The VirtualBox web service
(vboxwebsrv) is used for controlling
VirtualBox remotely. It is documented in detail in the VirtualBox Software
Development Kit (SDK); please see Chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces. As the
client base using this interface is growing, we added start scripts for
the various operation systems we support. The following sections describe
how to use them. The VirtualBox web service is never started automatically
as a result of a standard installation.
On Linux, the web service can be automatically started during
host boot by adding appropriate parameters to the file
/etc/default/virtualbox.
There is one mandatory parameter, VBOXWEB_USER,
which must be set to the user which will later start the VMs. The
parameters in the table below all start with VBOXWEB_
(VBOXWEB_HOST,
VBOXWEB_PORT etc.):
Table 9.2. Web service configuration parameters
| Parameter | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|
USER
|
The user as which the web service runs | |
HOST
|
The host to bind the web service to | localhost |
PORT
|
The port to bind the web service to | 18083 |
SSL_KEYFILE
|
Server key and certificate file, PEM format | |
SSL_PASSWORDFILE
|
File name for password to server key | |
SSL_CACERT
|
CA certificate file, PEM format | |
SSL_CAPATH
|
CA certificate path | |
SSL_DHFILE
|
DH file name or DH key length in bits | |
SSL_RANDFILE
|
File containing seed for random number generator | |
TIMEOUT
|
Session timeout in seconds; 0 disables timeouts | 300 |
CHECK_INTERVAL
|
Frequency of timeout checks in seconds | 5 |
THREADS
|
Maximum number of worker threads to run in parallel | 100 |
KEEPALIVE
|
Maximum number of requests before a socket will be closed | 100 |
ROTATE
|
Number of log files; 0 disables log rotation | 10 |
LOGSIZE
|
Maximum size of a log file in bytes to trigger rotation | 1MB |
LOGINTERVAL
|
Maximum time interval in seconds to trigger log rotation | 1 day |
Setting the parameter SSL_KEYFILE
enables the SSL/TLS support. Using encryption is strongly encouraged, as
otherwise everything (including passwords) is transferred in clear
text.
On Solaris hosts, the VirtualBox web service daemon is integrated into the SMF framework. You can change the parameters, but don't have to if the defaults below already match your needs:
svccfg -s svc:/application/virtualbox/webservice:default setprop config/host=localhost svccfg -s svc:/application/virtualbox/webservice:default setprop config/port=18083 svccfg -s svc:/application/virtualbox/webservice:default setprop config/user=root
The table in the previous section showing the parameter names and
defaults also applies to Solaris. The parameter names must be changed
to lowercase and a prefix of config/
has to be added, e.g. config/user or
config/ssl_keyfile. If you made any
change, don't forget to run the following command to put the changes into
effect immediately:
svcadm refresh svc:/application/virtualbox/webservice:default
If you forget the above command then the previous settings will be used when enabling the service. Check the current property settings with:
svcprop -p config svc:/application/virtualbox/webservice:default
When everything is configured correctly you can start the VirtualBox web service with the following command:
svcadm enable svc:/application/virtualbox/webservice:default
For more information about SMF, please refer to the Solaris documentation.
On Mac OS X, launchd is used to start the VirtualBox webservice. An
example configuration file can be found in
$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist.
It can be enabled by changing the
Disabled key from
true to
false. To manually start the
service use the following command:
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist
For additional information on how launchd services could be
configured see https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPSystemStartup/Chapters/CreatingLaunchdJobs.html.