How to auto start VMs on OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Wait - ignore this. The "VBoxAutostartDarwin.sh" file (as I now look at it) scans through all users, filters out ones without a shell/home, then uses each reduced user to call into:

su ${user} -c "/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxAutostart --quiet --start --background --config ${CONFIG}"

So yeah, ignore my above comment.

I think you're on the right path @jay_francisco, you're just missing the --start argument to VBoxAutostartDarwin.sh.

That is, you should have these three lines where you have two currently:

<string>/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxAutostartDarwin.sh</string>

<string>--start</string>

<string>/etc/vbox/autostart.cfg</string>

Note that you might need to add a --config line as well prior, and depending on the version of VirtualBox, the script might be called just "VBoxAutostart" (see the results of "ls -l /usr/local/bin | grep -i vbox"

To start it on reboot, you would have to create a launchd plist to start up the VM. This is the syntax for the command

/usr/bin/VBoxManage stratvm <name of vm>

There is a program on the App Store called Lingon 3 that can help, or search the web for Launchd plist examples and write your own.

I don't know how to tell VB to start a VM on launch.

A way around that for just about any program would be to create an Automator Application or Applescript Application that opens the VM. Use that application to launch VB instead of VB itself.

What happens if you add the program to your log in items?

VirtualBox is a GUI app. You can't set it to run at startup which you are doing because there is no GUI at startup.

As Eric pointed out the simple way of starting VB when you log in.

You could create a Launch Agent similar to what you did to have it launch at login for any user that logs in. Or, you can just put it in your user/Library/LaunchAgents

A Launch Agent runs at login.

A Launch Daemon runs at startup.

If you want to launch a specific VM (or VMs), I think you would need to create a LaunchAgent (not a Daemon) that would use the command I posted above as the thing to run. You don't need to create a shell file to run that line. You can just put it in the ProgramArguments.

<key>ProgramArguments</key>

<array>

<string>/usr/bin/VBoxManage</string>

<string>startvm</string>

<string><name of vm></string>

</array>

You don't need to load, unload, kickstart, or whatever. If it is a valid plist and is in your LaunchAgents folder, it will load unless you specifically unload it and set the -w option which tells it to remember the last load/unload setting (which is now enable).

I don't know what you were doing with the whole autostart.cfg stuff.

Also note that you do not have to have VirtualBox running to launch a VM

The following is my /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.vboxautostart.plist file as used on a Mac running Yosemite and I have multiple VMs starting automatically.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Disabled</key>
  <false/>
  <key>KeepAlive</key>
  <true/>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>org.virtualbox.vboxautostart</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
  <string>/Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/VBoxAutostartDarwin.sh</string>
  <string>/etc/vbox/autostart.cfg</string>
  </array>
</dict>
</plist>

jay_francisco wrote:

Hi John,

What Yosemite version and VirtualBox version are you running?

I have successfully got multiple VMs to auto-start with both Yosemite 10.10.3 and VirtualBox 4.3.12 r93733, and Mavericks 10.9.5 and VirtualBox 4.3.12 r93733. I know there are now newer versions of Virtualbox but I have not felt the need to upgrade it.

Virtualbox has also terminal client and you can use Automator app on your Mac to create an application to launch your VM.

Please review this chapter. If you need some additional parameters for VBoxManage tool.

Open Automator app and as a type of document, choose Application.

Next, as an action choose Utilities > Run Shell Script (double click on it). Have a look at bellow screenshot:

In above example, my VM's name is Ubuntu 14.04 amd64 and full command is: VBoxManage startvm "Ubuntu 14.04 amd64"

As you probably know already, my VM is called Ubuntu 14.04 amd64.

Once your Automator document looks like above, save the document as the Application and save it in your user Application folder.

Then, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items, and add your created application to the list of apps that will start automatically after your user has successfully logged in:

If you have more than one VM you might need to create an app for each individual VM.