VirtualBox provides two main interfaces for configuring and controlling virtual boxes, VirtualBox and VBoxManage, a GUI and a CLI respectively.

The GUI is full featured, however, if the server hosting the virtual boxes is elsewehere on the LAN, or even WAN, then the GUI response times may suffer.

On the other hand, the CLI is flexible enough that it can be used by logging in to the remote server, say with ssh, and working at the shell level. However, the single CLI command has many subcommands some of which with a large number of options. Typing incomplete commands will produce a usage listing, but that does not help, since the usage listings are just far too long. For example the usage listing for VBoxManage is just under 600 lines, or about 10 A4 pages! And the usage listing for VBoxManage modifyvm subcommand is over 130 lines long. Of course one can always create wrapper scripts and shell aliases to overcome this problem.

vbdialog provides a user interface that fills the gap between these two extremes by providing a text based visual interface, while being lightweight when used across the network. It is similar to creating wrapper scripts for the frequently used subsets of the VBoxManage subcommands and accessing them through a screen based menus and forms.

Originally, the project was created as a time saving device when working with virtual boxes over the network, and it was expected to be no more than 200-300 lines of bash scripts. However, the total size has now exceeded 1300 lines, so the project clearly needs a rethink and redesign, both of which are in progress. If you are using the program your feedback is welcome :-)

The purpose of the project is not to create a super interface for Virtual Box, but rather a non-GUI screen based interface to save one typing long VBoxManage commands.

The core of the interface is the dialog program, which in turn uses the ncurses library to create the menus and forms. Dialog and ncurse packages are available on most Linux distributions, and probably most Unix-like operating systems. Otherwise, you may need to download and build locally.

The main script is vbdialog, which provides a menu for launching various command sub-menus.

Each of the sub-menus are implemented as vb-*.sh scripts in the same directory as vbdialog.

There is also a vbdialogrc file that controls the appearance of the various dialog widgets. This file is expected to be in the same directory as the commands.

There are no build/install scripts. It is just a matter of putting the scripts in a suitable directory and then running vbdialog. For example, once you have the software downloaded/cloned:

cd vbdialog
mkdir -pv /usr/local/lib/vbdialog
cp -vip vbdialog vbdialogrc vb*.sh /usr/local/lib/vbdialog
alias vbd=/usr/local/lib/vbdialog/vbdialog

Then use vbd to get the main menu.

The scripts have been manually tested against Virtual Box 4.3.18, on Debian 7.0 (Wheezy). I am investigating methods of automating the tests, perhaps using tools such as expectk.

This file is all the documentation, everything else should, hopefully, be self-explanatory. Feel free to drop me a line, if you need further documentation.

All feedback and contributions are welcome, in the form of github issue tracker and/or pull requests.

Please do bear in mind that simplicity and convenience are the main drivers of this project. The intention is to create a personal tool, rather than a super-duper interface full of features.

Enjoy!

Fred Youhanaie