I have VirtualBox set up on a server. It was set up as a Bridged VM, and has an IP address. It's now running in headless mode, started with "VBoxHeadless -s PuppetMaster".
How can I find out what IP the VM is using VBoxManage?
I could find my Headless VB with the combination of following commands:
# Update arp table
for i in {1..254}; do ping -c 1 192.168.178.$i & done
# Find vm name
VBoxManage list runningvms
# Find MAC: subsitute vmname with your vm's name
VBoxManage showvminfo vmname
# Find IP: substitute vname-mac-addr with your vm's mac address in ':' notation
arp -a | grep vmname-mac-addr
But even easier: in linux, you can connect to the VB:
# Default VirtualBox Listening Port: 3389
rdesktop -N hostingserver:3389
This command will open a shell window, and you'll have direct access to the Headless VB, where you can retrieve your Headless VB IP: ip addr
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I've translated it into golang program gist.github.com/mhewedy/352ddb55d4740945d0462df91aece198 I hope I could upload the binary file for ease use by others. – Muhammad Hewedy Jan 19 at 22:20
Install guest additions and (assuming linux is the guest) you can run the following:
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol yourVirtualMachineName execute --image "/sbin/ifconfig" --username yourUser --password yourPassword --wait-exit --wait-stdout -- -a
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1Format changed a bit now, you'll need
VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol yourVirtualMachineName --username yourUser --password yourPassword run -- /sbin/ifconfig -a– mike.dld Aug 5 '16 at 13:37
VBoxManage guestproperty enumerate {`VBoxManage list runningvms | awk -F"{" '{print $2}'` | grep IP | awk -F"," '{print $2}' | awk '{print $2}'
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Command works for a single VM. -- With multiple VMs filter by VM name, e.g.:
VBoxManage list runningvms | grep vmname | awk ...– mschuett Jan 4 '13 at 10:22 -
Or we can inquire about a specific VM. e.g.
VBoxManage guestproperty get <vm-name> "/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP" | cut -f2 -d " "– Mohnish Aug 2 '17 at 19:17
Not sure if VBoxManage can give you that information directly. What you can do is run the following command to see the network card configuration.
VBoxManage showvminfo PuppetMaster | egrep ^NIC
That will if nothing else will provide you with the MAC address, allowing you to find out the actual ip address by other means.
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2Any ideas on how to get the IP using the MAC address from the command line? – Jon Haddad Apr 2 '10 at 18:22
You can get it directly using this command:
VBoxManage list bridgedifs
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For me this shows only the address that I'm sharing, not what the client actually gets. – SomeoneElse Dec 13 '19 at 23:03
From virtualbox.org forum --
VBoxManage guestproperty get <vm-name> "/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP" | cut -f2 -d " "
