In today’s world of multi operating systems (OSes), some things get done better / easier in one OS, whereas some in other. Now, if all types of tasks are to be done on the corresponding OSes, there are various possibilities. Two from those are:

• Have multiple systems with the various OSes
• Have a system with one of the OSes (referred to as host OS) and VirtualBoxes on it for the other OSes (referred to as guest OSes)

From ease of use perspective, the second one is preferable. In either case, if automation of all the tasks is required the following are the most common steps:

• Write a script on one of the OSes, preferably bash script on Linux to automate its local tasks
• Invoke / Do the tasks on the other OSes in the same script, using ssh with the command to the corresponding OS

For the above steps to work, a minimal network connection is expected between the different OSes. In case of multiple systems, physical network connection is required. However, with VirtualBoxes, even the network could be virtual between the VirtualBoxes.

In case of VirtualBoxes, a networkless solution is also possible. One can actually run the commands on a VirtualBox based guest OS using commands on the host OS. The key to that is the command VBoxManage which gets installed alongwith the VirtualBox on the host OS. To be specific, it is the option guestcontrol of the VBoxManage. Invoke it as follows for further list of options:

$ VBoxManage help guestcontrol

Assuming a VirtualBox running with the name “Ubuntu”, username “test”, password “testpwd”, the following are a few examples of what can be done:

$ VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu --username test --password testpwd mkdir /home/test/xyz
$ VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu --username test --password testpwd mv /home/test/xyz /home/test/abc
$ VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu --username test --password testpwd rmdir /home/test/abc

There are few more commands, apart from the above, which can be directly used. But what about the whole plethora of commands on the guest OS? For an access to all the commands on the guest OS, they may be invoked using their complete path as follows:

$ VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu --username test --password testpwd run --exe /bin/ls

The above is an example of invoking “ls”, but this shows the content of the root (/) directory on the guest OS. What if parameters are to be passed to the command? Then, do as follows:

$ VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu --username test --password testpwd run --exe /bin/ls -- ls /home/test

This would list the contents of /home/test on the guest OS. Note that after – – , argv[0], argv[1], … has to be passed. Hence, the first one is “ls” itself.

Want to shorten giving the long command again and again, on a Linux host. Then, define a variable, say

$ export UBUNTU="VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu --username test --password testpwd run --exe"
$ ${UBUNTU} /bin/ls -- ls /home/test

In case of doing it through a script, the variable may be defined without the export.

Now, if the output from the command is not desired, one may use “start” instead of “run”, e.g.

$ VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu --username test --password testpwd start --exe /bin/ls -- ls /home/test

In all the above examples, it has been assumed that the VirtualBox Ubuntu was already running. In fact, if it was not, it also may be started / booted, paused, resumed, stopped / shutdown from the command line as well. This, giving a full control on automation. Here are the corresponding commands:

$ VBoxManage startvm Ubuntu --type gui # The usual graphical Start
$ VBoxManage startvm Ubuntu --type headless # The hidden background Start
$ VBoxManage controlvm Ubuntu pause # Pause the VM
$ VBoxManage controlvm Ubuntu resume # Resume the VM
$ VBoxManage controlvm Ubuntu poweroff # Poweroff the VM
$ VBoxManage controlvm Ubuntu reset # Reset / Hard Restart the VM in case of hang or so