508      iPhone_iPad_Mac_apple

How to auto start VMs on OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Hello,

I am running VirtualBox 4.3.20 r96996 on OS X Yosemite (10.10) Mac mini. I need to know the steps I can follow to auto start my Virtual Machines on reboot and/or on starting VirtualBox. Please advise me in the right direction

To start it on reboot, you would have to create a launchd plist to start up the VM. This is the syntax for the command

/usr/bin/VBoxManage stratvm <name of vm>

There is a program on the App Store called Lingon 3 that can help, or search the web for Launchd plist examples and write your own.

I don't know how to tell VB to start a VM on launch.

A way around that for just about any program would be to create an Automator Application or Applescript Application that opens the VM. Use that application to launch VB instead of VB itself.

I have the following configuration setup

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "https://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

  <key>Disabled</key>

  <false/>

  <key>KeepAlive</key>

  <true/>

  <key>Label</key>

  <string>org.virtualbox.vboxautostart</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>

  <array>

    <string>/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxAutostartDarwin.sh</str ing>

    <string>/etc/vbox/autostart.cfg</string>

  </array>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>

  <true/>

  <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>

  <false/>

</dict>

</plist>

$ cat /etc/vbox/autostart.cfg

default_policy = allow

Then I did the following

sudo chmod +x /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxAutostartDarwin.sh

sudo chown root:wheel /etc/vbox

sudo chown root:wheel /etc/vbox/autostart.cfg

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist

and

VBoxManage modifyvm va1 --autostart-enabled on

VBoxManage modifyvm va1 --autostop-type acpishutdown

VBoxManage modifyvm va2 --autostart-enabled on

VBoxManage modifyvm va2 --autostop-type acpishutdown

Then, I issued the following command for verification:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist

However, only one VM starts at reboot and sometimes both don't start.

What am I missing here?

What happens if you add the program to your log in items?

@eric, I am not sure if I know how to do that correctly, can you please guide me?

Also, I realized that launchctl has upgraded in OS X Yosemite (10.10).  https://www.manpagez.com/man/1/launchctl/. The "load" and "unload" commands are called "legacy commands", and the new commands such as "kickstart", "bootstrap", "enable" are to be used.

No clue on how to use these new commands, please help!

VirtualBox is a GUI app. You can't set it to run at startup which you are doing because there is no GUI at startup.

As Eric pointed out the simple way of starting VB when you log in.

You could create a Launch Agent similar to what you did to have it launch at login for any user that logs in. Or, you can just put it in your user/Library/LaunchAgents

A Launch Agent runs at login.

A Launch Daemon runs at startup.

If you want to launch a specific VM (or VMs), I think you would need to create a LaunchAgent (not a Daemon) that would use the command I posted above as the thing to run. You don't need to create a shell file to run that line. You can just put it in the ProgramArguments.

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

  <array>

    <string>/usr/bin/VBoxManage</string>

    <string>startvm</string>

    <string><name of vm></string>

  </array>

You don't need to load, unload, kickstart, or whatever. If it is a valid plist and is in your LaunchAgents folder, it will load unless you specifically unload it and set the -w option which tells it to remember the last load/unload setting (which is now enable).

I don't know what you were doing with the whole autostart.cfg stuff.

Also note that you do not have to have VirtualBox running to launch a VM

The following is my /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist file as used on a Mac running Yosemite and I have multiple VMs starting automatically.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "https://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Disabled</key>
  <false/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>org.virtualbox.vboxautostart</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
  <string>/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxAutostartDarwin.sh</string>
  <string>/etc/vbox/autostart.cfg</string>
  </array>
</dict>
</plist>