VirtualBox’s Little Secret: The Command Line

“It may surprise you to know that sneaking around under that
cute VirtuaBox GUI, with its colorful graphics, explicit Settings
page and numerous dropdown lists, is the occult world of the
command line. The true power of this dark realm reveals itself to
those who dare enter its musty catacombs. After you discover the
VirtualBox CLI, you might decide that the GUI is little more than
lame window dressing (pun intended) created for those passersby who
would otherwise ignore the uninspiring black rectangle of the real
application. Command Line Power

“The rectangular box to which I refer is the terminal window.
The command line offers power automation. Using scripts in the form
of Perl, shell scripts or some other language is the only
automation method that I’m aware of on *nix systems. The system
scheduler daemon (cron) assists you in firing your scripts at the
right times. It’s the power of the command line through automation
that requires system administrators have scripting capability in
their cache of skills. Every system administrator job opening you
see will have shell scripting and at least one other interpreted
language listed as requirements.

“For virtualization, the command line allows you to rapidly
create virtual disks, add a new network interface, start VMs and
create new VMs, all without the use of a GUI. Scripted automation
also allows you to schedule a VM’s start and shutdown without
intervention. And, if you’re a really clever scripter, you can
create a script that will send you through a series of prompts to
create a VM, start, install and update it with very little
intervention.”

Complete
Story