How can I get the Bridged IP address of a VirtualBox VM running in headless mode?

Question

I have VirtualBox set up on a server. It was set up as a Bridged VM, and has an IP address. It's now running in headless mode, started with "VBoxHeadless -s PuppetMaster".

How can I find out what IP the VM is using VBoxManage?

Alberto · Answer 1 · 2010-08-20T13:44:18.397

I could find my Headless VB with the combination of following commands:

# Update arp table
for i in {1..254}; do ping -c 1 192.168.178.$i & done

# Find vm name
VBoxManage list runningvms

# Find MAC: subsitute vmname with your vm's name
VBoxManage showvminfo vmname

# Find IP: substitute vname-mac-addr with your vm's mac address in ':' notation
arp -a | grep vmname-mac-addr

But even easier: in linux, you can connect to the VB:

# Default VirtualBox Listening Port: 3389
rdesktop -N hostingserver:3389

This command will open a shell window, and you'll have direct access to the Headless VB, where you can retrieve your Headless VB IP: ip addr

I've translated it into golang program https://gist.github.com/mhewedy/352ddb55d4740945d0462df91aece198 I hope I could upload the binary file for ease use by others. — Muhammad Hewedy, Jan 19 '20 at 22:20

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 10 '11 at 15:12

6

Install guest additions and (assuming linux is the guest) you can run the following:

VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol yourVirtualMachineName execute --image "/sbin/ifconfig"  --username yourUser --password yourPassword --wait-exit --wait-stdout -- -a

answered Nov 10 '11 at 15:12

Simone Scarduzio

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Format changed a bit now, you'll need `VBoxManage --nologo guestcontrol yourVirtualMachineName --username yourUser --password yourPassword run -- /sbin/ifconfig -a` – mike.dld Aug 05 '16 at 13:37

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 13 '12 at 21:15

4

VBoxManage guestproperty enumerate {`VBoxManage list runningvms | awk -F"{" '{print $2}'` | grep IP | awk -F"," '{print $2}' | awk '{print $2}'

edited Oct 13 '12 at 21:15

Scott Pack

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answered Oct 10 '12 at 23:04

brendan

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Command works for a single VM. -- With multiple VMs filter by VM name, e.g.: `VBoxManage list runningvms | grep vmname | awk ...` – mschuett Jan 04 '13 at 10:22
Or we can inquire about a specific VM. e.g. `VBoxManage guestproperty get "/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP" | cut -f2 -d " "` – Mohnish Aug 02 '17 at 19:17

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 02 '10 at 06:15

3

Not sure if VBoxManage can give you that information directly. What you can do is run the following command to see the network card configuration.

VBoxManage showvminfo PuppetMaster | egrep ^NIC

That will if nothing else will provide you with the MAC address, allowing you to find out the actual ip address by other means.

answered Apr 02 '10 at 06:15

andol

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Any ideas on how to get the IP using the MAC address from the command line? – Jon Haddad Apr 02 '10 at 18:22

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited May 02 '13 at 15:23

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You can get it directly using this command:

VBoxManage list bridgedifs

edited May 02 '13 at 15:23

slm

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answered May 02 '13 at 14:51

ShawnMilo

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For me this shows only the address that I'm sharing, not what the client actually gets. – SomeoneElse Dec 13 '19 at 23:03

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 02 '17 at 19:21

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From virtualbox.org forum --

VBoxManage guestproperty get <vm-name> "/VirtualBox/GuestInfo/Net/0/V4/IP" | cut -f2 -d " "

answered Aug 02 '17 at 19:21

Mohnish

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Nice option. Just noting comment from the forum: "From my testing, it seems the guest properties are only available if the guest VM has the Guest Additions installed." Indeed, I have no guest additions and get "No value set!". – Nagev Nov 22 '22 at 12:28

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 22 '22 at 12:22

Without guest additions, on a Windows host, and unable to rdesktop into the VM, this is what I did:

Get MAC of virtual machine (WSL Linux) and scan the network:

VBoxManage.exe showvminfo $vmname | grep MAC     # get MAC address
nmap 192.168.178.* -p 22 | grep open -B 5        # Find machines ready to SSH

The scan itself showed me the desired IP, but I can confirm it on the PowerShell, using the MAC I got earlier. For example:

arp -a | findstr -i 08-00-27-9A-49-B6

Output is like:

192.168.178.30        08-00-27-9a-49-b6     dynamic

And that confirms the IP address.

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Mar 29 '23 at 11:43

Here is a simple script I put together to get the IP of my Vbox VM.

#!/bin/bash

Knowing my VM is named 'ubuntu22' uuid_raw=$(vboxmanage list runningvms | grep ubuntu) UUID "ubuntu22" {6eac6956-2952-425f-ba20-e865d0970e33} uuid=$(echo $uuid_raw | awk -F' ' '{print $2}' | sed s/{// | sed s/}//) echo "UUID ${uuid}" mac=$(vboxmanage showvminfo --details ${uuid} | grep MAC | awk -F'MAC: ' '{print $2}'| awk -F',' '{print $1}') arp -a | sed s/://g | grep -i $mac

Yields the following output:

UUID 90dcc1dc-e14d-4362-bc7e-c3f58698beb9
? (10.1.50.193) at 080027fd0e63 [ether] on eno1

How can I get the Bridged IP address of a VirtualBox VM running in headless mode?

8 Answers8