Posts tagged virtual machines

VirtualBox Manager Pro – Machine Status Check Plus More

Added to VirtualBox Pro is status checking. When you login to the host your virtual machines are displayed with on/off information. In the onCreate a thread is launched that scans the server for machine status; it then updates the UI thread accordingly. I’ve also added header icons to replace the default one, and a new menu item has been added. The new menu item, in the free version, will not change. It currently dispalys information regarding upcoming features. In the Pro version the features will be implemented.

The Pro version will soon have the ability to login to individual machines, hosts or virtual machines, and scan for running processes. It will display the status of the running process and give the ability to start, stop, or reset it. Theoretically the list can be the entire contents of ps aux, but at first I will probably restrict it to Apache, Mysql, Sendmail, and Dovecot. The user can start, stop, and reset the processes the same way virtual machines are controlled in the current application. I should be done with the new features within a week or so.

Downloads look promising. In the first week there were about 250 downloads. I think this should grow being that first week downloads is always random. Users searching for random keywords to see what apps exist. As a reputation builds downloads should also be driven by word of mouth and hopefully a listing in the tops apps. In time, we’ll see. The paid version is off to a slow start, but as the free version grows in popularity I expect sales to pick up given the powerful features only available in the Pro version.

VirtualBox – Android Remote Management

VirtualBox Manager Background

I wonder if Android can use animated backgrounds. If they can I will work on the following image. I’ll reduce its size and tweak it for the relatively small screen of a smartphone. If the phone cannot use an animated background I will just use the image without the animation. Ultimately I made the image in hopes that it will lead to an application, which I have begun tinkering with.

Theoretically the app will use ssh to connect to a server. The app will need to configure either password or RSA authentication. It will then use shell commands to retrieve the available virtual machines in a particular users home directory. At first it would provide the ability to start, pause, and stop them individually. Then additional functions can be added.

VirtualBox 3.1.4 – Debian Lenny SMP Instability

I use an Ubuntu Karmic desktop environment for my host. I use VirtualBox with Debian Lenny for virtual machines. Most of the time virtual machines work fine with multiple processors enabled in VirtualBox, but Debian Lenny does have some instability forcing the VirtualBox configuration to use 1 processor to maintain stability. Maybe changing the kernel, particularly to an SMP kernel, is required; this would make sense. I can try that or just leave it as a single core virtual machine which is stable. I’m not really inclined to do anything because everything works fine as is.

VBoxTool – An Incredibly Useful Script

Bash scripting is straight forward. There are logical and object oriented constructs like programs, and you are basically manipulating data contained in files, and using standard output to determine various tasks to be done. VBoxTool does what VBoxManage lacks. I wonder how corporations start virtual machines on boot, and manage their machines once the system is running. They clearly write their own scripts. VBoxTool is a publicly published script that does just this. I would like to extend appreciation to Mark Baaijens for the script; it is extremely useful! It completely manages my system from automating the boot process when I need to reboot the host, saving the machines when the need to be shut down, and backing them up at regular intervals with cron jobs.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vboxtool/develop

Automatic Actions – Run or Walk Those Cron Jobs

You’d be surprised what you can accomplish when you aren’t even close to your computer. Using Rsync you can completely backup your /home directory. I back it all up, except one directory, which I handle differently.

rsync --exclude="~/.VirtualBox" /home /media/backup

I mount a usb hard drive to /media/backup. Make sure you set proper permissions:

sudo chown user:user /media/backup

Now you can rsync your home directory without the need for a sudo.

Rsync only updates files that have timestamps that are newer than the previously transferred. This makes it fast; real fast!. I backup my machine using an rsync command once a day. Open crontab:

sudo crontab -e

Add a line:

0 0 * * * rsync --exclude="~/.VirtualBox" /home /media/backup

The above will run the command every day at 12 AM. Your /home directory with be synchronized with /media/backup/home.

Then comes your virtual machines. Use Vboxtool!!!! Check out this post for more info about the tool.

Set /media/backup as the backup directory in /etc/vboxtool/vboxtool.conf. Then add the following line as a cron job.

0 1 * * * vboxtool backup WebServer

Replace WebServer with the name of your virtual machine. This cron job will run every day at 1 am.

Extended VirtualBox Management – VBoxTool

VBoxManage, the command line tool of VirtualBox, does its job. It also has its limitations. You can starts, pause, and save virtual machines, but there is no integrated way to automate various processes. To have a virtual machine boot with the host, in headless mode, you would have to create a custom init.d boot script. A great script package, call VBoxTool, coordinates the process into a terminal app. The terminal app refereneces two configuration files in your /etc directory, and utilizes an init script to boot virtual machines. VBoxTool is at sourceforge:

http://vboxtool.sourceforge.net/

Configure the machines you want to boot in:

/etc/vboxtool/machines.conf

Any machine listed in machines.conf will boot with the host. You can view running machines with:

vboxtool showrun

Then you can also view all available machines with:

vboxtool show

Maybe this wrapper script will be integrated into VBoxManage directly; it is clear the features are useful especially for system administrators.