I had a lot of trouble setting this up, the guides out there don't seem complete. I used various guides and troubleshooting sites to get all of this figured out.
NOTE: My server's internal IP address is 10.10.10.100, you will need to substitute yours where appropriate.
- Server Side
- Linux Mint 18.1 Serena x86_64 with Kernel 4.4.0-139-generic
- git 2.7.4
- wget 1.17.1
- gcc 5.4.0 20160609
- GNU Make 4.1
- dkms 2.2.0.3
- VirtualBox 5.2.22
- nginx 1.10.3
- php 7.2
- php-fpm 7.2
- phpVirtualBox 5.2-1 (master branch)
- Client Side
- xQuartz 2.7.11
- Homebrew 1.8.4
- FreeRDP 1.0.2
You will need to run all of these commands with elevated privileges (sudo) or as root.
Update apt, update your distro, autoremove everything else.
apt update
apt dist-upgrade
apt autoremove
Install git, wget, gcc, make, dkms, and the linux headers.
apt install git wget gcc make dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)
You will need to run all of these commands with elevated privileges (sudo) or as root.
apt remove virtualbox*
apt purge virtualbox*
apt autoremove
You'll need to remember the vbox user's password for later.
Get the latest stable release from the archive. As of today it is 5.2.22.
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.2.22/virtualbox-5.2_5.2.22-126460~Ubuntu~xenial_amd64.deb
dpkg -i virtualbox-5.2_5.2.22-126460~Ubuntu~xenial_amd64.deb
Get the extension from the same release you downloaded VirtualBox.
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.2.22/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.2.22-126460.vbox-extpack
VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.2.22-126460.vbox-extpack
List installed packs.
VBoxManage list extpacks
useradd -m vbox -G vboxusers
passwd vbox
In order to start vboxwebsrv, the file /etc/default/virtualbox must exist with correct settings.
touch /etc/default/virtualbox
Settings for this configuration file.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| VBOXWEB_USER | The user as which vboxwebsrv will run. | |
| VBOXWEB_PASSWD | The password of the user specified in VBOXWEB_USER. | |
| VBOXWEB_HOST | localhost | The host to bind to. |
| VBOXWEB_PORT | 18083 | The port to bind to. |
| VBOXWEB_TIMEOUT | 300 | Session timeout in seconds; 0 = disable timeouts. |
| VBOXWEB_CHECK_INTERVAL | 5 | Frequency of timeout checks in seconds. |
| VBOXWEB_THREADS | 100 | Maximum number of worker threads to run in parallel. |
| VBOXWEB_KEEPALIVE | 100 | Maximum number of requests before a socket will be closed. |
| VBOXWEB_LOGFILE | Name of file to write log to (no file). The vbox user must have rw access to this file. | |
| INSTALL_DIR | /usr/lib/virtualbox | The location of the vboxwebsrv binary. |
Basic /etc/default/virtualbox file:
VBOXWEB_USER=vbox
VBOXWEB_PASSWD=[the password you set when you created the vbox user]
VBOXWEB_HOST=10.10.10.100
VBOXWEB_PORT=18083
#VBOXWEB_TIMEOUT=
#VBOXWEB_CHECK_INTERVAL=
#VBOXWEB_THREADS=
#VBOXWEB_KEEPALIVE=
VBOXWEB_LOGFILE=/home/vbox/.config/VirtualBox/vboxweb-service.log
#INSTALL_DIR=
Run the vboxdrv setup.
/usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxdrv.sh setup
Check the status.
/usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxdrv.sh status
Should return:
VirtualBox kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt, vboxnetadp, vboxpci) are loaded.
Test the vboxwebsrv.
su vbox -c '/usr/bin/vboxwebsrv -H localhost'
That should return something like this do CTRL-C to stop it.
Oracle VM VirtualBox web service Version 5.2.22
(C) 2007-2018 Oracle Corporation
All rights reserved.
VirtualBox web service 5.2.22 r126460 linux.amd64 (Nov 8 2018 20:32:53) release log
00:00:00.000130 main Log opened 2018-11-26T23:11:00.306396000Z
00:00:00.000133 main Build Type: release
00:00:00.000137 main OS Product: Linux
00:00:00.000139 main OS Release: 4.4.0-139-generic
00:00:00.000141 main OS Version: #165-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 24 10:58:50 UTC 2018
00:00:00.000178 main DMI Product Name: System Product Name
00:00:00.000189 main DMI Product Version: System Version
00:00:00.000246 main Host RAM: 15728MB (15.3GB) total, 12605MB (12.3GB) available
00:00:00.000252 main Executable: /usr/lib/virtualbox/vboxwebsrv
00:00:00.000253 main Process ID: 15213
00:00:00.000254 main Package type: LINUX_64BITS_UBUNTU_16_04
00:00:00.002335 main IPC socket path: /tmp/.vbox-vbox-ipc/ipcd
00:00:00.010981 SQPmp Socket connection successful: host = localhost, port = 18083, master socket = 9
systemctl enable vboxweb-service.service
systemctl start vboxweb-service.service
systemctl status vboxweb-service.service
modprobe vboxdrv
systemctl enable vboxdrv.service
systemctl start vboxdrv.service
systemctl status vboxdrv.service
You will need to run all of these commands with elevated privileges (sudo) or as root.
You can set this up under Apache, but I already had NGINX installed and didn't want to have two web servers.
This is largely figured out from Managing A Headless VirtualBox Installation With phpvirtualbox On nginx (Ubuntu 12.04).
Install nginx.
apt install nginx
Install php, php Fast Process Manager interpreter, php mysql, and php pear. This will install all of the other requirements.
apt install php-fpm php-pear php-soap
If you already have php installed you can get weird errors installing php-fpm, as I am no longer proficient with php, I couldn't guess why. I wound up doing a remove and purge then installing as above. Only do this if you have trouble, I added # to avoid copy/paste errors.
#apt remove php*
#apt purge php*
#apt autoremove
Start nginx.
systemctl start nginx.service
systemctl status nginx.service
Edit the fpm php.ini file. I installed php7.2, yours may be different.
vi /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini
Find:
;cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
Change to:
cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
Find your nginx.conf file.
locate nginx.conf
Depending on your install it may be in several places, mine is at /etc/nginx.
You'll want to edit your sites-available/default.
vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/default
Look for the server configuration:
server {
In server find:
index index.html index.htm
Change to:
index index.php index.html index.htm
Also in the server configuration, add or uncomment two more locations:
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000
#
location ~ \.php$ {
include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
# With php7.0-cgi alone:
#fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
# With php7.0-fpm:
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
}
# deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache's document root
# concurs with nginx's one
#
location ~ /\.ht {
deny all;
}
NOTE: the fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock; line, be sure to change 7.2 to whatever gets installed on your server, mine was originally 7.0. You can do ls /run/php/ you should see a .pid and a .sock file with the version number.
Test the configuration.
nginx -t
Reload nginx.
systemctl reload nginx
Browse to your server.
http://10.10.10.100/
In your nginx docroot, usually /usr/share/nginx/html add a phpinfo.php file. The file should contain:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
Then browse to it.
http://10.10.10.100/phpinfo.php
These commands can be run as your regular user without elevated privileges. You may have to modify the privileges of your nginx docroot, depending on your install.
Go to your nginx docroot and clone phpvirtualbox.
cd /usr/share/nginx/html
git clone https://github.com/phpvirtualbox/phpvirtualbox.git
Checkout the master branch.
git checkout master
Setup your config.
mv config.php-example config.php
vi config.php
Find:
var $password = 'pass';
Change to whatever you set the vbox user's password to.
Find:
#var $consoleHost = '192.168.1.40';
Uncomment and change to the IP address of your server.
var $consoleHost = '10.10.10.100';
Find:
#var $vrdeaddress = '192.168.1.1';
Uncomment and change to 0.0.0.0.
var $vrdeaddress = '0.0.0.0';
Find:
#var $enableAdvancedConfig = true;
Uncomment and leave true.
var $enableAdvancedConfig = true;
Browse to:
http://10.10.10.100/phpvirtualbox
The default username and password are admin and admin.
Setup a virtual machine as you normally would.
Under Network
- Select Adaptor 1
- Attached to: Bridged Adaptor
- Name: eno1 (this may be different)
- Click OK
Under Display
- Select Remote Display.
- Check Enable Server
- Server Port: 9000-9100
- Net Address: 10.10.10.100
- Authentication Method: None
- Authentication Timeout: 5000
- Click OK
You should see the VM start-up in the Preview window. Under Display you should see the Video Memory and Remote Desktop Server Port take note of the port, it is probably 9000.
After experimenting with various RDP clients, I wound up using FreeRDP.
- Install Homebrew: https://brew.sh/
- Install xQuartz: https://www.xquartz.org/
- Install FreeRDB
- Open Terminal
brew install freerdb
- Reboot
Open the xQuartz app.
In the xQuartz terminal enter, you'll need to change the IP to your server's IP address.
xfreerdp -a 32 10.10.10.100:9000
You can try different switches to change the speed and what not.
xfreerdp -a 16 -g 1024x768 --no-fastpath 10.10.10.100:9000
apt install freerdp-x11
Connect with:
xfreerdp -a 32 10.10.10.100:9000