Virtualbox: Connect to the host machine from a VirtualBox guest OS

Source: Connect to the host machine from a VirtualBox guest OS
See "Another way to do this is to use a "Host" type of virtual network."

The simplest to always get the same IP address @home and @office for your VM is to use the Host-only adapter.

Virtualbox centos: Device eth0 does not seem to be present

If, when copying a VM from one computer to another one, you face this error:

service network restart
...
Bringing up interface eth0: Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

Then ensure first that /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 has the same MAC address as in Virtualbox network settings, plus

rm /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

and reboot

CentOS 6 VM: french Macbook keyboard under X11

setxkbmap -layout fr -model macintosh

Virtualbox: Shrinking VM Disk Images

Source: http://snippets.khromov.se/shrinking-a-virtualbox-linux-image-with-zerofree/

• Download the SystemRescueCd Live Image
Mount it as a CD on your virtual machine and boot into the live distro
• Find all available partition and LVM (volume groups) with:

fdisk -l

• After we find our partition run zerofree to zero out the free space. In our example we will run it on the LVM root partition

zerofree -v /dev/mapper/vg_rheldev-lv_root

• Finally, boot down your virtual machine, and run VBoxManage on the host to resize the .vdi file

C:\>"c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" modifyhd "c:
\Users\jerome\VirtualBox VMs\Monster\Mobiquithings.vdi" --compact

With this method, my VM shrunk from 200 GiB to 26 GiB

NB: The other method mentioned on the net replacing zerofree with dd like in

dd -if /dev/zero -of /bigemptyfile -bs 4096; rm /bigemptyfile

was not satisfactory for me.

Windows Virtualbox: increase CentOS 6 VDI size

1. Create a new VDI disk under Controller: SATA, sized appropriately





2. Clone existing VDI into new one

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox> VBoxManage.exe clonehd "c:\Users\jerome\VirtualBox VMs\Mathusalem\Mathusalem.vdi" --existing "c:\Users\jerome\VirtualBox VMs\Mathusalem\Mathusalem 2.vdi"

0%...10%...20%...30%...40%...50%...60%...70%...80%...90%...100%
Clone hard disk created in format 'VDI'. UUID: 48da07eb-3395-4fad-95e3-c0615b185da2

3. Remove legacy VDI



4. Download GParted ISO from GParted Live CD
5. Mount GParted ISO under Controller: IDE



6. Start the VM, which will boot on the GParted live CD
7. Extend the existing LVM2 partition (/dev/sda2) with the new unallocated space
8. Stop the VM, detach the GParted ISO, and reboot the VM
9. Extend the logical volume into the resized partition
By default, CentOS uses LVM (Logical Volume Manager), which requires an extra step.
Identify the name of the logical volume via df:

df -h



Then force the LVM volume to take 100% of the available space on the partition:

lvextend -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/vg_mathusalem-lv_root

10. Resize file system

resize2fs /dev/mapper/vg_mathusalem-lv_root


After this step, we are now good to go.

CentOS / VirtualBox: copy paste shit from/to Windows and urxvt

#! /usr/bin/perl

sub on_sel_grab {
    my $query = quotemeta $_[0]->selection;
    $query =~ s/\n/\\n/g;
    $query =~ s/\r/\\r/g;
    system( "echo -en " . $query . " | xsel -ibp" );
}

I called it clipboard, saved it to /usr/lib64/urxvt/perl/, and enabled in ~/.Xdefaults:

urxvt*perl-ext-common:      default,matcher,clipboard

VirtualBox: force guest IP address

> sudo vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=08:00:27:B5:56:05
NM_CONTROLLED=no
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
#IPADDR=192.168.2.8
IPADDR=192.168.1.101
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
TYPE=Ethernet
DNS1=8.8.8.8
DNS2=8.8.4.4

Then restart network

> sudo service network restart

Virtualbox: use host VPN

Configuration: Windows 7 host, Fedora guest
Configure a new NAT adapter in Virtualbox network settings.
Start the VPN on Windows.
Start the VM.

> cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
> sudo vi ifcfg-eth1

DEVICE=eth1
NM_CONTROLLED=no
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
DNS1=8.8.8.8
DNS2=8.8.4.4
TYPE=Ethernet
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=yes
IPV6INIT=no

> sudo ifup eth1

Test connection to remote machine only available through the VPN

> ping engine1

VirtualBox Guest additions upgrade: install_x11_startup_app: no script given

Here's what we get after trying to upgrade the Guest Additions from 4.1.12 to 4.1.14:

Installing the Window System drivers
Installing X.Org Server 1.11 modules ...done.
Setting up the Window System to use the Guest Additions ...done.
You may need to restart the hal service and the Window System (or just restart
the guest system) to enable the Guest Additions.

Installing graphics libraries and desktop services components ...fail!
(See the log file /var/log/vboxadd-install-x11.log for more information.)
Press Return to close this window...

install_x11_startup_app: no script given

Before installing the new guest additions version, you need to remove manually 2 symlinks:

 rm /usr/lib64/VBoxGuestAdditions
 rm /usr/share/VBoxGuestAdditions

Force resync of VirtualBox guest

E.g. To force time sync every 10 sec.:

VBoxService --timesync-set-threshold 10000

Copy Paste shit in Virtualbox

VirtualBox host =Windows 7
VirtualBox Guest = Fedora 14 with OpenBox and Eterm
Basically, no selection you make in Eterm can be copied with Ctrl-Ins the expected way into Windows.
Copy Paste Hell Between Windows Host and Linux Guest in VirtualBox gave me part of the solution:
Install xsel with:

> sudo yum -y install xsel

And use the following command to capture selection in Eterm:

> xsel | xsel -b

The problem is now to bind it to a key, let's say Ctrl-Ins ;), in OpenBox.
In ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml, add the following:

    <keybind key="C-Insert">
      <action name="Execute">
        <startupnotify>
          <enabled>true</enabled>
          <name>xsel</name>
        </startupnotify>
        <command>sh -c '/usr/bin/xsel | /usr/bin/xsel -b'</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>

Do not forget the sh -c or it won't work.

Resize a Fedora .vdi file in Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.1.8

The LVM system file used by Fedora is not supported by GParted.
In order to add the new volume to the existing partition, we need to use system-config-lvm.

sudo yum -y install system-config-lvm

French article describing how to proceed. NB: If meeting the following error:

process 702: D-Bus library appears to be incorrectly set up; failed to read 
machine uuid: Failed to open "/var/lib/dbus/machine-id": No such file or directory.

Then run the following command as root.

> dbus-uuidgen > /var/lib/dbus/machine-id

Update VirtualBox to 4.1.8

• Download VirtualBox-4.1.8-75467-Win.exe
• Download VBoxGuestAdditions_4.1.8.iso
• Unmount the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso under "Parameters | Storage | IDE Controller"
• Do the update of VirtualBox
• Restart VirtualBox
• Copy the new VBoxGuestAdditions ISO into c:\program files\oracle\virtualbox
• Mount the new VBoxGuestAdditions ISO under "IDE Controller"
• Start the new VM
• Re-install VBoxLinuxAdditions like previously done:

sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
cd /media/cdrom
sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
sudo reboot

• Unmount the VBoxGuestAdditions ISO

In case of problems with VirtualBox Guest Additions:
http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2010/install-virtualbox-guest-additions-on-fedora-centos-red-hat-rhel/

GWT debugging on Windows in a VirtualBox Linux VM

This post shows how to use a browser on a host (Windows 7) with Eclipse running a GWT project on the VirtualBox guest (Ubuntu server).

Below, my Ubuntu guest has been named "fart".

virtualbox download

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/

How to access a guest Ubuntu web server installed in VirtualBox from a Windows 7 host OS

1) Reserve the IP address of the VirtualBox VM in the router DNS, e.g. 192.168.1.103

2) In C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts, add
192.168.1.103 fart.ulticom.com Then http://fart.ulticom.com on W7 will match the root document of the Apache web server on Ubuntu.

virtualbox downloads

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/