Manage Virtualbox virtual machines under command line

virtualbox

VirtualBox is a very useful x86/AMD64 virtualization application, we usually use it to test different operating systems, or do some computer science related practices, or maybe we just want to slice the hardware resource for resource utilization.

I would like to run a virtualbox program on my powerful servers, and use a lightweight but not powerful computer like Chromebook to remotely connect to the virtual machines under the virtualbox, so that I don’t have to bring a heavy computer every where, I can still have multiple machines with several different systems to run different programs.

From the beginning, I use vnc server with x window via ssh tunnel to create a secure connection and then launch virtualbox, in fact, the window manager is not always needed, especially we have installed the operating system, and the system runs properly, so I wonder if is possible to control the virtual machines under command line interface, and the answer is yes, and the command line virtual is much more powerful than I thought, I guess all the tasks and configurations can be done via command line now, of course including create/clone a vm or modify a vm hardware resource, vm import/export, share folder, network interface or usb device attach/detach, etc.

Without controlling via GUI, but from command line, I don’t need to start a vncclient then connect to my vncserver, also don’t need to forward the x window to my client, that’s very helpful, and that machine can run “in the background”, in fact, under the x window by vncserver, note that virtualbox still need a x window environment with virtualbox launched(at least by virtualbox v4.3.34), by my test result, if you don’t have a GUI virtual launched, the startvm command I will talk about later will not work, it will tell you vm started successfully, but in fact not, and will return 1(exit status).

I want to share some basic and commonly used commands, to help us control a virtualbox created virtual machine, if you didn’t know that before, hope this can help you.

Command ‘virtualbox’ usually means the GUI version of VirtualBox, here, for command line, we use ‘vboxmanage’, remember, I use the “vm name” to control a version machine here, you can also use its UUID at the same place, okay, here we go:

List all the virtual machines
– vboxmanage list vms

List the running virtual machines
– vboxmanage list runningvms

List the dhcp server info
– vboxmanage list dhcpservers

Show info about a virtual machine
– vboxmanage showvminfo “vm name”

Power on a vm:
– vboxmanage startvm “vm name”

Force reset/reboot a vm:
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” reset

Force power off a vm(cut the power down):
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” poweroff

Power off a vm as “Press its power button”(acpi, send power off signal, to power off in normal process, not cut the power down):
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” acpipowerbutton

Make a vm sleep as “Press its power button”(acpi, send sleep signal):
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” acpisleepbutton

Pause a vm:
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” pause

Resume a paused vm:
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” resume

Save a vm’s state(like poweroff but all states will be saved):
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” savestate

Take a png image screenshot of a vm:
– vboxmanage controlvm “vm name” screenshotpng filename.png

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用 nginx 建置一個 A+ 等級的 https 網頁伺服器

隨著資安意識提升、 Google 把網站的 https 列為搜尋引擎的排行指標,越來越多的網站開始導入 https 以確保伺服器以及使用者端兩個端點之間的安全溝通,先前在 10 web server online https/ssl testing services 有列出了一些可以協助網管人員測試網頁伺服器安全性強度的服務(注意是”網頁伺服器”而不是”網頁應用程式”),讓大家可以參考看看,其中 Qualys SSL LabsSSL Server Test 算是近期非常熱門的一個測試跟服務,其測試報告以及評分標準算是非常簡單易懂,以截至目前為止(2015年10月25日)的最新版本”2009j (20 May 2015)“為例,給分主要從 A ~ F,Protocol support、Key exchange 及 Cipher strength 分別占總分的30%、30%及40%,相關的細節都可以在SSL Server Rating Guide (PDF) – Qualys SSL Labs 裡面找到,Qualys SSL Labs也提供了一份 SSL/TLS Deployment Best Practices Guide,但看起來近期沒更新就是了,停留在 Version 1.4 / 8 December 2014。

對於一些非網管或是相關背景的網站管理員來說,該如何有效的提升自己架設的伺服器安全性強度? 又如何改善各安全測試出來的分數? 由於最近有些人在問相關的問題,我找了一下發現好像沒有中文的資源在提供這方面的指南,所以決定野人獻曝一下稍微分享我知道的做法。另外必須說明的是,安全性跟方便性從以前到現在就是兩難,例如夠安全的密碼基本上都是由不同的元素以及夠長的長度組成,相對來講就會不好記,在伺服器安全性上的問題亦然,較好的安全性會使得 Windows XP,Java 6 的使用者受到影響,如果還有遇到這使用如此老舊軟體的使用者,還是勸他趕緊換個平台吧 …

開頭先說一個比較不影響這次評分 (https) 但大家可能也會想要處理的一塊,關於 Web server 的 response header 處理的部分,可以參考先前寫的 “用Apache/nginx&PHP架網站要注意的安全事項” ,將不必要的Server資訊隱藏起來,那接下來就講這次的重點,關於伺服器的安全性設定以及該如何提高分數!

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The fxxking stupid error msg from Virtualbox

VirtualBox 4.3.18 from LinuxMint’s repo, when starting a VM, I got this:

vboxsrv

So I did what is said:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
And it told me:

sudo: /etc/init.d/vboxdrv: command not found

And I spent about 1 hour to find a method to fix it, no methods work!

I found that there is /etc/init.d/virtualbox, so I tried:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/virtualbox start

* Starting VirtualBox kernel modules [ OK ]

Try to start VM in VirtualBox again, WTF, it works now, shame on the stupid error message!

Virtualization related notes

Guest vs Host:

  • Host – usually runs on physical hardware, lower level.
  • Guest – runs on the virtual/virtualized environment, upper level.

Virtualization types:

  • Full virtualization –  virtualize all the devices!
    • Can run almost all the operating systems without any modifications.
    • Emulate all the devicesn.
    • Slower than Paravirtualization and Operating-system-level virtualization.
    • Software Emulation (Without Hardware-Assisted-Virtualization)
      • Very Slow.
      • Need to do some jobs like binary translation or software instruction decode, will have a heavy overhead, is very inefficiet.
    • Paravirtualization on HVM
      • Full virtualization with paravirtualization drivers.
  • Paravirtualization(PV) – use modified kernel to interact with the special interface
    • Guest knows it’s a guest on the host, the guest will communicate with hypervisor.
    • Use hypercall (call to hypervisor) as its system call.
    • Hard(almost impossible) to modify the kernel of closed-source operating systems like Windows to use this method.
    • Faster than full virtualization but slower than operating-system-level virtualization.
  • Hardware-Assisted-Virtualization (HVM, HAV)
    • Using help from hardware capabilities.
    • Faster than Software Emulation.
    • Technic examples
  • Operating-system-level virtualization – don’t really virtualize the devices
    • Fastest – SUPER FAST!!!
    • Isolate different user space instances.
    • Don’t need hardware support.
    • Must run on the same kernel
      • Means bad compatibility.
    • Examples:
  • Partial virtualization – need be confirmed, not a usual type

Type-1 vs type-2 hypervisor:

Wikipedia also use Application/Environment and OS level to distinguish different types of virtualization:

  • Application-level
    • Sandbox
  • Environment-level
    • Containers
  • OS-level
    • Hypervisors

Common integrated virtualization solutions:

Resources and references:

The paravirtualization spectrum

source : https://blog.xenproject.org/2012/10/31/the-paravirtualization-spectrum-part-2-from-poles-to-a-spectrum/

Still learning, hope that there are not too many wrong things here … comments to point out mistakes/weak points are welcome!