- Python 2.7 (the VirtualBox SDK doesn't support Python 3 yet)
- The VirtualBox SDK Python bindings. Note that this usually comes with VirtualBox itself, but may be provided as a separate package on some Linux distributions.
- Urwid 1.3 or later
Just run ./vboxcli.py in the root of the vboxcli directory. For now, most
operations are controlled by keyboard shortcuts. Press ? on the main screen
for a summary of the available keyboard commands.
phpVirtualBox is a great project for managing VirtualBox machines on a server. However, it has some drawbacks, depending on your use:
- It only works via the vboxweb-service.
- This means it can only access VMs for the web service user, not for other accounts on the system. It also means the service must be configured and running in order to use phpVirtualBox.
- It requires a web server running PHP.
- Recently, it has seen less activity -- for example, there is no release for VirtualBox 5.1 yet, and the existing version needs some hacks to work with 5.1.
I wanted something that still allowed me to manage VMs on a headless server, but without needing to rely on the web service or PHP. Using a curses-like UI allows one to manage VMs directly like the Qt front end, while also not requiring an X server or the heavy Qt libraries to be installed.
Note that it's still possible to use vboxcli on an X server, as it can launch VMs in a GUI window if desired.
Defect reports and patches are always welcome! Visit the project pages on github for details: https://github.com/zrax/vboxcli
vboxcli is released under the terms of the GPLv2+ license. See the COPYING file for details.