Virtual Box Manager

This is a tool to easily manage virtual boxes. Goals are to:

• simplify usage of VirtualBox.
• have a set of machine images available that work out of the box.
• make cloning, starting, and deleting as fast as possible.

Installation

Install VirtualBox and the vbox tool:

go get github.com/dynport/dgtk/vbox

Now retrieve your local template engine.

vbox get template ubuntu_precise.ova template

ubuntu_precise.ova is the image to be downloaded and template the name of the machine created (template is the default in the clone command). The server can be provided using --source option.

Usage

The following actions are available:

• vbox list will return the list of all available virtual machines (add -r to only show running machines).
• vbox vm clone <vm> will clone the template you just downloaded to a new machine with the <vm> name.
• vbox vm start <vm> will start the virtual machine with the given name.
• vbox vm ssh into <vm> will open an ssh connection to this machine (might take a few seconds as it tries to wait till the machine finished booting).

For more help run vbox -h or vbox <command> -h.

Creating Images

Creating (or extending) images requires the following steps to be taken:

• Install or extend the image as wanted.
• Make sure the VirtualBox GuestAdditions are installed (for Linux remember to first install the dkms package).
• Remove the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules so that the template's MAC is reset afterwards (otherwise networking will fail horribly).
• Shutdown the virtual machine.
• Create a snapshot. I prefer the base name as this is the default for the clone operation.
• For sharing export the machine to an .ova file.