How to set up a VirtualBox server in Debian 9: web interface, autostart, backup

This article describes how to set up a VirtualBox server in Debian 9 (Stretch):

1. Installing VirtualBox
2. VirtualBox web interface: phpVirtualBox
3. Set up and use VMs
4. Automatically start PhpVirtualBox on boot
5. Automatically pause VMs on reboot/shutdown and resume them on boot
6. Set up a backup system
7. Troubleshooting

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Versions
– Debian 9.3 (Stretch)
– VirtualBox 5.2
– phpVirtualBox 5.0.5

Assumptions
You have an up-to-date Debian 9 server with a working internet connection.

Installing VirtualBox

Create a file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list and add:

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian stretch contrib

Check here which key you need (opens in a new tab). At the time of writing this is oracle_vbox_2016.asc. Download and install the key so apt doesn’t complain when using the source:

wget https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | apt-key add -

Update sources:

# aptitude update

Check which version of VirtualBox is current:

root@vorkian:/etc/apt/sources.list.d# aptitude search virtualbox
v   virtualbox                      -
p   virtualbox-5.0                  - Oracle VM VirtualBox
p   virtualbox-5.1                  - Oracle VM VirtualBox
p   virtualbox-5.2                  - Oracle VM VirtualBox

Unless you have a reason to install an older version, install the most current:

# aptitude install VirtualBox-5.2

During installation VirtualBox will inform you it needs some more bits:

This system is currently not set up to build kernel modules.
Please install the Linux kernel "header" files matching the current kernel
for adding new hardware support to the system.
The distribution packages containing the headers are probably:
    linux-headers-amd64 linux-headers-4.9.0-3-amd64
This system is currently not set up to build kernel modules.
Please install the Linux kernel "header" files matching the current kernel
for adding new hardware support to the system.
The distribution packages containing the headers are probably:
    linux-headers-amd64 linux-headers-4.9.0-3-amd64

There were problems setting up VirtualBox.  To re-start the set-up process, run /sbin/vboxconfig

Let’s install them:

# aptitude install linux-headers-amd64 linux-headers-4.9.0-3-amd64

Check the recommendation (“The distribution packages containing the headers are probably:” etc.) for the actual packages you need to install.

Rerun the VirtualBox configuration, as instructed:

# vboxconfig

Extension pack
Check here what url you should use for the latest extension pack.

# wget https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.2.6/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.2.6-120293.vbox-extpack

Install the extension pack:

# VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.2.6-120293.vbox-extpack

Set up an account for VirtualBox so it doesn’t run as root. If you have multiple users with their own VMs that’s ok too.

# useradd -d /home/vbox -m -g vboxusers -s /bin/bash vbox
# passwd vbox

Remember the password, you’ll need it later on.

VirtualBox web interface: phpVirtualBox

Tell the system which user the web service will run as. In /etc/default/virtualbox add:

VBOXWEB_USER=vbox
VBOXWEB_HOST=127.0.0.1

Start the vboxweb service as the dedicated user:

# sudo -u vbox vboxwebsrv --background

Install webserver and dependencies

# aptitude install apache2 php php-soap php-xml unzip

Note: it would go too far to talk about web server security here. You will understand that it is important for internet facing (and any other) servers to have decent security. If you’re building an internet facing production server you must implement supplemental security, otherwise you will find your servers compromised.

Download phpVirtualBox:

# cd /var/www/html
# wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpvirtualbox/files/latest/download -O phpvirtualbox.zip
# unzip phpvirtualbox.zip

If you can’t unzip phpvirtualbox.zip try different SourceForge mirrors. The German ones tend to work well for me.

Rename the folder for easier typing:

# mv phpvirtualbox-5.0-5/ phpvirtualbox

Change into the phpVirtualBox folder and copy the initial config file:

# cd /var/www/html/phpvirtualbox/
# cp config.php-example config.php

Open up the config file and add the vboxweb service credentials. In /var/www/html/phpvirtualbox/config.php change:

var $username = 'vbox';
var $password = 'P@55w0rd';

…Using the password you entered for the vbox user earlier.

Point your browser to http://yourserver/phpvirtualbox (use your own server name or IP address). The default credentials are admin/admin.

Optional: work around a version notification
At the time of writing phpVirtualBox and VirtualBox itself are not at the same version. PhpVirtualBox will complain about this but we can work around it. Note that this verion incongruity may result in unexpected behaviour and it’s best to keep an eye out for new versions.

In /var/www/html/phpvirtualbox/endpoints/lib/config.php change:

define('PHPVBOX_VER', '5.0-0');

to

define('PHPVBOX_VER', '5.2-0');

or the current version if later than 5.2.

For the wsdl file create a symlink with the same name:

ln -s /var/www/html/phpvirtualbox/endpoints/lib/vboxwebService-5.0.wsdl /var/www/html/phpvirtualbox/endpoints/lib/vboxwebService-5.2.wsdl

This will stop the version complaints. It should work immediately; no need to restart anything.

Set up and use VMs

Use the VirtualBox web interface to set up a virtual machine like you would with the GUI version.

Once you start it you can connect to it using an RDP session to your server’s host name or IP address on the port defined in the VM’s settings, 9000 by default.

My Debian VirtualBox server has IP address 172.21.135.36. On my Windows 10 box I connect to my Kubuntu VM with:

mstsc /v:172.21.135.36:9000

Note that you are not connecting to the VM’s address. You are connecting to the server’s address.

Automatically start PhpVirtualBox on boot

Since we’re running VirtualBox with a dedicated user we need to tell VirtualBox web service to use that account: in /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/vboxweb-service.service, under the [Service] part, add the following:

User=vbox
Group=vboxusers

The whole file should look like this:

[Unit]
SourcePath=/usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxweb-service.sh
Description=
Before=runlevel2.target runlevel3.target runlevel4.target runlevel5.target shutdown.target
After=vboxdrv.service
Conflicts=shutdown.target

[Service]
User=vbox
Group=vboxusers
Type=forking
Restart=no
TimeoutSec=5min
IgnoreSIGPIPE=no
KillMode=process
GuessMainPID=no
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxweb-service.sh start
ExecStop=/usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxweb-service.sh stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reboot the server and verify PhpVirtualBox is started afterwards or just do

# systemctl daemon-reload

for good measure.

Automatically pause VMs on reboot/shutdown and resume them on boot

I would like my VMs to be automatically paused (‘status=saved’ in VirtualBox’s verbage) when I reboot or shutdown my server. It would also be nice if the VMs in question were automatically resumed when the server is back up. We can do that within Systemd.

We’ll create two scripts: one to pause VMs and one to restart them. Then call them from a Systemd unit. Note that you need to save the pause and restart scripts in a location where the vbox user can reach and execute them. From the unit file we’ll need the vbox user to execute them.

Which VMs do we pause? The ones that are running and the ones that are paused because paused VMs’ states wouldn’t survive a reboot. Which VMs do we resume? Just the ones that were running, not the ones that were paused, because we want the new overall state to resemble the old one as closely as possible (i.e. we do not want paused VMs to be suddenly running, so it’s better to keep them saved than running).

In /home/vbox/pausevms.sh:

#!/bin/bash
# Pause running VMs

STATUSFILE=/home/vbox/vm-status
# Clear the previous status file if it exists
if [ -e $STATUSFILE ]; then rm $STATUSFILE; fi

# List all VMs
for VM in $(vboxmanage list vms | rev | cut -d' ' -f1 | rev)
do
  # Get VM state
  STATE=$(vboxmanage showvminfo $VM --machinereadable | grep "VMState=" | cut -d'=' -f2)

  # Pause if state is running or paused, write to status file
  if [[ $STATE == \"running\" || $STATE == \"paused\" ]]; then
    vboxmanage controlvm $VM savestate
    # No need to restart paused vm's; just let them remain saved.
    if [[ $STATE == \"running\" ]]; then echo "$VM">>$STATUSFILE; fi
  fi
done

In /home/vbox/resumevms.sh:

#!/bin/bash
# Restart VMs saved earlier

STATUSFILE=/home/vbox/vm-status

# If no status file exists then apparently there are no VMs to resume.
if [ ! -f $STATUSFILE ]; then exit; fi

while read VM; do
  vboxmanage startvm $VM --type headless
done <$STATUSFILE

Make the scripts accessible to the vbox user and executable:

# cd /home/vbox
# chown vbox pausevms.sh resumevms.sh
# chmod +x pausevms.sh resumevms.sh

Create a unit file /etc/systemd/system/virtualmachines.service:

[Unit]
Description=Save VirtualBox VMs before shutdown or reboot; resume them after boot.
Wants=multi-user.target
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sudo -u vbox /home/vbox/resumevms.sh
ExecStop=/usr/bin/sudo -u vbox /home/vbox/pausevms.sh
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable the new daemon:

# systemctl daemon-reload
# systemctl enable virtualmachines.service

…But be aware that if you run it now it will put any running VMs in the saved status. So I recommend you stop/save any running VMs at this point, reboot your server, start one or more VMs, reboot and then check if they came back up. Check /var/log/syslog for troubleshooting hints if it doesn’t work.

The lines containing ‘multi-user.target’ make the script wait after boot until the multi-user.target is reached, which among other things contains the VirtualBox web service. It also makes the script wait on reboot/shutdown until all necessary VMs are saved before shutting down VirtualBox itself and rebooting/shutting down.

I tested this whole contraption on a virtual machine containing virtual machines. On one test run PhpVirtualBox wouldn’t start (but the VMs would) but upon reboot it did. Most of the time it would just work smoothly. Taking into consideration the VM-in-a-VM setup I am quite satisfied with this system.

Set up a backup system

This backup script is taken and adapted from this page (opens in a new tab), which also contains commentary and explanations.

I’ve put this in /home/vbox/backupvms.sh.

#!/bin/bash

# Loop through all VirtualBox VMs, pause, export,
# and restore them to their original states.
#
# Vorkbaard, 2012-02-01, 2018-02-09

# =============== Set your variables here ===============

EXPORTDIR=/var/vmbackup
LOGFILE=/home/vbox/export.log
MYMAIL=root
VBOXMANAGE="/usr/bin/VBoxManage -q"

# =======================================================

# Generate a list of all VMs

for VM in $(vboxmanage list vms | rev | cut -d' ' -f1 | rev)
do
  ERR="nothing"
  SECONDS=0

  # Get VM's friendly name
  FRIENDLYNAME=$(vboxmanage showvminfo --machinereadable $VM | grep "name=" | cut -d'"' -f2)

  # Delete old $LOGFILE file if it exists
  if [ -e $LOGFILE ]; then rm $LOGFILE; fi

  # Get the vm state
  VMSTATE=$(vboxmanage showvminfo $VM --machinereadable | grep "VMState=" | cut -f 2 -d "=")
  echo "$VM's state is: $VMSTATE."

  # If the VM's state is running or paused, save its state
  if [[ $VMSTATE == \"running\" || $VMSTATE == \"paused\" ]]; then
    vboxmanage controlvm $VM savestate
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then ERR="saving the state"; fi
  fi
  
  # Export the vm as appliance
  if [ "$ERR" == "nothing" ]; then
    vboxmanage export $VM --output $EXPORTDIR/$VM-new.ova &> $LOGFILE
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
      ERR="exporting"
    else
      # Remove old backup and rename new one
      if [ -e $EXPORTDIR/$VM.ova ]; then rm $EXPORTDIR/$VM.ova; fi
      mv $EXPORTDIR/$VM-new.ova $EXPORTDIR/$VM.ova
      # Get file size
      FILESIZE=$(du -h $EXPORTDIR/$VM.ova | cut -f 1)
    fi
  else
    echo "Not exporting because the VM's state couldn't be saved." &> $LOGFILE
  fi
  
  # Resume the VM to its previous state if that state was paused or running
  if [[ $VMSTATE == \"running\" || $VMSTATE == \"paused\" ]]; then
    vboxmanage startvm $VM --type headless
    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then ERR="resuming"; fi
    if [ $VMSTATE == \"paused\" ]; then
	  vboxmanage controlvm $VM pause
      if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then ERR="pausing"; fi
    fi
  fi
  
  # Calculate duration
  duration=$SECONDS
  duration="Operation took $(($duration / 60)) minutes, $(($duration % 60)) seconds."
  
  # Notify the admin
  if [ "$ERR" == "nothing" ]; then
    MAILBODY="Virtual Machine $FRIENDLYNAME was exported succesfully!"
    MAILBODY="$MAILBODY"$'\n'"$duration"
    MAILBODY="$MAILBODY"$'\n'"Export filesize: $FILESIZE"
    MAILSUBJECT="VM $VM succesfully backed up"
  else
    MAILBODY="There was an error $ERR VM $VM."
    if [ "$ERR" == "exporting" ]; then
      MAILBODY=$(echo $MAILBODY && cat $LOGFILE)
    fi
    MAILSUBJECT="Error exporting VM $VM"
  fi
  
  # Send the mail
  echo "$MAILBODY" | mail -s "$MAILSUBJECT" $MYMAIL
  
  # Clean up
  if [ -e $LOGFILE ]; then rm $LOGFILE; fi

done

Chown the script to the vbox user and make it executable:

# chown vbox /home/vbox/backupvms.sh
# chmod +x /home/vbox/backupvms.sh

Then schedule it using cron or just run it whenever you like.

If you want the mail part to work configure mail or mailx for your system. Otherwise it’ll just send mail to local addresses. You can also use ssmtp if you don’t want to set up EXIM or Postfix; ssmtp is easy to set up and is used mainly for systems that just need to be able to send the occasional outgoing mail.

That’s it!

If you have any questions not related to PhpVirtualBox or VirtualBox itself (they are not my projects) feel free to ask them in the comment section below.

If you found this article helpful please click some of the ads on my page to help me pay for hosting this site, or consider donating any amount using the PayPal donation button on the top right of this page. Thanks :)

Troubleshooting

• Different versions of VirtualBox and the extension pack may lead to unexpected behavious and weird errors.
• Mouse or keyboard not working in RDP session may be caused by lack of video memory (<128MB) in the VM.
• Check /var/log/syslog for messages regarding VirtualBox and PhpVirtualBox.
• Unable to install certain packages: perhaps new versions have been published. Stop copying and pasting commands from this site and start actually reading what your server is telling you.
• Unable to unzip phpvirtualbox.zip: download from a different server. Try the German ones.
• PhpVirtualBox’s default username and password are both ‘admin’.