However, there is another way, at least when it comes to RDP support. Chapter 7 of the VirtualBox manual<\/a> covers running virtual machines on a remote host, either with Right! So we can start a virtual machine and forward its root console (or main video or out-of-band console or whatever you want to call it) over the network with a VNC server. In my example I’ll use screen to keep my VMs running when I log out. I’ll start a couple of VMs as an example:<\/p>\n Great! We don’t need the proprietary expansion pack to do this. However, there are a few drawbacks to this approach:<\/p>\n We can actually work around the first limitation, by using the Now we configure it to use the existing VNC servers that we previously spawned with \/etc\/xrdp\/xrdp.ini<\/p>\n So we have two VirtalBox VMs running, Ubuntu and XP1. In the example above, I started the ubuntu VNC without a password, so I’ve left out the username\/password entries. The XP1 connection is protected with the password So now all that’s left to do is to connect to the RDP port using one of the myriad RDP clients for linux (I’m using Remmina, but there are heaps of options<\/a>). You can then choose the VNC connection you want xrdp to connect to and you’re away!<\/p>\n xrdp login screen<\/p><\/div>\n Of course, SSH local port forwarding is your friend if you’re doing any of this through firewalls or over insecure connections. Remmina actually includes this functionality, or you can forward the remote port to your local machine with something like:<\/p>\n So there you are, RDP connections to remote VirtualBox VMs without the proprietary Oracle extensions; all free software!<\/p>\n Have fun. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" These days, virtualisation is all the rage. The various competing virtualisation products have reached a level of maturity where they can be reliably used for server consolidation. VirtualBox is one of the easiest to use, most featureful programs available in … Continue reading VBoxManage<\/code> command (which offeres similar functionality to the VirtualBox GUI) or the VBoxHeadless<\/code> command, which appears to be the backend binary that VBoxManage<\/code> calls out to to do the actual work. Now, chapter 7 covers in detail how to connect to remote VMs using the proprietary extensions, but there’s one feature that they conveniently failed to mention: the built-in VNC server.<\/p>\nman VBoxHeadless\r\nVBOXHEADLESS(1) User Commands VBOXHEADLESS(1)\r\n\r\nNAME\r\n VBoxHeadless - x86 virtualization solution\r\n\r\nDESCRIPTION\r\n Oracle VM VirtualBox Headless Interface (C) 2008-2011 Oracle\r\n Corporation All rights reserved.\r\n\r\nUsage:\r\n -s, -startvm, --startvm <name|uuid>\r\n Start given VM (required argument)\r\n -n, --vnc\r\n Enable the built in VNC server\r\n -m, --vncport <port>\r\n TCP port number to use for the VNC server\r\n -o, --vncpass <pw>\r\n Set the VNC server password\r\n -v, -vrde, --vrde on|off|config\r\n Enable (default) or disable the VRDE server or don't\r\n change the setting\r\n -e, -vrdeproperty, --vrdeproperty <name=[value]>\r\n Set a VRDE property:\r\n \"TCP\/Ports\" - comma-separated list of ports the VRDE\r\n server can bind to. Use a dash between two port numbers\r\n to specify a range \"TCP\/Address\" - interface IP the\r\n VRDE server will bind to\r\n -c, -capture, --capture\r\n Record the VM screen output to a file\r\n -w, --width\r\n Frame width when recording\r\n -h, --height\r\n Frame height when recording\r\n -r, --bitrate\r\n Recording bit rate when recording\r\n -f, --filename\r\n File name when recording. The codec used will be cho\u00e2\u20ac\u0090\r\n sen based on the file extension\r\n\r\nVBoxHeadless January 2011 VBOXHEADLESS(1)<\/pre>\n
screen\r\nVBoxHeadless --startvm 'Ubuntu' --vnc --vncport 5900\r\n# hit \"ctrl-a c\" to open a new terminal within screen\r\nVBoxHeadless --startvm 'XP1' --vnc --vncport 5901 --vncpass vnc2xrdp<\/pre>\n
\n
screen<\/code> or nohup<\/code> or equivalent, which is a bit less convenient than using VBoxManage<\/code><\/li>\nxrdp<\/code> program to “translate” the VNC protocol into RDP. I’m on Ubuntu, so I have the luxury of installing xrdp the easy way. On the VirtualBox server machine:<\/p>\nsudo apt-get install xrdp<\/pre>\n
VBoxHeadless<\/code>. One neat thing here is that xrdp uses a single RDP port to manage multiple VNC connections:<\/p>\n[globals]\r\nbitmap_cache=yes\r\nbitmap_compression=yes\r\nport=3389\r\ncrypt_level=low\r\nchannel_code=1\r\n\r\n[xrdp1]\r\nname=VBox-Ubuntu\r\nlib=libvnc.so\r\nip=127.0.0.1\r\nport=5900\r\n\r\n[xrdp2]\r\nname=VBox-XP1\r\nlib=libvnc.so\r\nusername=\r\npassword=vnc2xrdp\r\nip=127.0.0.1\r\nport=5901<\/pre>\n
vnc2xrdp<\/code>. You can also use the value ask<\/code> and xrdp will prompt for a username\/password for connecting to VNC. Note that VNC passwords are generally insecure, so it’d probably be best to protect the vnc ports using firewalling. It doesn’t appear to be possible to bind the VNC server to only the loopback device (at least from the man page above).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/helms-deep.net\/~rwh\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/xrdp.png\" "\\"xrdp\\"")
<\/a>ssh -L 3389:localhost:3389 vboxservermachine<\/pre>\n