VirtualBox

Useful tool and commands

• Add ssh support for a virtual machine

  
#> VBoxManage setextradata "" "VBoxInternal/Devices/e1000/0/LUN#0/Config/dienstName/Protocol" TCP
  
#> VBoxManage setextradata "" "VBoxInternal/Devices/e1000/0/LUN#0/Config/dienstName/GuestPort" 22

  #> VBoxManage setextradata "" "VBoxInternal/Devices/e1000/0/LUN#0/Config/dienstName/HostPort"

  e1000 is the name of the network adapter which is used
  or use this

  
#> VBoxManage modifyvm "" --natpf1 "guestssh,tcp,,8022,,22"

• Resize virtual harddisk to 20GB

  
#> VBoxManage modifyhd .vdi --resize 20000

• Mount vdi image
  Do it as root or with sudo

  #> modprobe nbd max_part=16

  #> qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbdX 
  
#> mount /dev/nbdXpY

  when you finished

  
#> umount /mnt/
  
#> qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbdXls

• Compacting VirtualBox Disk Images
  • Windows Guests
    1. Delete Unnecessary Files
    2. Defragment the Disk
    3. Clean any free disk space
       Download sdelete: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897443.aspx
       Start a DOS prompt:

       C:\> sdelete.exe -z c:

       -z: zero any free space.

       C:\> sdelete.exe -c c:

       -c clean any free space.

    4. Shutdown guest image
    5. Compact the Windows guest image

       VBoxManage modifyhd --compact ".vdi

  • Linux Guest
    1. Clean any free disk space

       dd if=/dev/zero of=zerofillfile bs=1M

    2. When the dd is completed, you will see a message that there is no space left on the device

       dd: writing 'zerofillfile': No space left on device

    3. Remove zerofillfile

       rm zerofillfile

    4. Shutdown the Linux Virtual Machine
    5. Compact the Linux guest image

       VBoxManage modifyhd --compact .vdi