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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?

warren
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Jon Haddad
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6 Answers6

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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

Alberto
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  • I've translated it into golang program https://gist.github.com/mhewedy/352ddb55d4740945d0462df91aece198 I hope I could upload the binary file for ease use by others. – Muhammad Hewedy Jan 19 '20 at 22:20
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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
Simone Scarduzio
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    Format changed a bit now, you'll need `VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol yourVirtualMachineName --username yourUser --password yourPassword run -- /sbin/ifconfig -a` – mike.dld Aug 05 '16 at 13:37
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VBoxManage guestproperty enumerate {`VBoxManage list runningvms | awk -F"{" '{print $2}'` | grep IP | awk -F"," '{print $2}' | awk '{print $2}'
Scott Pack
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brendan
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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 04 '13 at 10:22
  • Or we can inquire about a specific VM. e.g. `VBoxManage guestproperty get "/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP" | cut -f2 -d " "` – Mohnish Aug 02 '17 at 19:17
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You can get it directly using this command:

VBoxManage list bridgedifs
slm
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ShawnMilo
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3

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.

andol
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3

From virtualbox.org forum --

VBoxManage guestproperty get <vm-name> "/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP" | cut -f2 -d " "

Mohnish
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