Thursday, September 22, 2016

Some VirtualBox Interesting internal features

As documented:

Usage: VBoxManage internalcommands <command> [command arguments]

Commands:

  loadmap <vmname|uuid> <symfile> <address> [module] [subtrahend] [segment]
      This will instruct DBGF to load the given map file
      during initialization.  (See also loadmap in the debugger.)

  loadsyms <vmname|uuid> <symfile> [delta] [module] [module address]
      This will instruct DBGF to load the given symbol file
      during initialization.

  sethduuid <filepath> [<uuid>]
       Assigns a new UUID to the given image file. This way, multiple copies
       of a container can be registered.

  sethdparentuuid <filepath> <uuid>
       Assigns a new parent UUID to the given image file.

  dumphdinfo <filepath>
       Prints information about the image at the given location.

  listpartitions -rawdisk <diskname>
       Lists all partitions on <diskname>.

  createrawvmdk -filename <filename> -rawdisk <diskname>
                [-partitions <list of partition numbers> [-mbr <filename>] ]
                [-relative]
       Creates a new VMDK image which gives access to an entire host disk (if
       the parameter -partitions is not specified) or some partitions of a
       host disk. If access to individual partitions is granted, then the
       parameter -mbr can be used to specify an alternative MBR to be used
       (the partitioning information in the MBR file is ignored).
       The diskname is on Linux e.g. /dev/sda, and on Windows e.g.
       \\.\PhysicalDrive0).
       On Linux or FreeBSD host the parameter -relative causes a VMDK file to
       be created which refers to individual partitions instead to the entire
       disk.
       The necessary partition numbers can be queried with
         VBoxManage internalcommands listpartitions

  renamevmdk -from <filename> -to <filename>
       Renames an existing VMDK image, including the base file and all its extents.

  converttoraw [-format <fileformat>] <filename> <outputfile>
       Convert image to raw, writing to file.

  converthd [-srcformat VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW]
            [-dstformat VDI|VMDK|VHD|RAW]
            <inputfile> <outputfile>
       converts hard disk images between formats

  repairhd [-dry-run]
           [-format VDI|VMDK|VHD|...]
           <filename>
       Tries to repair corrupted disk images

  debuglog <vmname|uuid> [--enable|--disable] [--flags todo]
           [--groups todo] [--destinations todo]
       Controls debug logging.

  passwordhash <passsword>
       Generates a password hash.

  gueststats <vmname|uuid> [--interval <seconds>]
       Obtains and prints internal guest statistics.
       Sets the update interval if specified.

WARNING: This is a development tool and shall only be used to analyse
         problems. It is completely unsupported and will change in
         incompatible ways without warning.

I think some of the most useful ones are:
repairhd
converthd

So, if we want to convert Qemu's virtual-disk format (QCow) to VDI/VMDK/VHD, the steps are as follow (assume the qemu' image file is called home.qcow):

qemu-img convert -f qcow home.qcow -O raw home_raw.img
vboxmanage internalcommands converthd -srcformat RAW -dstformat VDI home_raw.img home.vdi

or
VBoxManage convertfromraw --format VDI home_raw.img home.vdi

Another interesting one, if we want to create and boot a virtual machine from a USB device.  Steps are:


  1. Verify which device the usb drive is attached to (e.g, /dev/sdd)
  2. Do:  VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename usb.vmdk  -rawdisk /dev/sdd
  3. Start VirtualBox and mount the file usb.vmdk in the storage (or, create a new Virtual Machine and attach the file usb.vmdk as the first storage)



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