Need to start Virtual box image on boot

Illyankesh
Illyankesh used Ask the Experts™
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I have an up to date mac osx Mountain lion server with Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager installed.  I have one vm, an Ubuntu 12.04 Server that I need to have launched automatically on boot.

I have looked around online, and read manuals, and I have run into some walls.

Research lead me to vboxmanage startvm <imagename>  When I attempt this command I get
the errors below.  Presumably there are some steps that I need to take to register the vm?  When I have looked around, I cannot find a way that works to register said vm, thus enabling the virtual image to start on boot.

I have also researched other links to other sites with people trying to accomplish the same thing however, I am not the greatest scripter, and am having difficulty knowing where to start , and these threads are years old.  

(https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15023&hilit=daemon)

VBoxManage startvm Jira server
VBoxManage: error: Could not find a registered machine named 'Jira'
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80bb0001), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee nsISupports
VBoxManage: error: Context: "FindMachine(Bstr(pszVM).raw(), machine.asOutParam())" at line 563 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
VBoxManage: error: Could not find a registered machine named 'server'
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80bb0001), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee nsISupports
VBoxManage: error: Context: "FindMachine(Bstr(pszVM).raw(), machine.asOutParam())" at line 563 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
sh-3.2# VBoxManage startvm /Users/Admin/VirtualBox\ VMs/Jira server
VBoxManage: error: Could not find a registered machine named '/Users/Admin/VirtualBox VMs/Jira'
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80bb0001), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee nsISupports
VBoxManage: error: Context: "FindMachine(Bstr(pszVM).raw(), machine.asOutParam())" at line 563 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
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Barthax

Commented:
It seems that you have simply missed quotes: enclose the name of the VM in quotes as you have a space:

VBoxManage startvm "Jira server"
Illyankesh

Author

Commented:
Ok, hoping that it was a simple mistake I tried that...  Here is what I got.

sh-3.2# VBoxManage startvm "performancetarget"
VBoxManage: error: Could not find a registered machine named 'performancetarget'
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_OBJECT_NOT_FOUND (0x80bb0001), component VirtualBox, interface IVirtualBox, callee nsISupports
VBoxManage: error: Context: "FindMachine(Bstr(pszVM).raw(), machine.asOutParam())" at line 563 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp
Commented:
Try running:

VBoxManage list vms

This will give you the output of the virtual machines - the name it expects and the GUID you can use as an alternative.

They should come out like this:
"WindowsXP Base Install" {55a26792-90d3-4b05-adf2-37d0b2d70b5b}

You can then use either one to start up your VM:

VBoxManage startvm "WindowsXP Base Install"
VBoxManage startvm "{55a26792-90d3-4b05-adf2-37d0b2d70b5b}"

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