Saving the state of a VirtualBox virtual machine from command line?

Question

I am using VirtualBox on Windows.

Is there a way to make a script that will close the VM and "save the state"? Or even just tell the VM to shutdown?

Non-sequitur:

• I know you can open the VM from the command line because I have a shortcut to open the VM. And so I can just call the shortcut from the command lien.
• The reason I ask is because my backup software has a pre-backup/post-backup command line option. So I would like to use the command line to save the state of the VM. Then backup the VM. Then use the command line to start the VM.

Answer 1

From the VBoxManage manual:

VBoxManage controlvm <vm> savestate will save the current state of the VM to disk and then stop the VM. (This is equivalent to selecting the "Close" item in the "Machine" menu of the GUI or pressing the window's close button, and then selecting "Save the machine state" in the dialog.)

Then you can start again using VBoxManage startvm "Windows XP" (assuming your VM is named "Windows XP" of course).

You should find the VBoxManage.exe somewhere in your VirtualBox installation folder. Of course you can add it to your PATH to have easier access.