DEV Community

Cover image for Launch a VirtualBox machine without GUI | Use only with SSH | Any OS
Tharun Shiv
Tharun Shiv

Posted on • Edited on

Launch a VirtualBox machine without GUI | Use only with SSH | Any OS

Hey there!
This is Tharun here. Most of us would have wanted to use the VirtualBox without GUI, with the use of SSH. In this Article, I introduce you to a way you can launch VirtualBox without GUI and connect to it using SSH.

What is VirtualBox?

The VirtualBox is a software that can be used to run multiple operating systems on your own operating system and effortlessly switch between them, create snapshots, delete them, restore them on the fly.

We all have wondered if we had an easier way to access our VirtualBox Machines. In this tutorial, we will look at how you can launch the VirtualBox without a GUI and SSH into your VirtualBox machine. This will prevent you to have to open your VirtualBox GUI to do everything. (duh!)

How to launch without GUI?

virtualbox-gif

Step 1: Open VirtualBox
Step 2: Right click on the virtual machine that you want to open and start it in Headless start mode.
Step 3: No more steps. Time to connect to the machine using SSH.

How to connect to the machine using SSH?

Hope this article helped. Give this article a like, unicorn, and save it for later. Share it with your friends and let them know this useful trick.

My Blog: https://www.tharunshiv.com

Written by,

Thank you for reading, This is Tharun Shiv a.k.a Developer Tharun

Tharun Shiv

Top comments (2)

Collapse
 
mlowen profile image
Mike Lowen

Another option in this space that you might want to investigate is Vagrant which supports (among others) Virtualbox as the VM provider. What vagrant allows you to do is to define the VM setup as code allowing you to create reproducable, consistent development environments that then gives you the benefit of being able to blow away the environment when you wish. Vagrant as a rule starts your VM in headless mode all from the command line.

Collapse
 
developertharun profile image
Tharun Shiv

Yes that's right. Thanks for sharing it with us. 🙂