I’ve just installed started using VirtualBox on my Fedora 11 x86_64 and it works just perfectly. I’ve migrated from VMWare when it figured out that it is unable to work with latest kernel version. So I need to start some virtual machines in the background with system startup. I’ve made a lot of googling and found some dirty scripts that were not meeting my criterias. I’ve decided to write my own system startup service.

You need to create file named vbox in /etc/sysconfig/ to list the virtual machine names that you want to start with system. Also when shutting down this service will save state to all running VMs. Here is the script:

/etc/init.d/vbox

#!/bin/sh
#
# chkconfig: - 91 35
# description: Starts and stops vbox autostart VMs.

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: vbox
# Required-Start: $network $named $vboxdrv
# Required-Stop: $network $named
# Default-Start:
# Default-Stop: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
# Short-Description: Autostart some Virtual Box VMs
# Description: Autostart some Virtual Box VMs that are mentioned in /etc/sysconfig/vbox file
### END INIT INFO

. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

MANAGE_CMD=VBoxManage

[ -r /etc/sysconfig/vbox ] && . /etc/sysconfig/vbox

prog=$"Virtual Box Machines"

start()
{
	echo -n $"Starting $prog: "
	RETVAL=0

	for vbox_name in ${VBOX_AUTOSTART}
	do
	    SERVS=1
	    echo -n "${vbox_name} "
	    daemon $MANAGE_CMD startvm "${vbox_name}" -type vrdp >/dev/null 2>&1
	    RETVAL=$?
	    [ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ] || break
	done
	if [ -z "$SERVS" ]; then
	    echo -n "no virtual machines configured "
	    failure
	    RETVAL=6
	else
	    if [ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ]; then
		success $"vbox startup"
		touch /var/lock/subsys/vbox
	    else
		failure $"vbox start"
	    fi
	fi
	echo
	return "$RETVAL"
}

stop()
{
	echo -n $"Shutting down $prog: "
	for vbox_name in ${VBOX_AUTOSTART}
	do
	    echo -n "${vbox_name} "
	    runuser root -c "$MANAGE_CMD -q controlvm "${vbox_name}" savestate" >/dev/null 2>&1
	done
	RETVAL=$?
	[ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ] && success $"vbox shutdown" || \
	    failure $"vbox shutdown"
	echo
	[ "$RETVAL" -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/vbox
	return "$RETVAL"
}

status()
{
	for vbox_name in ${VBOX_AUTOSTART}
	do
	    echo -n "${vbox_name} "
	    $MANAGE_CMD showvminfo "${vbox_name}"|grep "^State:\s*.*$"
	done
}

case "$1" in
  start)
	start
	;;
  stop)
	stop
	;;
  restart|force-reload)
	stop
	start
	;;
  status)
	status
	;;
  *)
	echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|restart|force-reload|status}" >&2
	exit 3
	;;
esac

:

And here is configuration file:

/etc/sysconfig/vbox

# Virtual box machines to autostart
# Example to start 2 machines
#	VBOX_AUTOSTART = "MachineName1 MachineName2"

# VBOX_AUTOSTART=""

Thats it. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.