pyvbox: How to copy a file from a VM

pyvbox: How to copy a file from a VM.py

"""pyvbox: How to copy a file from a VM.
"""
import os
import virtualbox

# Assume machine is already running.
vbox = virtualbox.VirtualBox()
machine = vbox.find_machine("win7")
session = machine.create_session()

# copy notepad.exe to ./notepad.exe
gs = session.console.guest.create_session("mick", "password")
gs.copy_from("C:\\Windows\\System32\\notepad.exe", "notepad.exe")
gs.close()

This fails on my Mac OS X 10.10.5 / VirtualBox 5.0.8 r103449 / pyvbox 0.2.2 with

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./test.py", line 17, in <module>
    gs = session.console.guest.create_session("mick", "password")
  File "/Users/<username>/.virtualenvs/pyvbox/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualbox/library.py", line 24091, in console
    ret = self._get_attr("console")
  File "/Users/<username>/.virtualenvs/pyvbox/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualbox/library_base.py", line 156, in _get_attr
    attr = self._search_attr(name, prefix='get')
  File "/Users/<username>/.virtualenvs/pyvbox/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualbox/library_base.py", line 152, in _search_attr
    raise AttributeError("Failed to find attribute %s in %s" % (name, self))
AttributeError: Failed to find attribute console in <virtualbox.library_ext.session.ISession object at 0x106308f10>

How can I fix this ? Or is there an alternate way to boot up a VM ?

Never mind, my bad: The error above occurs if the VM isn't running yet, so either starting the machine manually or programmatically by adding a line

progress = machine.launch_vm_process(session, 'gui', '')

fixes this.

However, no matter what file I try to copy, they all fail with e.g.

OSError: Failed to find /bin/nano on guest

although the file is clearly there.

There's been an API change in the underlying VirtualBox version; quote from the PDF that comes as part of the VirtualBox SDK, page 390:

Renamed IGuestSession::copyTo to IGuestSession::fileCopyToGuest.
Renamed IGuestSession::copyFrom to IGuestSession::fileCopyFromGuest.

Using copy_to fails with

AttributeError: Failed to find attribute copyTo in <virtualbox.library_ext.guest_session.IGuestSession object at 0x107966050>

Patching the sources to call fileCopyToGuest instead of copyTo fixes this. However, the file still doesn't seem to get copied; no error message, but no file on the VM either.

copy_from fails with the error message mentioned earlier, despite the fact that the underlying method being called isn't there anymore. Maybe there's a bug in the exception handling somewhere.

Patching the sources to call fileCopyFromGuest instead of copyFrom doesn't fix this.