xref linkend="nat-adv-settings" /> for
817	details).</para>
818	</listitem>
819
820	<listitem>
821	<para><computeroutput>--nataliasmode<1-N>
822	default\|[log],[proxyonly],[sameports]</computeroutput>: This
823	option defines behaviour of NAT engine core: log - enables
824	logging, proxyonly - switches of aliasing mode makes NAT
825	transparent, sameports enforces NAT engine to send packets via
826	the same port as they originated on, default - disable all
827	mentioned modes above . (please see <xref
828	linkend="nat-adv-alias" /> for details).</para>
829	</listitem>
830	</itemizedlist></para>
831	</sect3>
832	</sect2>
833
834	<sect2 id="vboxmanage-modifyvm-other">
835	<title>Serial port, audio, clipboard, VRDP and USB settings</title>
836
837	<para>The following other hardware settings are available through
838	<computeroutput>VBoxManage modifyvm</computeroutput>:<itemizedlist>
839	<listitem>
840	<para><computeroutput>--uart<1-N> off\|<I/O base>
841	<IRQ></computeroutput>: With this option you can configure
842	virtual serial ports for the VM; see <xref
843	linkend="serialports" /> for an introduction.</para>
844	</listitem>
845
846	<listitem>
847	<para><computeroutput>--uartmode<1-N>
848	<arg></computeroutput>: This setting controls how VirtualBox
849	connects a given virtual serial port (previously configured with
850	the <computeroutput>--uartX</computeroutput> setting, see above)
851	to the host on which the virtual machine is running. As described
852	in detail in <xref linkend="serialports" />, for each such port,
853	you can specify <computeroutput><arg></computeroutput> as
854	one of the following options:<itemizedlist>
855	<listitem>
856	<para><computeroutput>disconnected</computeroutput>: Even
857	though the serial port is shown to the guest, it has no
858	"other end" -- like a real COM port without a cable.</para>
859	</listitem>
860
861	<listitem>
862	<para><computeroutput>server
863	<pipename></computeroutput>: On a Windows host, this
864	tells VirtualBox to create a named pipe on the host named
865	<computeroutput><pipename></computeroutput> and
866	connect the virtual serial device to it. Note that Windows
867	requires that the name of a named pipe begin with
868	<computeroutput>\\.\pipe\</computeroutput>.</para>
869
870	<para>On a Linux host, instead of a named pipe, a local
871	domain socket is used.</para>
872	</listitem>
873
874	<listitem>
875	<para><computeroutput>client
876	<pipename></computeroutput>: This operates just like
877	<computeroutput>server ...</computeroutput>, except that the
878	pipe (or local domain socket) is not created by VirtualBox,
879	but assumed to exist already.</para>
880	</listitem>
881
882	<listitem>
883	<para><computeroutput><devicename></computeroutput>:
884	If, instead of the above, the device name of a physical
885	hardware serial port of the host is specified, the virtual
886	serial port is connected to that hardware port. On a Windows
887	host, the device name will be a COM port such as
888	<computeroutput>COM1</computeroutput>; on a Linux host, the
889	device name will look like
890	<computeroutput>/dev/ttyS0</computeroutput>. This allows you
891	to "wire" a real serial port to a virtual machine.</para>
892	</listitem>
893	</itemizedlist></para>
894	</listitem>
895
896	<listitem>
897	<para><computeroutput>--audio none\|null\|oss</computeroutput>: With
898	this option, you can set whether the VM should have audio
899	support.</para>
900	</listitem>
901
902	<listitem>
903	<para><computeroutput>--clipboard
904	disabled\|hosttoguest\|guesttohost\|bidirectional</computeroutput>:
905	With this setting, you can select whether the guest operating
906	system's clipboard should be shared with the host; see <xref
907	linkend="generalsettings" />. This requires that the Guest
908	Additions be installed in the virtual machine.</para>
909	</listitem>
910
911	<listitem>
912	<para><computeroutput>--monitorcount
913	<count></computeroutput>: This enables multi-monitor
914	support; see <xref linkend="settings-display" />.</para>
915	</listitem>
916
917	<listitem>
918	<para><computeroutput>--usb on\|off</computeroutput>: This option
919	enables or disables the VM's virtual USB controller; see <xref
920	linkend="settings-usb" /> for details.</para>
921	</listitem>
922
923	<listitem>
924	<para><computeroutput>--usbehci on\|off</computeroutput>: This
925	option enables or disables the VM's virtual USB 2.0 controller;
926	see <xref linkend="settings-usb" /> for details.</para>
927	</listitem>
928	</itemizedlist></para>
929	</sect2>
930
931	<sect2>
932	<title>Remote machine settings</title>
933
934	<para>The following settings that affect remote machine behavior are
935	available through <computeroutput>VBoxManage
936	modifyvm</computeroutput>:<itemizedlist>
937	<listitem>
938	<para><computeroutput>--vrdp on\|off</computeroutput>: With the
939	VirtualBox graphical user interface, this enables or disables the
940	built-in VRDP server. Note that if you are using
941	<computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput> (see <xref
942	linkend="vboxheadless" />), VRDP output is always enabled.</para>
943	</listitem>
944
945	<listitem>
946	<para><computeroutput>--vrdpport
947	default\|<ports></computeroutput>: A port or a range of ports
948	the VRDP server can bind to; "default" or "0" means port 3389, the
949	standard port for RDP. You can specify a comma-separated list of
950	ports or ranges of ports. Use a dash between two port numbers to
951	specify a range. The VRDP server will bind to <emphasis
952	role="bold">one</emphasis> of available ports from the specified
953	list. Only one machine can use a given port at a time. For
954	example, the option <computeroutput> --vrdpport
955	5000,5010-5012</computeroutput> will tell the server to bind to
956	one of following ports: 5000, 5010, 5011 or 5012.</para>
957	</listitem>
958
959	<listitem>
960	<para><computeroutput>--vrdpaddress <IP
961	address></computeroutput>: The IP address of the host network
962	interface the VRDP server will bind to. If specified, the VRDP
963	server will accept connections only on the specified host network
964	interface.</para>
965	</listitem>
966
967	<listitem>
968	<para><computeroutput>--vrdeauthtype
969	null\|external\|guest</computeroutput>: This allows you to choose
970	whether and how authorization will be performed; see <xref
971	linkend="vbox-auth" /> for details.</para>
972	</listitem>
973
974	<listitem>
975	<para><computeroutput>--vrdpmulticon on\|off</computeroutput>: This
976	enables multiple VRDP connections to the same VRDP server; see
977	<xref lang="" linkend="vrdp-multiconnection" />.</para>
978	</listitem>
979
980	<listitem>
981	<para><computeroutput>--vrdpreusecon on\|off</computeroutput>: This
982	specifies the VRDP server behavior when multiple connections are
983	disabled. When this option is enabled, the VRDP server will allow
984	a new client to connect and drop the existing connection. When
985	this option is disabled (this is the default setting), a new
986	connection will not be accepted if there is already a client
987	connected to the server.</para>
988	</listitem>
989
990	<listitem>
991	<para><computeroutput>--vrdpvideochannel on\|off</computeroutput>:
992	This enables VRDP video acceleration; see <xref lang=""
993	linkend="vrdp-videochannel" />.</para>
994	</listitem>
995
996	<listitem>
997	<para><computeroutput>--vrdpvideochannelquality
998	<percent></computeroutput>: Sets the image quality for VRDP
999	video acceleration; see <xref lang=""
1000	linkend="vrdp-videochannel" />.</para>
1001	</listitem>
1002	</itemizedlist></para>
1003	</sect2>
1004
1005	<sect2 id="vboxmanage-modifyvm-teleport">
1006	<title>Teleporting settings</title>
1007
1008	<para>With the following commands for <computeroutput>VBoxManage
1009	modifyvm</computeroutput> you can configure a machine to be a target for
1010	teleporting. See <xref linkend="teleporting" /> for an
1011	introduction.<itemizedlist>
1012	<listitem>
1013	<para><computeroutput>--teleporter on\|off</computeroutput>: With
1014	this setting you turn on or off whether a machine waits for a
1015	teleporting request to come in on the network when it is started.
1016	If "on", when the machine is started, it does not boot the virtual
1017	machine as it would normally; instead, it then waits for a
1018	teleporting request to come in on the port and address listed with
1019	the next two parameters.</para>
1020	</listitem>
1021
1022	<listitem>
1023	<para><computeroutput>--teleporterport
1024	<port></computeroutput>, <computeroutput>--teleporteraddress
1025	<address></computeroutput>: these must be used with
1026	--teleporter and tell the virtual machine on which port and
1027	address it should listen for a teleporting request from another
1028	virtual machine. <computeroutput><port></computeroutput> can
1029	be any free TCP/IP port number (e.g. 6000);
1030	<computeroutput><address></computeroutput> can be any IP
1031	address or hostname and specifies the TCP/IP socket to bind to.
1032	The default is "0.0.0.0", which means any address.</para>
1033	</listitem>
1034
1035	<listitem>
1036	<para><computeroutput>--teleporterpassword
1037	<password></computeroutput>: if this optional argument is
1038	given, then the teleporting request will only succeed if the
1039	source machine specifies the same password as the one given with
1040	this command.</para>
1041	</listitem>
1042
1043	<listitem>
1044	<para><computeroutput>--cpuid <leaf> <eax> <ebx>
1045	<ecx> <edx></computeroutput>: Advanced users can use
1046	this command before a teleporting operation to restrict the
1047	virtual CPU capabilities that VirtualBox presents to the guest
1048	operating system. This must be run on both the source and the
1049	target machines involved in the teleporting and will then modify
1050	what the guest sees when it executes the
1051	<computeroutput>CPUID</computeroutput> machine instruction. This
1052	might help with misbehaving applications that wrongly assume that
1053	certain CPU capabilities are present. The meaning of the
1054	parameters is hardware dependent; please refer to the AMD or Intel
1055	processor manuals.</para>
1056	</listitem>
1057	</itemizedlist></para>
1058	</sect2>
1059	</sect1>
1060
1061	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-import">
1062	<title>VBoxManage import</title>
1063
1064	<para>This command imports a virtual appliance in OVF format by copying
1065	the virtual disk images and creating virtual machines in VirtualBox. See
1066	<xref linkend="ovf" /> for an introduction to appliances.</para>
1067
1068	<para>The <computeroutput>import</computeroutput> subcommand takes at
1069	least the path name of an OVF file as input and expects the disk images,
1070	if needed, in the same directory as the OVF file. A lot of additional
1071	command-line options are supported to control in detail what is being
1072	imported and modify the import parameters, but the details depend on the
1073	content of the OVF file.</para>
1074
1075	<para>It is therefore recommended to first run the import subcommand with
1076	the <computeroutput>--dry-run</computeroutput> or
1077	<computeroutput>-n</computeroutput> option. This will then print a
1078	description of the appliance's contents to the screen how it would be
1079	imported into VirtualBox, together with the optional command-line options
1080	to influence the import behavior.</para>
1081
1082	<para>As an example, here is the screen output with a sample appliance
1083	containing a Windows XP guest:<screen>VBoxManage import WindowsXp.ovf --dry-run
1084	Interpreting WindowsXp.ovf...
1085	OK.
1086	Virtual system 0:
1087	0: Suggested OS type: "WindowsXP"
1088	(change with "--vsys 0 --ostype <type>"; use "list ostypes" to list all)
1089	1: Suggested VM name "Windows XP Professional_1"
1090	(change with "--vsys 0 --vmname <name>")
1091	3: Number of CPUs: 1
1092	(change with "--vsys 0 --cpus <n>")
1093	4: Guest memory: 956 MB (change with "--vsys 0 --memory <MB>")
1094	5: Sound card (appliance expects "ensoniq1371", can change on import)
1095	(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 5 --ignore")
1096	6: USB controller
1097	(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 6 --ignore")
1098	7: Network adapter: orig bridged, config 2, extra type=bridged
1099	8: Floppy
1100	(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 8 --ignore")
1101	9: SCSI controller, type BusLogic
1102	(change with "--vsys 0 --unit 9 --scsitype {BusLogic\|LsiLogic}";
1103	disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 9 --ignore")
1104	10: IDE controller, type PIIX4
1105	(disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 10 --ignore")
1106	11: Hard disk image: source image=WindowsXp.vmdk,
1107	target path=/home/user/disks/WindowsXp.vmdk, controller=9;channel=0
1108	(change controller with "--vsys 0 --unit 11 --controller <id>";
1109	disable with "--vsys 0 --unit 11 --ignore")</screen></para>
1110
1111	<para>As you can see, the individual configuration items are numbered, and
1112	depending on their type support different command-line options. The import
1113	subcommand can be directed to ignore many such items with a
1114	<computeroutput>--vsys X --unit Y --ignore</computeroutput> option, where
1115	X is the number of the virtual system (zero unless there are several
1116	virtual system descriptions in the appliance) and Y the item number, as
1117	printed on the screen.</para>
1118
1119	<para>In the above example, Item #1 specifies the name of the target
1120	machine in VirtualBox. Items #9 and #10 specify hard disk controllers,
1121	respectively. Item #11 describes a hard disk image; in this case, the
1122	additional <computeroutput>--controller</computeroutput> option indicates
1123	which item the disk image should be connected to, with the default coming
1124	from the OVF file.</para>
1125
1126	<para>You can combine several items for the same virtual system behind the
1127	same <computeroutput>--vsys</computeroutput> option. For example, to
1128	import a machine as described in the OVF, but without the sound card and
1129	without the USB controller, and with the disk image connected to the IDE
1130	controller instead of the SCSI controller, use this:<screen>VBoxManage import WindowsXp.ovf
1131	--vsys 0 --unit 5 --ignore --unit 6 --ignore --unit 11 --controller 10</screen></para>
1132	</sect1>
1133
1134	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-export">
1135	<title>VBoxManage export</title>
1136
1137	<para>This command exports one or more virtual machines from VirtualBox
1138	into a virtual appliance in OVF format, including copying their virtual
1139	disk images to compressed VMDK. See <xref linkend="ovf" /> for an
1140	introduction to appliances.</para>
1141
1142	<para>The <computeroutput>export</computeroutput> command is simple to
1143	use: list the machine (or the machines) that you would like to export to
1144	the same OVF file and specify the target OVF file after an additional
1145	<computeroutput>--output</computeroutput> or
1146	<computeroutput>-o</computeroutput> option. Note that the directory of the
1147	target OVF file will also receive the exported disk images in the
1148	compressed VMDK format (regardless of the original format) and should have
1149	enough disk space left for them.</para>
1150
1151	<para>Beside a simple export of a given virtual machine, you can append
1152	several product information to the appliance file. Use
1153	<computeroutput>--product</computeroutput>,
1154	<computeroutput>--producturl</computeroutput>,
1155	<computeroutput>--vendor</computeroutput>,
1156	<computeroutput>--vendorurl</computeroutput> and
1157	<computeroutput>--version</computeroutput> to specify this additional
1158	information. For legal reasons you may add a license text or the content
1159	of a license file by using the <computeroutput>--eula</computeroutput> and
1160	<computeroutput>--eulafile</computeroutput> option respectively. As with
1161	OVF import, you must use the <computeroutput>--vsys X</computeroutput>
1162	option to direct the previously mentioned options to the correct virtual
1163	machine.</para>
1164
1165	<para>For virtualization products which aren't fully compatible with the
1166	OVF standard 1.0 you can enable a OVF 0.9 legacy mode with the
1167	<computeroutput>--legacy09</computeroutput> option.</para>
1168	</sect1>
1169
1170	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-startvm">
1171	<title>VBoxManage startvm</title>
1172
1173	<para>This command starts a virtual machine that is currently in the
1174	"Powered off" or "Saved" states.</para>
1175
1176	<note>
1177	<para>This is provided for backwards compatibility only. We recommend to
1178	start virtual machines directly by running the respective front-end, as
1179	you might otherwise miss important error and state information that
1180	VirtualBox may display on the console. This is especially important for
1181	front-ends other than <computeroutput>VirtualBox</computeroutput>, our
1182	graphical user interface, because those cannot display error messages in
1183	a popup window. See <xref linkend="vboxheadless" /> for more
1184	information.</para>
1185	</note>
1186
1187	<para>The optional <computeroutput>--type</computeroutput> specifier
1188	determines whether the machine will be started in a window (GUI mode,
1189	which is the default) or whether the output should go through
1190	<computeroutput>VBoxHeadless</computeroutput>, with VRDP enabled or not;
1191	see <xref linkend="vboxheadless" /> for more information. The list of
1192	types is subject to change, and it's not guaranteed that all types are
1193	accepted by any product variant.</para>
1194
1195	<para>The following values are allowed:</para>
1196
1197	<glosslist>
1198	<glossentry>
1199	<glossterm>gui</glossterm>
1200
1201	<glossdef>
1202	<para>Starts a VM showing a GUI window. This is the default.</para>
1203	</glossdef>
1204	</glossentry>
1205
1206	<glossentry>
1207	<glossterm>vrdp</glossterm>
1208
1209	<glossdef>
1210	<para>Starts a VM showing a GUI window, with its graphics card
1211	output accessible by an RDP client.</para>
1212	</glossdef>
1213	</glossentry>
1214
1215	<glossentry>
1216	<glossterm>headless</glossterm>
1217
1218	<glossdef>
1219	<para>Starts a VM without a window for remote RDP display
1220	only.</para>
1221	</glossdef>
1222	</glossentry>
1223	</glosslist>
1224	</sect1>
1225
1226	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-controlvm">
1227	<title>VBoxManage controlvm</title>
1228
1229	<para>The <computeroutput>controlvm</computeroutput> subcommand allows you
1230	to change the state of a virtual machine that is currently running. The
1231	following can be specified:</para>
1232
1233	<para><itemizedlist>
1234	<listitem>
1235	<para><computeroutput>VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
1236	pause</computeroutput> temporarily puts a virtual machine on hold,
1237	without changing its state for good. The VM window will be painted
1238	in gray to indicate that the VM is currently paused. (This is
1239	equivalent to selecting the "Pause" item in the "Machine" menu of
1240	the GUI.)</para>
1241	</listitem>
1242
1243	<listitem>
1244	<para>Use <computeroutput>VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
1245	resume</computeroutput> to undo a previous
1246	<computeroutput>pause</computeroutput> command. (This is equivalent
1247	to selecting the "Resume" item in the "Machine" menu of the
1248	GUI.)</para>
1249	</listitem>
1250
1251	<listitem>
1252	<para><computeroutput>VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
1253	reset</computeroutput> has the same effect on a virtual machine as
1254	pressing the "Reset" button on a real computer: a cold reboot of the
1255	virtual machine, which will restart and boot the guest operating
1256	system again immediately. The state of the VM is not saved
1257	beforehand, and data may be lost. (This is equivalent to selecting
1258	the "Reset" item in the "Machine" menu of the GUI.)</para>
1259	</listitem>
1260
1261	<listitem>
1262	<para><computeroutput>VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
1263	poweroff</computeroutput> has the same effect on a virtual machine
1264	as pulling the power cable on a real computer. Again, the state of
1265	the VM is not saved beforehand, and data may be lost. (This is
1266	equivalent to selecting the "Close" item in the "Machine" menu of
1267	the GUI or pressing the window's close button, and then selecting
1268	"Power off the machine" in the dialog.)</para>
1269
1270	<para>After this, the VM's state will be "Powered off". From there,
1271	it can be started again; see <xref
1272	linkend="vboxmanage-startvm" />.</para>
1273	</listitem>
1274
1275	<listitem>
1276	<para><computeroutput>VBoxManage controlvm <vm>
1277	savestate</computeroutput> will save the current state of the VM to
1278	disk and then stop the VM. (This is equivalent to selecting the
1279	"Close" item in the "Machine" menu of the GUI or pressing the
1280	window's close button, and then selecting "Save the machine state"
1281	in the dialog.)</para>
1282
1283	<para>After this, the VM's state will be "Saved". From there, it can
1284	be started again; see <xref linkend="vboxmanage-startvm" />.</para>
1285	</listitem>
1286
1287	<listitem>
1288	<para><computeroutput>VBoxManage controlvm <vm> teleport
1289	--hostname <name> --port <port> [--password
1290	<password>]</computeroutput> makes the machine the source of a
1291	teleporting operation and initiates a teleport to the given target.
1292	See <xref linkend="teleporting" /> for an introduction. If the
1293	optional password is specified, it must match the password that was
1294	given to the <computeroutput>modifyvm</computeroutput> command for
1295	the target machine; see <xref
1296	linkend="vboxmanage-modifyvm-teleport" /> for details.</para>
1297	</listitem>
1298	</itemizedlist></para>
1299
1300	<para>A few extra options are available with
1301	<computeroutput>controlvm</computeroutput> that do not directly affect the
1302	VM's running state:</para>
1303
1304	<itemizedlist>
1305	<listitem>
1306	<para>The <computeroutput>setlinkstate<1-N></computeroutput>
1307	operation connects or disconnects virtual network cables from their
1308	network interfaces.</para>
1309	</listitem>
1310
1311	<listitem>
1312	<para><computeroutput>nic<1-N>
1313	null\|nat\|bridged\|intnet\|hostonly</computeroutput>: With this, you can
1314	set, for each of the VM's virtual network cards, what type of
1315	networking should be available. They can be not connected to the host
1316	(<computeroutput>null</computeroutput>), use network address
1317	translation (<computeroutput>nat</computeroutput>), bridged networking
1318	(<computeroutput>bridged</computeroutput>) or communicate with other
1319	virtual machines using internal networking
1320	(<computeroutput>intnet</computeroutput>) or host-only networking
1321	(<computeroutput>hostonly</computeroutput>). These options correspond
1322	to the modes which are described in detail in <xref
1323	linkend="networkingmodes" />.</para>
1324	</listitem>
1325
1326	<listitem>
1327	<para><computeroutput>usbattach</computeroutput> and
1328	<computeroutput>usbdettach</computeroutput> make host USB devices
1329	visible to the virtual machine on the fly, without the need for
1330	creating filters first. The USB devices can be specified by UUID
1331	(unique identifier) or by address on the host system.</para>
1332
1333	<para>You can use <computeroutput>VBoxManage list
1334	usbhost</computeroutput> to locate this information.</para>
1335	</listitem>
1336
1337	<listitem>
1338	<para><computeroutput>vrdp on\|off</computeroutput> lets you enable or
1339	disable the built-in VRDP server.</para>
1340	</listitem>
1341
1342	<listitem>
1343	<para><computeroutput>vrdpport default\|<ports></computeroutput>
1344	changes the port or a range of ports that the VRDP server can bind to;
1345	"default" or "0" means port 3389, the standard port for RDP. For
1346	details, see the description for the
1347	<computeroutput>--vrdpport</computeroutput> option in <xref
1348	linkend="vboxmanage-modifyvm-other" />.</para>
1349	</listitem>
1350
1351	<listitem>
1352	<para><computeroutput>setvideomodehint</computeroutput> requests that
1353	the guest system change to a particular video mode. This requires that
1354	the Guest Additions be installed, and will not work for all guest
1355	systems.</para>
1356	</listitem>
1357
1358	<listitem>
1359	<para>The <computeroutput>setcredentials</computeroutput> operation is
1360	used for remote logons in Windows guests. For details, please refer to
1361	<xref linkend="autologon" />.</para>
1362	</listitem>
1363
1364	<listitem>
1365	<para>The <computeroutput>guestmemoryballoon</computeroutput>
1366	operation changes the size of the guest memory balloon, that is,
1367	memory allocated by the VirtualBox Guest Additions from the guest
1368	operating system and returned to the hypervisor for re-use by other
1369	virtual machines. This must be specified in megabytes. For details,
1370	see <xref linkend="guestadd-balloon" />.</para>
1371	</listitem>
1372
1373	<listitem>
1374	<para>The <computeroutput>cpuexecutioncap
1375	<1-100></computeroutput>: This operation controls how much cpu
1376	time a virtual CPU can use. A value of 50 implies a single virtual CPU
1377	can use up to 50% of a single host CPU.</para>
1378	</listitem>
1379	</itemizedlist>
1380	</sect1>
1381
1382	<sect1>
1383	<title>VBoxManage discardstate</title>
1384
1385	<para>This command discards the saved state of a virtual machine which is
1386	not currently running, which will cause its operating system to restart
1387	next time you start it. This is the equivalent of pulling out the power
1388	cable on a physical machine, and should be avoided if possible.</para>
1389	</sect1>
1390
1391	<sect1>
1392	<title>VBoxManage snapshot</title>
1393
1394	<para>This command is used to control snapshots from the command line. A
1395	snapshot consists of a complete copy of the virtual machine settings,
1396	copied at the time when the snapshot was taken, and optionally a virtual
1397	machine saved state file if the snapshot was taken while the machine was
1398	running. After a snapshot has been taken, VirtualBox creates differencing
1399	hard disk for each normal hard disk associated with the machine so that
1400	when a snapshot is restored, the contents of the virtual machine's virtual
1401	hard disks can be quickly reset by simply dropping the pre-existing
1402	differencing files.</para>
1403
1404	<para>The <computeroutput>take</computeroutput> operation takes a snapshot
1405	of the current state of the virtual machine. You must supply a name for
1406	the snapshot and can optionally supply a description. The new snapshot is
1407	inserted into the snapshots tree as a child of the current snapshot and
1408	then becomes the new current snapshot.</para>
1409
1410	<para>The <computeroutput>delete</computeroutput> operation deletes a
1411	snapshot (specified by name or by UUID). This can take a while to finish
1412	since the differencing images associated with the snapshot might need to
1413	be merged with their child differencing images.</para>
1414
1415	<para>The <computeroutput>restore</computeroutput> operation will restore
1416	the given snapshot (specified by name or by UUID) by resetting the virtual
1417	machine's settings and current state to that of the snapshot. The previous
1418	current state of the machine will be lost. After this, the given snapshot
1419	becomes the new "current" snapshot so that subsequent snapshots are
1420	inserted under the snapshot from which was restored.</para>
1421
1422	<para>The <computeroutput>restorecurrent</computeroutput> operation is a
1423	shortcut to restore the current snapshot (i.e. the snapshot from which the
1424	current state is derived). This subcommand is equivalent to using the
1425	"restore" subcommand with the name or UUID of the current snapshot, except
1426	that it avoids the extra step of determining that name or UUID.</para>
1427
1428	<para>With the <computeroutput>edit</computeroutput> operation, you can
1429	change the name or description of an existing snapshot.</para>
1430
1431	<para>With the <computeroutput>showvminfo</computeroutput> operation, you
1432	can view the virtual machine settings that were stored with an existing
1433	snapshot.</para>
1434	</sect1>
1435
1436	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-storagectl">
1437	<title>VBoxManage storagectl</title>
1438
1439	<para>This command attaches/modifies/removes a storage controller. After
1440	this, virtual media can be attached to the controller with the
1441	<computeroutput>storageattach</computeroutput> command (see the next
1442	section).</para>
1443
1444	<para>The syntax is as follows:</para>
1445
1446	<screen>VBoxManage storagectl <uuid\|vmname>
1447	--name <name>
1448	[--add <ide/sata/scsi/floppy>]
1449	[--controller <LsiLogic/BusLogic/IntelAhci/PIIX3/
1450	PIIX4/ICH6/I8207>]
1451	[--sataideemulation<1-4> <1-30>]
1452	[--sataportcount <1-30>]
1453	[--hostiocache on\|off]
1454	[--remove]</screen>
1455
1456	<para>where the parameters mean: <glosslist>
1457	<glossentry>
1458	<glossterm>uuid\|vmname</glossterm>
1459
1460	<glossdef>
1461	<para>The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.</para>
1462	</glossdef>
1463	</glossentry>
1464
1465	<glossentry>
1466	<glossterm>name</glossterm>
1467
1468	<glossdef>
1469	<para>Name of the storage controller. Mandatory.</para>
1470	</glossdef>
1471	</glossentry>
1472
1473	<glossentry>
1474	<glossterm>add</glossterm>
1475
1476	<glossdef>
1477	<para>Define the type of the system bus to which the storage
1478	controller must be connected.</para>
1479	</glossdef>
1480	</glossentry>
1481
1482	<glossentry>
1483	<glossterm>controller</glossterm>
1484
1485	<glossdef>
1486	<para>Allows to choose the type of chipset being emulated for the
1487	given storage controller.</para>
1488	</glossdef>
1489	</glossentry>
1490
1491	<glossentry>
1492	<glossterm>sataideemulation</glossterm>
1493
1494	<glossdef>
1495	<para>This specifies which SATA ports should operate in IDE
1496	emulation mode. As explained in <xref
1497	linkend="harddiskcontrollers" />, by default, this is the case for
1498	SATA ports 1-4; with this command, you can map four IDE channels
1499	to any of the 30 supported SATA ports.</para>
1500	</glossdef>
1501	</glossentry>
1502
1503	<glossentry>
1504	<glossterm>sataportcount</glossterm>
1505
1506	<glossdef>
1507	<para>This determines how many ports the SATA controller should
1508	support.</para>
1509	</glossdef>
1510	</glossentry>
1511
1512	<glossentry>
1513	<glossterm>hostiocache</glossterm>
1514
1515	<glossdef>
1516	<para>Configures the use of the host I/O cache for all disk images
1517	attached to this storage controller. For details, please see <xref
1518	linkend="iocaching" />.</para>
1519	</glossdef>
1520	</glossentry>
1521
1522	<glossentry>
1523	<glossterm>remove</glossterm>
1524
1525	<glossdef>
1526	<para>Removes the storage controller from the VM config.</para>
1527	</glossdef>
1528	</glossentry>
1529	</glosslist></para>
1530	</sect1>
1531
1532	<sect1>
1533	<title id="vboxmanage-storageattach">VBoxManage storageattach</title>
1534
1535	<para>This command attaches/modifies/removes a storage medium connected to
1536	a storage controller that was previously added with the
1537	<computeroutput>storagectl</computeroutput> command (see the previous
1538	section). The syntax is as follows:</para>
1539
1540	<screen>VBoxManage storageattach <uuid\|vmname>
1541	--storagectl <name>
1542	--port <number>
1543	--device <number>
1544	[--type dvddrive\|hdd\|fdd]
1545	[--medium none\|emptydrive\|
1546	<uuid>\|<filename>\|host:<drive>\|iscsi]
1547	[--mtype normal\|writethrough\|immutable\|shareable]
1548	[--comment <text>]
1549	[--passthrough on\|off]
1550	[--bandwidthgroup name\|none]
1551	[--forceunmount]
1552	[--server <name>\|<ip>]
1553	[--target <target>]
1554	[--port <port>]
1555	[--lun <lun>]
1556	[--encodedlun <lun>]
1557	[--username <username>]
1558	[--password <password>]
1559	[--intnet]
1560	</screen>
1561
1562	<para>A number of parameters are commonly required; the ones at the end of
1563	the list are required only for iSCSI targets (see below).</para>
1564
1565	<para>The common parameters are:<glosslist>
1566	<glossentry>
1567	<glossterm>uuid\|vmname</glossterm>
1568
1569	<glossdef>
1570	<para>The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.</para>
1571	</glossdef>
1572	</glossentry>
1573
1574	<glossentry>
1575	<glossterm>storagectl</glossterm>
1576
1577	<glossdef>
1578	<para>Name of the storage controller. Mandatory. The list of the
1579	storage controllers currently attached to a VM can be obtained
1580	with <computeroutput>VBoxManage showvminfo</computeroutput>; see
1581	<xref linkend="vboxmanage-showvminfo" />.</para>
1582	</glossdef>
1583	</glossentry>
1584
1585	<glossentry>
1586	<glossterm>port</glossterm>
1587
1588	<glossdef>
1589	<para>The number of the storage controller's port which is to be
1590	modified. Mandatory.</para>
1591	</glossdef>
1592	</glossentry>
1593
1594	<glossentry>
1595	<glossterm>device</glossterm>
1596
1597	<glossdef>
1598	<para>The number of the port's device which is to be modified.
1599	Mandatory.</para>
1600	</glossdef>
1601	</glossentry>
1602
1603	<glossentry>
1604	<glossterm>type</glossterm>
1605
1606	<glossdef>
1607	<para>Define the type of the drive to which the medium is being
1608	attached/detached/modified. This argument can only be omitted if
1609	the type of medium can be determined from either the medium given
1610	with the <computeroutput>--medium</computeroutput> argument or
1611	from a previous medium attachment.</para>
1612	</glossdef>
1613	</glossentry>
1614
1615	<glossentry>
1616	<glossterm>medium</glossterm>
1617
1618	<glossdef>
1619	<para>Specifies what is to be attached. The following values are
1620	supported:<itemizedlist>
1621	<listitem>
1622	<para>"none": Any existing device should be removed from the
1623	given slot.</para>
1624	</listitem>
1625
1626	<listitem>
1627	<para>"emptydrive": For a virtual DVD or floppy drive only,
1628	this makes the device slot behaves like a removeable drive
1629	into which no media has been inserted.</para>
1630	</listitem>
1631
1632	<listitem>
1633	<para>If a UUID is specified, it must be the UUID of a
1634	storage medium that is already known to VirtualBox (e.g.
1635	because it has been attached to another virtual machine).
1636	See <xref linkend="vboxmanage-list" /> for how to list known
1637	media. This medium is then attached to the given device
1638	slot.</para>
1639	</listitem>
1640
1641	<listitem>
1642	<para>If a filename is specified, it must be the full path
1643	of an existing disk image (ISO, RAW, VDI, VMDK or other),
1644	which is then attached to the given device slot.</para>
1645	</listitem>
1646
1647	<listitem>
1648	<para>"host:<drive>": For a virtual DVD or floppy
1649	drive only, this connects the given device slot to the
1650	specified DVD or floppy drive on the host computer.</para>
1651	</listitem>
1652
1653	<listitem>
1654	<para>"iscsi": For virtual hard disks only, this allows for
1655	specifying an iSCSI target. In this case, more parameters
1656	must be given; see below.</para>
1657	</listitem>
1658	</itemizedlist></para>
1659
1660	<para>Some of the above changes, in particular for removeable
1661	media (floppies and CDs/DVDs), can be effected while a VM is
1662	running. Others (device changes or changes in hard disk device
1663	slots) require the VM to be powered off.</para>
1664	</glossdef>
1665	</glossentry>
1666
1667	<glossentry>
1668	<glossterm>mtype</glossterm>
1669
1670	<glossdef>
1671	<para>Defines how this medium behaves with respect to snapshots
1672	and write operations. See <xref linkend="hdimagewrites" /> for
1673	details.</para>
1674	</glossdef>
1675	</glossentry>
1676
1677	<glossentry>
1678	<glossterm>comment</glossterm>
1679
1680	<glossdef>
1681	<para>Any description that you want to have stored with this
1682	medium (optional; for example, for an iSCSI target, "Big storage
1683	server downstairs"). This is purely descriptive and not needed for
1684	the medium to function correctly.</para>
1685	</glossdef>
1686	</glossentry>
1687
1688	<glossentry>
1689	<glossterm>passthrough</glossterm>
1690
1691	<glossdef>
1692	<para>For a virtual DVD drive only, you can enable DVD writing
1693	support (currently experimental; see <xref
1694	linkend="storage-cds" />).</para>
1695	</glossdef>
1696	</glossentry>
1697
1698	<glossentry>
1699	<glossterm>bandwidthgroup</glossterm>
1700
1701	<glossdef>
1702	<para>Sets the bandwidth group to use for the given device; see
1703	<xref linkend="storage-bandwidth-limit" />.</para>
1704	</glossdef>
1705	</glossentry>
1706
1707	<glossentry>
1708	<glossterm>forceunmount</glossterm>
1709
1710	<glossdef>
1711	<para>For a virtual DVD or floppy drive only, this forcibly
1712	unmounts the DVD/CD/Floppy or mounts a new DVD/CD/Floppy even if
1713	the previous one is locked down by the guest for reading. Again,
1714	see <xref linkend="storage-cds" /> for details.</para>
1715	</glossdef>
1716	</glossentry>
1717	</glosslist></para>
1718
1719	<para>When "iscsi" is used with the
1720	<computeroutput>--medium</computeroutput> parameter, additional parameters
1721	must or can be used:<glosslist>
1722	<glossentry>
1723	<glossterm>server</glossterm>
1724
1725	<glossdef>
1726	<para>The host name or IP address of the iSCSI target;
1727	required.</para>
1728	</glossdef>
1729	</glossentry>
1730
1731	<glossentry>
1732	<glossterm>target</glossterm>
1733
1734	<glossdef>
1735	<para>Target name string. This is determined by the iSCSI target
1736	and used to identify the storage resource; required.</para>
1737	</glossdef>
1738	</glossentry>
1739
1740	<glossentry>
1741	<glossterm>port</glossterm>
1742
1743	<glossdef>
1744	<para>TCP/IP port number of the iSCSI service on the target
1745	(optional).</para>
1746	</glossdef>
1747	</glossentry>
1748
1749	<glossentry>
1750	<glossterm>lun</glossterm>
1751
1752	<glossdef>
1753	<para>Logical Unit Number of the target resource (optional).
1754	Often, this value is zero.</para>
1755	</glossdef>
1756	</glossentry>
1757
1758	<glossentry>
1759	<glossterm>username, password</glossterm>
1760
1761	<glossdef>
1762	<para>Username and password for target authentication, if required
1763	(optional).<note>
1764	<para>Currently, username and password are stored without
1765	encryption (i.e. in cleartext) in the machine configuration
1766	file.</para>
1767	</note></para>
1768	</glossdef>
1769	</glossentry>
1770
1771	<glossentry>
1772	<glossterm>intnet</glossterm>
1773
1774	<glossdef>
1775	<para>If specified, connect to the iSCSI target via Internal
1776	Networking. This needs further configuration which is described in
1777	<xref linkend="iscsi-intnet" />.</para>
1778	</glossdef>
1779	</glossentry>
1780	</glosslist></para>
1781	</sect1>
1782
1783	<sect1>
1784	<title>VBoxManage bandwidthctl</title>
1785
1786	<para>This command creates/deletes/modifies bandwidth groups of the given
1787	virtual machine:<screen>VBoxManage bandwidthctl <uuid\|vmname>
1788	--name <name>
1789	[--add disk
1790	[--delete]
1791	[--limit MB/s]</screen></para>
1792
1793	<para>See <xref linkend="storage-bandwidth-limit" /> for an introduction
1794	to bandwidth limits. The parameters mean:<glosslist>
1795	<glossentry>
1796	<glossterm>uuid\|vmname</glossterm>
1797
1798	<glossdef>
1799	<para>The VM UUID or VM Name. Mandatory.</para>
1800	</glossdef>
1801	</glossentry>
1802
1803	<glossentry>
1804	<glossterm>name</glossterm>
1805
1806	<glossdef>
1807	<para>Name of the bandwidth group. Mandatory.</para>
1808	</glossdef>
1809	</glossentry>
1810
1811	<glossentry>
1812	<glossterm>add</glossterm>
1813
1814	<glossdef>
1815	<para>Creates a new bandwdith group with the given type.</para>
1816	</glossdef>
1817	</glossentry>
1818
1819	<glossentry>
1820	<glossterm>delete</glossterm>
1821
1822	<glossdef>
1823	<para>Deletes a bandwdith group if it isn't used anymore.</para>
1824	</glossdef>
1825	</glossentry>
1826
1827	<glossentry>
1828	<glossterm>limit</glossterm>
1829
1830	<glossdef>
1831	<para>Sets the limit for the given group to the specified amount.
1832	Can be changed while the VM is running.</para>
1833	</glossdef>
1834	</glossentry>
1835	</glosslist></para>
1836	</sect1>
1837
1838	<sect1>
1839	<title>VBoxManage showhdinfo</title>
1840
1841	<para>This command shows information about a virtual hard disk image,
1842	notably its size, its size on disk, its type and the virtual machines
1843	which use it.<note>
1844	<para>For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the
1845	"showvdiinfo" command is also supported and mapped internally to the
1846	"showhdinfo" command.</para>
1847	</note></para>
1848	</sect1>
1849
1850	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-createvdi">
1851	<title>VBoxManage createhd</title>
1852
1853	<para>This command creates a new virtual hard disk image. The syntax is as
1854	follows:</para>
1855
1856	<screen>VBoxManage createhd --filename <filename>
1857	--size <megabytes>
1858	[--format VDI\|VMDK\|VHD] (default: VDI)
1859	[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]</screen>
1860
1861	<para>where the parameters mean:<glosslist>
1862	<glossentry>
1863	<glossterm>filename</glossterm>
1864
1865	<glossdef>
1866	<para>Allows to choose a file name. Mandatory.</para>
1867	</glossdef>
1868	</glossentry>
1869
1870	<glossentry>
1871	<glossterm>size</glossterm>
1872
1873	<glossdef>
1874	<para>Allows to define the image capacity, in 1 MiB units.
1875	Mandatory.</para>
1876	</glossdef>
1877	</glossentry>
1878
1879	<glossentry>
1880	<glossterm>format</glossterm>
1881
1882	<glossdef>
1883	<para>Allows to choose a file format for the output file different
1884	from the file format of the input file.</para>
1885	</glossdef>
1886	</glossentry>
1887
1888	<glossentry>
1889	<glossterm>variant</glossterm>
1890
1891	<glossdef>
1892	<para>Allows to choose a file format variant for the output file.
1893	It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all
1894	combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will
1895	result in an error message.</para>
1896	</glossdef>
1897	</glossentry>
1898	</glosslist> <note>
1899	<para>For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the
1900	"createvdi" command is also supported and mapped internally to the
1901	"createhd" command.</para>
1902	</note></para>
1903	</sect1>
1904
1905	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-modifyvdi">
1906	<title>VBoxManage modifyhd</title>
1907
1908	<para>With the <computeroutput>modifyhd</computeroutput> command, you can
1909	change the characteristics of a disk image after it has been
1910	created:<screen>VBoxManage modifyhd <uuid>\|<filename>
1911	[--type normal\|writethrough\|immutable\|shareable\|
1912	readonly\|multiattach]
1913	[--autoreset on\|off]
1914	[--compact]
1915	[--resize <megabytes>\|--resizebyte <bytes>]</screen><note>
1916	<para>Despite the "hd" in the subcommand name, the command works with
1917	all disk images, not only hard disks. For compatibility with earlier
1918	versions of VirtualBox, the "modifyvdi" command is also supported and
1919	mapped internally to the "modifyhd" command.</para>
1920	</note></para>
1921
1922	<para>The following options are available:<itemizedlist>
1923	<listitem>
1924	<para>With the <computeroutput>--type</computeroutput> argument, you
1925	can change the type of an existing image between the normal,
1926	immutable, write-through and other modes; see <xref
1927	linkend="hdimagewrites" /> for details.</para>
1928	</listitem>
1929
1930	<listitem>
1931	<para>For immutable (differencing) hard disks only, the
1932	<computeroutput>--autoreset on\|off</computeroutput> option
1933	determines whether the disk is automatically reset on every VM
1934	startup (again, see <xref linkend="hdimagewrites" />). The default
1935	is "on".</para>
1936	</listitem>
1937
1938	<listitem>
1939	<para>With the <computeroutput>--compact</computeroutput> option,
1940	can be used to compact disk images, i.e. remove blocks that only
1941	contains zeroes. This will shrink a dynamically expanding image
1942	again; it will reduce the <emphasis>physical</emphasis> size of the
1943	image without affecting the logical size of the virtual disk.
1944	Compaction works both for base images and for diff images created as
1945	part of a snapshot.</para>
1946
1947	<para>For this operation to be effective, it is required that free
1948	space in the guest system first be zeroed out using a suitable
1949	software tool. For Windows guests, you can use the
1950	<computeroutput>sdelete</computeroutput> tool provided by Microsoft.
1951	Execute <computeroutput>sdelete -c</computeroutput> in the guest to
1952	zero the free disk space before compressing the virtual disk image.
1953	</para>
1954	</listitem>
1955
1956	<listitem>
1957	<para>The --resize option allows you to expand the capacity of an
1958	existing image; this increases the <emphasis>logical</emphasis> size
1959	of a virtual disk without affecting the physical size much.<footnote>
1960	<para>Image resizing was added with VirtualBox 4.0.</para>
1961	</footnote> This currently works only for the VDI and VHD formats,
1962	and only for the dynamically expanding variants. For example, if you
1963	originally created a 10G disk which is now full, you can use the
1964	--resize command to add more space to the virtual disk without
1965	having to create a new image and copy all data from within a virtual
1966	machine.</para>
1967	</listitem>
1968	</itemizedlist></para>
1969	</sect1>
1970
1971	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-clonevdi">
1972	<title>VBoxManage clonehd</title>
1973
1974	<para>This command duplicates a registered virtual hard disk image to a
1975	new image file with a new unique identifier (UUID). The new image can be
1976	transferred to another host system or imported into VirtualBox again using
1977	the Virtual Media Manager; see <xref linkend="vdis" /> and <xref
1978	linkend="cloningvdis" />. The syntax is as follows:</para>
1979
1980	<screen>VBoxManage clonehd <uuid>\|<filename> <outputfile>
1981	[--format VDI\|VMDK\|VHD\|RAW\|<other>]
1982	[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
1983	[--existing]</screen>
1984
1985	<para>where the parameters mean:<glosslist>
1986	<glossentry>
1987	<glossterm>format</glossterm>
1988
1989	<glossdef>
1990	<para>Allow to choose a file format for the output file different
1991	from the file format of the input file.</para>
1992	</glossdef>
1993	</glossentry>
1994
1995	<glossentry>
1996	<glossterm>variant</glossterm>
1997
1998	<glossdef>
1999	<para>Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file.
2000	It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all
2001	combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will
2002	result in an error message.</para>
2003	</glossdef>
2004	</glossentry>
2005
2006	<glossentry>
2007	<glossterm>existing</glossterm>
2008
2009	<glossdef>
2010	<para>Perform the clone operation to an already existing
2011	destination medium. Only the portion of the source medium which
2012	fits into the destination medium is copied. This means if the
2013	destination medium is smaller than the source only a part of it is
2014	copied, and if the destination medium is larger than the source
2015	the remaining part of the destination medium is unchanged.</para>
2016	</glossdef>
2017	</glossentry>
2018	</glosslist> <note>
2019	<para>For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the
2020	"clonevdi" command is also supported and mapped internally to the
2021	"clonehd" command.</para>
2022	</note></para>
2023	</sect1>
2024
2025	<sect1>
2026	<title>VBoxManage convertfromraw</title>
2027
2028	<para>This command converts a raw disk image to a VirtualBox Disk Image
2029	(VDI) file. The syntax is as follows:</para>
2030
2031	<screen>VBoxManage convertfromraw <filename> <outputfile>
2032	[--format VDI\|VMDK\|VHD]
2033	[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]
2034	VBoxManage convertfromraw stdin <outputfile> <bytes>
2035	[--format VDI\|VMDK\|VHD]
2036	[--variant Standard,Fixed,Split2G,Stream,ESX]</screen>
2037
2038	<para>where the parameters mean:<glosslist>
2039	<glossentry>
2040	<glossterm>format</glossterm>
2041
2042	<glossdef>
2043	<para>Select the disk image format to create. Default is
2044	VDI.</para>
2045	</glossdef>
2046	</glossentry>
2047
2048	<glossentry>
2049	<glossterm>variant</glossterm>
2050
2051	<glossdef>
2052	<para>Allow to choose a file format variant for the output file.
2053	It is a comma-separated list of variant flags. Not all
2054	combinations are supported, and specifying inconsistent flags will
2055	result in an error message.</para>
2056	</glossdef>
2057	</glossentry>
2058	</glosslist> The second form forces VBoxManage to read the content for
2059	the disk image from standard input (useful for using that command in a
2060	pipe).</para>
2061
2062	<para><note>
2063	<para>For compatibility with earlier versions of VirtualBox, the
2064	"convertdd" command is also supported and mapped internally to the
2065	"convertfromraw" command.</para>
2066	</note></para>
2067	</sect1>
2068
2069	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-closemedium">
2070	<title>VBoxManage closemedium</title>
2071
2072	<para>This commands removes a hard disk, DVD or floppy image from a
2073	VirtualBox media registry.<footnote>
2074	<para>Before VirtualBox 4.0, it was necessary to call VBoxManage
2075	openmedium before a medium could be attached to a virtual machine;
2076	that call "registered" the medium with the global VirtualBox media
2077	registry. With VirtualBox 4.0 this is no longer necessary; media are
2078	added to media registries automatically. The "closemedium" call has
2079	been retained, however, to allow for explicitly removing a medium from
2080	a registry.</para>
2081	</footnote></para>
2082
2083	<para>Optionally, you can request that the image be deleted. You will get
2084	appropriate diagnostics that the deletion failed, however the image will
2085	become unregistered in any case.</para>
2086	</sect1>
2087
2088	<sect1>
2089	<title>VBoxManage getextradata/setextradata</title>
2090
2091	<para>These commands let you attach and retrieve string data to a virtual
2092	machine or to a VirtualBox configuration (by specifying
2093	<computeroutput>global</computeroutput> instead of a virtual machine
2094	name). You must specify a key (as a text string) to associate the data
2095	with, which you can later use to retrieve it. For example:</para>
2096
2097	<screen>VBoxManage setextradata Fedora5 installdate 2006.01.01
2098	VBoxManage setextradata SUSE10 installdate 2006.02.02</screen>
2099
2100	<para>would associate the string "2006.01.01" with the key installdate for
2101	the virtual machine Fedora5, and "2006.02.02" on the machine SUSE10. You
2102	could retrieve the information as follows:</para>
2103
2104	<screen>VBoxManage getextradata Fedora5 installdate</screen>
2105
2106	<para>which would return</para>
2107
2108	<screen>VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version $VBOX_VERSION_MAJOR.$VBOX_VERSION_MINOR.$VBOX_VERSION_BUILD
2109	(C) 2005-$VBOX_C_YEAR $VBOX_VENDOR
2110	All rights reserved.
2111
2112	Value: 2006.01.01</screen>
2113	</sect1>
2114
2115	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-setproperty">
2116	<title>VBoxManage setproperty</title>
2117
2118	<para>This command is used to change global settings which affect the
2119	entire VirtualBox installation. Some of these correspond to the settings
2120	in the "Global settings" dialog in the graphical user interface. The
2121	following properties are available:<glosslist>
2122	<glossentry>
2123	<glossterm>machinefolder</glossterm>
2124
2125	<glossdef>
2126	<para>This specifies the default folder in which virtual machine
2127	definitions are kept; see <xref linkend="vboxconfigdata" /> for
2128	details.</para>
2129	</glossdef>
2130	</glossentry>
2131
2132	<glossentry>
2133	<glossterm>vrdeauthlibrary</glossterm>
2134
2135	<glossdef>
2136	<para>This specifies which library to use when "external"
2137	authentication has been selected for a particular virtual machine;
2138	see <xref linkend="vbox-auth" /> for details.</para>
2139	</glossdef>
2140	</glossentry>
2141
2142	<glossentry>
2143	<glossterm>websrvauthlibrary</glossterm>
2144
2145	<glossdef>
2146	<para>This specifies which library the web service uses to
2147	authenticate users. For details about the VirtualBox web service,
2148	please refer to the separate VirtualBox SDK reference (see <xref
2149	linkend="VirtualBoxAPI" />).</para>
2150	</glossdef>
2151	</glossentry>
2152
2153	<glossentry>
2154	<glossterm>vrdelibrary</glossterm>
2155
2156	<glossdef>
2157	<para>This specifies which library implements the VirtualBox
2158	Remote Desktop Extension.</para>
2159	</glossdef>
2160	</glossentry>
2161
2162	<glossentry>
2163	<glossterm>hwvirtexenabled</glossterm>
2164
2165	<glossdef>
2166	<para>This selects whether or not hardware virtualization support
2167	is enabled by default.</para>
2168	</glossdef>
2169	</glossentry>
2170	</glosslist></para>
2171	</sect1>
2172
2173	<sect1>
2174	<title>VBoxManage usbfilter add/modify/remove</title>
2175
2176	<para>The <computeroutput>usbfilter</computeroutput> commands are used for
2177	working with USB filters in virtual machines, or global filters which
2178	affect the whole VirtualBox setup. Global filters are applied before
2179	machine-specific filters, and may be used to prevent devices from being
2180	captured by any virtual machine. Global filters are always applied in a
2181	particular order, and only the first filter which fits a device is
2182	applied. So for example, if the first global filter says to hold (make
2183	available) a particular Kingston memory stick device and the second to
2184	ignore all Kingston devices, that memory stick will be available to any
2185	machine with an appropriate filter, but no other Kingston device
2186	will.</para>
2187
2188	<para>When creating a USB filter using <computeroutput>usbfilter
2189	add</computeroutput>, you must supply three or four mandatory parameters.
2190	The index specifies the position in the list at which the filter should be
2191	placed. If there is already a filter at that position, then it and the
2192	following ones will be shifted back one place. Otherwise the new filter
2193	will be added onto the end of the list. The
2194	<computeroutput>target</computeroutput> parameter selects the virtual
2195	machine that the filter should be attached to or use "global" to apply it
2196	to all virtual machines. <computeroutput>name</computeroutput> is a name
2197	for the new filter and for global filters,
2198	<computeroutput>action</computeroutput> says whether to allow machines
2199	access to devices that fit the filter description ("hold") or not to give
2200	them access ("ignore"). In addition, you should specify parameters to
2201	filter by. You can find the parameters for devices attached to your system
2202	using <computeroutput>VBoxManage list usbhost</computeroutput>. Finally,
2203	you can specify whether the filter should be active, and for local
2204	filters, whether they are for local devices, remote (over an RDP
2205	connection) or either.</para>
2206
2207	<para>When you modify a USB filter using <computeroutput>usbfilter
2208	modify</computeroutput>, you must specify the filter by index (see the
2209	output of <computeroutput>VBoxManage list usbfilters</computeroutput> to
2210	find global filter indexes and that of <computeroutput>VBoxManage
2211	showvminfo</computeroutput> to find indexes for individual machines) and
2212	by target, which is either a virtual machine or "global". The properties
2213	which can be changed are the same as for <computeroutput>usbfilter
2214	add</computeroutput>. To remove a filter, use <computeroutput>usbfilter
2215	remove</computeroutput> and specify the index and the target.</para>
2216	</sect1>
2217
2218	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-sharedfolder">
2219	<title>VBoxManage sharedfolder add/remove</title>
2220
2221	<para>This command allows you to share folders on the host computer with
2222	guest operating systems. For this, the guest systems must have a version
2223	of the VirtualBox Guest Additions installed which supports this
2224	functionality.</para>
2225
2226	<para>Shared folders are described in detail in <xref
2227	linkend="sharedfolders" />.</para>
2228	</sect1>
2229
2230	<sect1>
2231	<title id="metrics">VBoxManage metrics</title>
2232
2233	<para>This command supports monitoring the usage of system resources.
2234	Resources are represented by various metrics associated with the host
2235	system or a particular VM. For example, the host system has a
2236	<computeroutput>CPU/Load/User</computeroutput> metric that shows the
2237	percentage of time CPUs spend executing in user mode over a specific
2238	sampling period.</para>
2239
2240	<para>Metric data is collected and retained internally; it may be
2241	retrieved at any time with the <computeroutput>VBoxManage metrics
2242	query</computeroutput> subcommand. The data is available as long as the
2243	background <computeroutput>VBoxSVC</computeroutput> process is alive. That
2244	process terminates shortly after all VMs and frontends have been
2245	closed.</para>
2246
2247	<para>By default no metrics are collected at all. Metrics collection does
2248	not start until <computeroutput>VBoxManage metrics setup</computeroutput>
2249	is invoked with a proper sampling interval and the number of metrics to be
2250	retained. The interval is measured in seconds. For example, to enable
2251	collecting the host processor and memory usage metrics every second and
2252	keeping the 5 most current samples, the following command can be
2253	used:</para>
2254
2255	<screen>VBoxManage metrics setup --period 1 --samples 5 host CPU/Load,RAM/Usage</screen>
2256
2257	<para>Metric collection can only be enabled for started VMs. Collected
2258	data and collection settings for a particular VM will disappear as soon as
2259	it shuts down. Use <computeroutput>VBoxManage metrics list
2260	</computeroutput> subcommand to see which metrics are currently available.
2261	You can also use <computeroutput>--list</computeroutput> option with any
2262	subcommand that modifies metric settings to find out which metrics were
2263	affected.</para>
2264
2265	<para>Note that the <computeroutput>VBoxManage metrics
2266	setup</computeroutput> subcommand discards all samples that may have been
2267	previously collected for the specified set of objects and metrics.</para>
2268
2269	<para>To enable or disable metrics collection without discarding the data
2270	<computeroutput>VBoxManage metrics enable</computeroutput> and
2271	<computeroutput>VBoxManage metrics disable</computeroutput> subcommands
2272	can be used. Note that these subcommands expect metrics, not submetrics,
2273	like <code>CPU/Load</code> or <code>RAM/Usage</code> as parameters. In
2274	other words enabling <code>CPU/Load/User</code> while disabling
2275	<code>CPU/Load/Kernel</code> is not supported.</para>
2276
2277	<para>The host and VMs have different sets of associated metrics.
2278	Available metrics can be listed with <computeroutput>VBoxManage metrics
2279	list</computeroutput> subcommand.</para>
2280
2281	<para>A complete metric name may include an aggregate function. The name
2282	has the following form:
2283	<computeroutput>Category/Metric[/SubMetric][:aggregate]</computeroutput>.
2284	For example, <computeroutput>RAM/Usage/Free:min</computeroutput> stands
2285	for the minimum amount of available memory over all retained data if
2286	applied to the host object.</para>
2287
2288	<para>Subcommands may apply to all objects and metrics or can be limited
2289	to one object or/and a list of metrics. If no objects or metrics are given
2290	in the parameters, the subcommands will apply to all available metrics of
2291	all objects. You may use an asterisk
2292	("<computeroutput>*</computeroutput>") to explicitly specify that the
2293	command should be applied to all objects or metrics. Use "host" as the
2294	object name to limit the scope of the command to host-related metrics. To
2295	limit the scope to a subset of metrics, use a metric list with names
2296	separated by commas.</para>
2297
2298	<para>For example, to query metric data on the CPU time spent in user and
2299	kernel modes by the virtual machine named "test", you can use the
2300	following command:</para>
2301
2302	<screen>VBoxManage metrics query test CPU/Load/User,CPU/Load/Kernel</screen>
2303
2304	<para>The following list summarizes the available subcommands:</para>
2305
2306	<glosslist>
2307	<glossentry>
2308	<glossterm>list</glossterm>
2309
2310	<glossdef>
2311	<para>This subcommand shows the parameters of the currently existing
2312	metrics. Note that VM-specific metrics are only available when a
2313	particular VM is running.</para>
2314	</glossdef>
2315	</glossentry>
2316
2317	<glossentry>
2318	<glossterm>setup</glossterm>
2319
2320	<glossdef>
2321	<para>This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples
2322	of metric data and the number of samples retained internally. The
2323	retained data is available for displaying with the
2324	<code>query</code> subcommand. The <computeroutput>--list
2325	</computeroutput> option shows which metrics have been modified as
2326	the result of the command execution.</para>
2327	</glossdef>
2328	</glossentry>
2329
2330	<glossentry>
2331	<glossterm>enable</glossterm>
2332
2333	<glossdef>
2334	<para>This subcommand "resumes" data collection after it has been
2335	stopped with <code>disable</code> subcommand. Note that specifying
2336	submetrics as parameters will not enable underlying metrics. Use
2337	<computeroutput>--list</computeroutput> to find out if the command
2338	did what was expected.</para>
2339	</glossdef>
2340	</glossentry>
2341
2342	<glossentry>
2343	<glossterm>disable</glossterm>
2344
2345	<glossdef>
2346	<para>This subcommand "suspends" data collection without affecting
2347	collection parameters or collected data. Note that specifying
2348	submetrics as parameters will not disable underlying metrics. Use
2349	<computeroutput>--list</computeroutput> to find out if the command
2350	did what was expected.</para>
2351	</glossdef>
2352	</glossentry>
2353
2354	<glossentry>
2355	<glossterm>query</glossterm>
2356
2357	<glossdef>
2358	<para>This subcommand retrieves and displays the currently retained
2359	metric data.<note>
2360	<para>The <code>query</code> subcommand does not remove or
2361	"flush" retained data. If you query often enough you will see
2362	how old samples are gradually being "phased out" by new
2363	samples.</para>
2364	</note></para>
2365	</glossdef>
2366	</glossentry>
2367
2368	<glossentry>
2369	<glossterm>collect</glossterm>
2370
2371	<glossdef>
2372	<para>This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples
2373	of metric data and the number of samples retained internally. The
2374	collected data is displayed periodically until Ctrl-C is pressed
2375	unless the <computeroutput>--detach</computeroutput> option is
2376	specified. With the <computeroutput>--detach</computeroutput>
2377	option, this subcommand operates the same way as <code>setup</code>
2378	does. The <computeroutput>--list</computeroutput> option shows which
2379	metrics match the specified filter.</para>
2380	</glossdef>
2381	</glossentry>
2382	</glosslist>
2383	</sect1>
2384
2385	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-guestproperty">
2386	<title>VBoxManage guestproperty</title>
2387
2388	<para>The "guestproperty" commands allow you to get or set properties of a
2389	running virtual machine. Please see <xref linkend="guestadd-guestprops" />
2390	for an introduction. As explained there, guest properties are arbitrary
2391	key/value string pairs which can be written to and read from by either the
2392	guest or the host, so they can be used as a low-volume communication
2393	channel for strings, provided that a guest is running and has the Guest
2394	Additions installed. In addition, a number of values whose keys begin with
2395	"/VirtualBox/" are automatically set and maintained by the Guest
2396	Additions.</para>
2397
2398	<para>The following subcommands are available (where
2399	<computeroutput><vm></computeroutput>, in each case, can either be a
2400	VM name or a VM UUID, as with the other VBoxManage commands):<itemizedlist>
2401	<listitem>
2402	<para><computeroutput>enumerate <vm> [-patterns
2403	<pattern>]</computeroutput>: This lists all the guest
2404	properties that are available for the given VM, including the value.
2405	This list will be very limited if the guest's service process cannot
2406	be contacted, e.g. because the VM is not running or the Guest
2407	Additions are not installed.</para>
2408
2409	<para>If <computeroutput>--patterns <pattern></computeroutput>
2410	is specified, it acts as a filter to only list properties that match
2411	the given pattern. The pattern can contain the following wildcard
2412	characters:<itemizedlist>
2413	<listitem>
2414	<para><computeroutput>*</computeroutput> (asterisk):
2415	represents any number of characters; for example,
2416	"<computeroutput>/VirtualBox*</computeroutput>" would match
2417	all properties beginning with "/VirtualBox".</para>
2418	</listitem>
2419
2420	<listitem>
2421	<para><computeroutput>?</computeroutput> (question mark):
2422	represents a single arbitrary character; for example,
2423	"<computeroutput>fo?</computeroutput>" would match both "foo"
2424	and "for".</para>
2425	</listitem>
2426
2427	<listitem>
2428	<para><computeroutput>\|</computeroutput> (pipe symbol): can be
2429	used to specify multiple alternative patterns; for example,
2430	"<computeroutput>s\|t</computeroutput>" would match anything
2431	starting with either "s" or "t".</para>
2432	</listitem>
2433	</itemizedlist></para>
2434	</listitem>
2435
2436	<listitem>
2437	<para><computeroutput>get <vm></computeroutput>: This
2438	retrieves the value of a single property only. If the property
2439	cannot be found (e.g. because the guest is not running), this will
2440	print "No value set!".</para>
2441	</listitem>
2442
2443	<listitem>
2444	<para><computeroutput>set <vm> <property> [<value>
2445	[-flags <flags>]]</computeroutput>: This allows you to set a
2446	guest property by specifying the key and value. If
2447	<computeroutput><value></computeroutput> is omitted, the
2448	property is deleted. With <computeroutput>--flags</computeroutput>
2449	you can optionally specify additional behavior (you can combine
2450	several by separating them with commas):<itemizedlist>
2451	<listitem>
2452	<para><computeroutput>TRANSIENT</computeroutput>: the value
2453	will not be stored with the VM data when the VM exits;</para>
2454	</listitem>
2455
2456	<listitem>
2457	<para><computeroutput>RDONLYGUEST</computeroutput>: the value
2458	can only be changed by the host, but the guest can only read
2459	it;</para>
2460	</listitem>
2461
2462	<listitem>
2463	<para><computeroutput>RDONLYHOST</computeroutput>: reversely,
2464	the value can only be changed by the guest, but the host can
2465	only read it;</para>
2466	</listitem>
2467
2468	<listitem>
2469	<para><computeroutput>READONLY</computeroutput>: a combination
2470	of the two, the value cannot be changed at all.</para>
2471	</listitem>
2472	</itemizedlist></para>
2473	</listitem>
2474
2475	<listitem>
2476	<para><computeroutput>wait <vm> <pattern> --timeout
2477	<timeout></computeroutput>: This waits for a particular value
2478	described by "pattern" to change or to be deleted or created. The
2479	pattern rules are the same as for the "enumerate" subcommand
2480	above.</para>
2481	</listitem>
2482	</itemizedlist></para>
2483	</sect1>
2484
2485	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-guestcontrol">
2486	<title>VBoxManage guestcontrol</title>
2487
2488	<para>The "guestcontrol" commands allow you to control certain things
2489	inside a guest from the host. Please see <xref
2490	linkend="guestadd-guestcontrol" /> for an introduction.</para>
2491
2492	<para>Generally, the syntax is as follows:</para>
2493
2494	<screen>VBoxManage guestcontrol <command></screen>
2495
2496	<para>The following subcommands are available (where
2497	<computeroutput><vm></computeroutput>, in each case, can either be a
2498	VM name or a VM UUID, as with the other VBoxManage commands):<itemizedlist>
2499	<listitem>
2500	<para><computeroutput>execute</computeroutput>, which allows for
2501	executing a program/script (process) which is already installed and
2502	runnable on the guest. This command only works while a VM is up and
2503	running and has the following syntax:</para>
2504
2505	<screen>VBoxManage guestcontrol exec[ute] <vmname>\|<uuid>
2506	<path to program>
2507	--username <name> --password <password>
2508	[--arguments "<arguments>"]
2509	[--environment "<NAME>=<VALUE> [<NAME>=<VALUE>]"]
2510	[--flags <flags>] [--timeout <msec>]
2511	[--verbose] [--wait-for exit,stdout,stderr\|\|]</screen>
2512
2513	<para>where the parameters mean: <glosslist>
2514	<glossentry>
2515	<glossterm>uuid\|vmname</glossterm>
2516
2517	<glossdef>
2518	<para>The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.</para>
2519	</glossdef>
2520	</glossentry>
2521
2522	<glossentry>
2523	<glossterm>path to program</glossterm>
2524
2525	<glossdef>
2526	<para>Absolute path and process name of process to execute
2527	in the guest, e.g.
2528	<computeroutput>C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe</computeroutput></para>
2529	</glossdef>
2530	</glossentry>
2531
2532	<glossentry>
2533	<glossterm>--arguments "<arguments>"</glossterm>
2534
2535	<glossdef>
2536	<para>One or more arguments to pass to the process being
2537	executed.</para>
2538
2539	<para>Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in
2540	quotation marks. More than one
2541	<computeroutput>--arguments</computeroutput> at a time can
2542	be specified to keep the command line tidy.</para>
2543	</glossdef>
2544	</glossentry>
2545
2546	<glossentry>
2547	<glossterm>--environment
2548	"<NAME>=<VALUE>"</glossterm>
2549
2550	<glossdef>
2551	<para>One or more environment variables to be set or
2552	unset.</para>
2553
2554	<para>By default, the new process in the guest will be
2555	created with the standard environment of the guest OS. This
2556	option allows for modifying that environment. To set/modify
2557	a variable, a pair of
2558	<computeroutput>NAME=VALUE</computeroutput> must be
2559	specified; to unset a certain variable, the name with no
2560	value must set, e.g.
2561	<computeroutput>NAME=</computeroutput>.</para>
2562
2563	<para>Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in
2564	quotation marks. More than one
2565	<computeroutput>--environment</computeroutput> at a time can
2566	be specified to keep the command line tidy.</para>
2567	</glossdef>
2568	</glossentry>
2569
2570	<glossentry>
2571	<glossterm>--flags <flags></glossterm>
2572
2573	<glossdef>
2574	<para>Additional flags to set. This is not used at the
2575	moment.</para>
2576	</glossdef>
2577	</glossentry>
2578
2579	<glossentry>
2580	<glossterm>--timeout <msec></glossterm>
2581
2582	<glossdef>
2583	<para>Value (in milliseconds) that specifies the time how
2584	long the started process is allowed to run and how long
2585	VBoxManage waits for getting output from that process. If no
2586	timeout is specified, VBoxManage will wait forever until the
2587	started process ends or an error occured.</para>
2588	</glossdef>
2589	</glossentry>
2590
2591	<glossentry>
2592	<glossterm>--username <name></glossterm>
2593
2594	<glossdef>
2595	<para>Name of the user the process should run under. This
2596	user must exist on the guest OS.</para>
2597	</glossdef>
2598	</glossentry>
2599
2600	<glossentry>
2601	<glossterm>--password <password></glossterm>
2602
2603	<glossdef>
2604	<para>Password of the user account specified with
2605	<computeroutput>--username</computeroutput>. If not given,
2606	an empty password is assumed.</para>
2607	</glossdef>
2608	</glossentry>
2609
2610	<glossentry>
2611	<glossterm>--verbose</glossterm>
2612
2613	<glossdef>
2614	<para>Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.</para>
2615	</glossdef>
2616	</glossentry>
2617
2618	<glossentry>
2619	<glossterm>--wait-for <action></glossterm>
2620
2621	<glossdef>
2622	<para>Tells VBoxManage to wait for a certain action to
2623	happen and react to it. The following actions are available:
2624	<glosslist>
2625	<glossentry>
2626	<glossterm>exit</glossterm>
2627
2628	<glossdef>
2629	<para>Waits until the process ends and outputs its
2630	exit code along with the exit reason/flags.</para>
2631	</glossdef>
2632	</glossentry>
2633
2634	<glossentry>
2635	<glossterm>stdout or stderr</glossterm>
2636
2637	<glossdef>
2638	<para>Waits until the process ends and outputs its
2639	exit code along with the exit reason/flags. After
2640	that VBoxManage retrieves the output collected from
2641	the guest process's stdout and stderr.</para>
2642	</glossdef>
2643	</glossentry>
2644	</glosslist></para>
2645	</glossdef>
2646	</glossentry>
2647	</glosslist></para>
2648
2649	<para><note>
2650	<para>On Windows there are certain limitations for graphical
2651	applications; please see <xref linkend="KnownIssues" /> for more
2652	information.</para>
2653	</note> Examples: <screen>VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol execute "My VM" "/bin/ls" --arguments "-l /usr"
2654	--username foo --password bar --wait-for stdout</screen> <screen>VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol execute "My VM" "c:\\windows\\system32\\ipconfig.exe"
2655	--username foo --password bar --wait-for stdout</screen> Note that
2656	the double backslashes in the second example are only required on
2657	Unix hosts.</para>
2658	</listitem>
2659
2660	<listitem>
2661	<para><computeroutput>copyto</computeroutput>, which allows copying
2662	files from the host to the guest (only with installed Guest
2663	Additions 4.0 and later).</para>
2664
2665	<screen>VBoxManage copyto\|cp <vmname>\|<uuid>
2666	<source on host> <destination on guest>
2667	--username <name> --password <password>
2668	[--dryrun] [--follow] [--recursive] [--verbose]</screen>
2669
2670	<para>where the parameters mean: <glosslist>
2671	<glossentry>
2672	<glossterm>uuid\|vmname</glossterm>
2673
2674	<glossdef>
2675	<para>The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.</para>
2676	</glossdef>
2677	</glossentry>
2678
2679	<glossentry>
2680	<glossterm>source on host</glossterm>
2681
2682	<glossdef>
2683	<para>Absolute path of source file(s) on host to copy over
2684	to the guest, e.g.
2685	<computeroutput>C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe</computeroutput>.
2686	This also can be a wildcard expression, e.g.
2687	<computeroutput>C:\Windows\System32\*.dll</computeroutput></para>
2688	</glossdef>
2689	</glossentry>
2690
2691	<glossentry>
2692	<glossterm>destination on guest</glossterm>
2693
2694	<glossdef>
2695	<para>Absolute destination path on the guest, e.g.
2696	<computeroutput>C:\Temp</computeroutput></para>
2697	</glossdef>
2698	</glossentry>
2699
2700	<glossentry>
2701	<glossterm>--username <name></glossterm>
2702
2703	<glossdef>
2704	<para>Name of the user the copy process should run under.
2705	This user must exist on the guest OS.</para>
2706	</glossdef>
2707	</glossentry>
2708
2709	<glossentry>
2710	<glossterm>--password <password></glossterm>
2711
2712	<glossdef>
2713	<para>Password of the user account specified with
2714	<computeroutput>--username</computeroutput>. If not given,
2715	an empty password is assumed.</para>
2716	</glossdef>
2717	</glossentry>
2718
2719	<glossentry>
2720	<glossterm>--dryrun</glossterm>
2721
2722	<glossdef>
2723	<para>Tells VBoxManage to only perform a dry run instead of
2724	really copying files to the guest.</para>
2725	</glossdef>
2726	</glossentry>
2727
2728	<glossentry>
2729	<glossterm>--follow</glossterm>
2730
2731	<glossdef>
2732	<para>Enables following symlinks on the host's
2733	source.</para>
2734	</glossdef>
2735	</glossentry>
2736
2737	<glossentry>
2738	<glossterm>--recursive</glossterm>
2739
2740	<glossdef>
2741	<para>Recursively copies files/directories of the specified
2742	source.</para>
2743	</glossdef>
2744	</glossentry>
2745
2746	<glossentry>
2747	<glossterm>--verbose</glossterm>
2748
2749	<glossdef>
2750	<para>Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.</para>
2751	</glossdef>
2752	</glossentry>
2753
2754	<glossentry>
2755	<glossterm>--flags <flags></glossterm>
2756
2757	<glossdef>
2758	<para>Additional flags to set. This is not used at the
2759	moment.</para>
2760	</glossdef>
2761	</glossentry>
2762	</glosslist></para>
2763	</listitem>
2764
2765	<listitem>
2766	<para><computeroutput>createdirectory</computeroutput>, which allows
2767	copying files from the host to the guest (only with installed Guest
2768	Additions 4.0 and later).</para>
2769
2770	<screen>VBoxManage createdir[ectory]\|mkdir\|md <vmname>\|<uuid>
2771	<directory to create on guest>
2772	[--username "<name>"] [--password "<password>"]
2773	[--parents] [--mode <mode>] [--verbose]</screen>
2774
2775	<para>where the parameters mean: <glosslist>
2776	<glossentry>
2777	<glossterm>uuid\|vmname</glossterm>
2778
2779	<glossdef>
2780	<para>The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.</para>
2781	</glossdef>
2782	</glossentry>
2783
2784	<glossentry>
2785	<glossterm>directory to create on guest</glossterm>
2786
2787	<glossdef>
2788	<para>Absolute path of directory/directories to create on
2789	guest, e.g. <computeroutput>D:\Foo\Bar</computeroutput>.
2790	Parent directories need to exist (e.g. in this example
2791	<computeroutput>D:\Foo</computeroutput>) when switch
2792	<computeroutput>--parents</computeroutput> is omitted. The
2793	specified user must have appropriate rights to create the
2794	specified directory.</para>
2795	</glossdef>
2796	</glossentry>
2797
2798	<glossentry>
2799	<glossterm>--username <name></glossterm>
2800
2801	<glossdef>
2802	<para>Name of the user the copy process should run under.
2803	This user must exist on the guest OS.</para>
2804	</glossdef>
2805	</glossentry>
2806
2807	<glossentry>
2808	<glossterm>--password <password></glossterm>
2809
2810	<glossdef>
2811	<para>Password of the user account specified with
2812	<computeroutput>--username</computeroutput>. If not given,
2813	an empty password is assumed.</para>
2814	</glossdef>
2815	</glossentry>
2816
2817	<glossentry>
2818	<glossterm>--parents</glossterm>
2819
2820	<glossdef>
2821	<para>Also creates not yet existing parent directories of
2822	the specified directory, e.g. if the directory
2823	<computeroutput>D:\Foo</computeroutput> of
2824	<computeroutput>D:\Foo\Bar</computeroutput> does not exist
2825	yet it will be created. Without specifying
2826	<computeroutput>--parent</computeroutput> the action would
2827	have failed.</para>
2828	</glossdef>
2829	</glossentry>
2830
2831	<glossentry>
2832	<glossterm>--mode <mode></glossterm>
2833
2834	<glossdef>
2835	<para>Sets the permission mode of the specified directory.
2836	Only octal modes (e.g.
2837	<computeroutput>0755</computeroutput>) are supported right
2838	now.</para>
2839	</glossdef>
2840	</glossentry>
2841
2842	<glossentry>
2843	<glossterm>--verbose</glossterm>
2844
2845	<glossdef>
2846	<para>Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.</para>
2847	</glossdef>
2848	</glossentry>
2849	</glosslist></para>
2850	</listitem>
2851
2852	<listitem>
2853	<para><computeroutput>updateadditions</computeroutput>, which allows
2854	for updating an already installed Guest Additions version on the
2855	guest (only already installed Guest Additions 4.0 and later).</para>
2856
2857	<screen>VBoxManage guestcontrol updateadditions <vmname>\|<uuid>
2858	[--source "<guest additions .ISO file to use>"] [--verbose]</screen>
2859
2860	<para>where the parameters mean: <glosslist>
2861	<glossentry>
2862	<glossterm>uuid\|vmname</glossterm>
2863
2864	<glossdef>
2865	<para>The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory.</para>
2866	</glossdef>
2867	</glossentry>
2868
2869	<glossentry>
2870	<glossterm>--source "<guest additions .ISO file to
2871	use>"</glossterm>
2872
2873	<glossdef>
2874	<para>Full path to an alternative VirtualBox Guest Additions
2875	.ISO file to use for the Guest Additions update.</para>
2876	</glossdef>
2877	</glossentry>
2878
2879	<glossentry>
2880	<glossterm>--verbose</glossterm>
2881
2882	<glossdef>
2883	<para>Tells VBoxManage to be more verbose.</para>
2884	</glossdef>
2885	</glossentry>
2886	</glosslist></para>
2887	</listitem>
2888	</itemizedlist></para>
2889	</sect1>
2890
2891	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-debugvm">
2892	<title>VBoxManage debugvm</title>
2893
2894	<para>The "debugvm" commands are for experts who want to tinker with the
2895	exact details of virtual machine execution. Like the VM debugger described
2896	in <xref linkend="debugger" />, these commands are only useful if you are
2897	very familiar with the details of the PC architecture and how to debug
2898	software.</para>
2899
2900	<para>The subcommands of "debugvm" all operate on a running virtual
2901	machine. The following are available:<itemizedlist>
2902	<listitem>
2903	<para>With <computeroutput>dumpguestcore --filename
2904	<name></computeroutput>, you can create a system dump of the
2905	running VM, which will be written into the given file. This file
2906	will have the standard ELF core format (with custom sections); see
2907	<xref linkend="guestcoreformat" />.</para>
2908	</listitem>
2909
2910	<listitem>
2911	<para>The <computeroutput>injectnmi</computeroutput> command causes
2912	a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) in the guest, which might be useful
2913	for certain debugging scenarios. What happens exactly is dependent
2914	on the guest operating system, but an NMI can crash the whole guest
2915	operating system. Do not use unless you know what you're
2916	doing.</para>
2917	</listitem>
2918
2919	<listitem>
2920	<para>The <computeroutput>statistics</computeroutput> command can be
2921	used to display VMM statistics on the command line. The
2922	<computeroutput>--reset</computeroutput> option will reset
2923	statistics. The affected statistics can be filtered with the
2924	<computeroutput>--pattern</computeroutput> option, which accepts
2925	DOS/NT-style wildcards (<computeroutput>?</computeroutput> and
2926	<computeroutput>*</computeroutput>).</para>
2927	</listitem>
2928	</itemizedlist></para>
2929	</sect1>
2930
2931	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-dhcpserver">
2932	<title>VBoxManage dhcpserver</title>
2933
2934	<para>The "dhcpserver" commands allow you to control the DHCP server that
2935	is built into VirtualBox. You may find this useful when using internal or
2936	host-only networking. (Theoretically, you can enable it for a bridged
2937	network as well, but that will likely cause conflicts with other DHCP
2938	servers in your physical network.)</para>
2939
2940	<para>Use the following command line options:<itemizedlist>
2941	<listitem>
2942	<para>If you use internal networking for a virtual network adapter
2943	of a virtual machine, use <computeroutput>VBoxManage dhcpserver add
2944	--netname <network_name></computeroutput>, where
2945	<computeroutput><network_name></computeroutput> is the same
2946	network name you used with <computeroutput>VBoxManage modifyvm
2947	<vmname> --intnet<X>
2948	<network_name></computeroutput>.</para>
2949	</listitem>
2950
2951	<listitem>
2952	<para>If you use host-only networking for a virtual network adapter
2953	of a virtual machine, use <computeroutput>VBoxManage dhcpserver add
2954	--ifname <hostonly_if_name></computeroutput> instead, where
2955	<computeroutput><hostonly_if_name></computeroutput> is the
2956	same host-only interface name you used with
2957	<computeroutput>VBoxManage modifyvm <vmname>
2958	--hostonlyadapter<X>
2959	<hostonly_if_name></computeroutput>.</para>
2960
2961	<para>Alternatively, you can also use the --netname option as with
2962	internal networks if you know the host-only network's name; you can
2963	see the names with <computeroutput>VBoxManage list
2964	hostonlyifs</computeroutput> (see <xref linkend="vboxmanage-list" />
2965	above).</para>
2966	</listitem>
2967	</itemizedlist></para>
2968
2969	<para>The following additional parameters are required when first adding a
2970	DHCP server:<itemizedlist>
2971	<listitem>
2972	<para>With <computeroutput>--ip</computeroutput>, specify the IP
2973	address of the DHCP server itself.</para>
2974	</listitem>
2975
2976	<listitem>
2977	<para>With <computeroutput>--netmask</computeroutput>, specify the
2978	netmask of the network.</para>
2979	</listitem>
2980
2981	<listitem>
2982	<para>With <computeroutput>--lowerip</computeroutput> and
2983	<computeroutput>--upperip</computeroutput>, you can specify the
2984	lowest and highest IP address, respectively, that the DHCP server
2985	will hand out to clients.</para>
2986	</listitem>
2987	</itemizedlist></para>
2988
2989	<para>Finally, you must specify <computeroutput>--enable</computeroutput>
2990	or the DHCP server will be created in the disabled state, doing
2991	nothing.</para>
2992
2993	<para>After this, VirtualBox will automatically start the DHCP server for
2994	given internal or host-only network as soon as the first virtual machine
2995	which uses that network is started.</para>
2996
2997	<para>Reversely, use <computeroutput>VBoxManage dhcpserver
2998	remove</computeroutput> with the given <computeroutput>--netname
2999	<network_name></computeroutput> or <computeroutput>--ifname
3000	<hostonly_if_name></computeroutput> to remove the DHCP server again
3001	for the given internal or host-only network.</para>
3002
3003	<para>To modify the settings of a DHCP server created earlier with
3004	<computeroutput>VBoxManage dhcpserver add</computeroutput>, you can use
3005	<computeroutput>VBoxManage dhcpserver modify</computeroutput> for a given
3006	network or host-only interface name.</para>
3007	</sect1>
3008
3009	<sect1 id="vboxmanage-extpack">
3010	<title>VBoxManage extpack</title>
3011
3012	<para>The "extpack" command allows you to add or remove VirtualBox
3013	extension packs, as described in <xref
3014	linkend="intro-installing" />.<itemizedlist>
3015	<listitem>
3016	<para>To add a new extension pack, use <computeroutput>VBoxManage
3017	extpack install <tarball></computeroutput>.</para>
3018	</listitem>
3019
3020	<listitem>
3021	<para>To remove a previously installed extension pack, use
3022	<computeroutput>VBoxManage extpack uninstall
3023	<name></computeroutput>. You can use
3024	<computeroutput>VBoxManage list extpacks</computeroutput> to show
3025	the names of the extension packs which are currently installed;
3026	please see <xref linkend="vboxmanage-list" /> also. The optional
3027	<computeroutput>--force</computeroutput> parameter can be used to
3028	override the refusal of an extension pack to be uninstalled.</para>
3029	</listitem>
3030
3031	<listitem>
3032	<para>The <computeroutput>VBoxManage extpack
3033	cleanup</computeroutput> command can be used to remove temporary
3034	files and directories that may have been left behind if a previous
3035	install or uninstall command failed.</para>
3036	</listitem>
3037	</itemizedlist></para>
3038	</sect1>
3039	</chapter>

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