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Start a VirtualBox VM on boot with Systemd

1. Add your user to vboxusers group.

sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers $USER

2. Systemd template unit to start and stop VirtualBox VMs

The systemd template unit to start and stop a VirtualBox VM when booting up and down a PC looks like this:

[Unit]
Description=VirtualBox VM %I
After=network.target vboxdrv.service
Before=runlevel2.target shutdown.target

[Service]
User=admin
Group=vboxusers
Type=forking
Restart=no
TimeoutSec=5min
IgnoreSIGPIPE=no
KillMode=process
GuessMainPID=no
RemainAfterExit=yes

ExecStart=/usr/bin/VBoxManage startvm %i --type headless
ExecStop=/usr/bin/VBoxManage controlvm %i acpipowerbutton

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

As a final step to complete the installation of the systemd service unit, we need to edit the file to change the User setting. The first line in the Service section now reads:

User=admin

Save the file with this path and name:

/etc/systemd/system/vbox_vm@.service

3. Enable the Systemd service for your VirtualBox VM

With the systemd template unit in place, we can enable the systemd service for a particular VirtualBox VM. All we need is the name of the VirtualBox VM. You can open up VirtualBox and read the name of the VM on the main screen. Alternatively, you can run the following command in the terminal to obtain a list with available VMs:

VBoxManage list vms

To enable the systemd service unit for this VM, based on our systemd template unit, we can use this command syntax:

sudo systemctl enable vbox_vm@<name of VM>

We just need to replace <name of VM> with the name of our VM.

4. Verify that Systemd started your VirtualBox VM

After rebooting your PC, Systemd should have started your VirtualBox VM, but how to verify this? If your VirtualBox VM runs an SSH server you could of course attempt to connect with it. Alternatively, you can open up the VirtualBox user interface, which indicates if a VM runs or not.

Executing the systemctl command from the terminal offers another method, which provides more information. Its format is:

sudo systemctl status vbox_vm@<name of VM>

So pretty much a similar command syntax as for enabling and disabling the systemd service. Just to check the status you can run this command:

sudo systemctl status vbox_vm@<name of VM>

Enjoy!

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