phpVirtualBox

Resources

phpVirtualBox is a web-based administration utility for VirtualBox.

Installation

Currently, app-emulation/phpvirtualbox has no stable version, so you need to add it to your package.accept_keywords file.

root #emerge --ask app-emulation/phpvirtualbox

Configuration

phpVirtualBox does not need a VirtualBox installation to be present on the same box where phpVirtualBox is installed. phpVirtualBox can connect to other machines where your virtual machines are installed. phpVirtualBox requires a web-server to be present on your box, so we will demonstrate an Apache configuration using SSL certificate to encrypt your communication with the server.

Verify VirtualBox installation

VirtualBox must be compiled with the vboxwebsrv USE flag on the host where the virtual machines are located.

FILE /etc/portage/package.use

app-emulation/virtualbox vboxwebsrv

Create SSL certificate

First, we create our shiny new SSL certificate

Create our secret private key

root #openssl genrsa -des3 -out virtualbox-server.key 4096

You probably want to remove your private key, otherwise apache will ask you for it every time you start it

root #openssl rsa -in virtualbox-server.key -out virtualbox-server.key

Create our new Certificate Singing Request (CSR)

root #openssl req -new -key virtualbox-server.key -out virtualbox-key.csr

Sign the CSR using our private key

root #openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in virtualbox-key.csr -signkey virtualbox-server.key -out virtualbox-server.crt

Place certificate and private key somewhere safe

root #cp virtualbox-server.{key,crt} /etc/apache2/ssl-data/.

Configure Apache virtual host

Assuming you already have a working Apache installation, you need to create a new virtualhost for your phpVirtualBox installation. This entry should look like this:

FILE /etc/apache2/vhost.d/99-virtualbox.confphpVirtualBox vhost configuation

<VirtualHost *:443>
        ServerName phpvirtualbox.mydomain.example # Change this to your domain name
        DocumentRoot /usr/share/webapps/phpvirtualbox/4.1.7/htdocs/
        SSLEngine On
        SSLOptions  StrictRequire
        SSLProtocol all -SSLv2
        SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl-data/virtualbox-server.crt
        SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl-data/virtualbox-server.key
        <Directory />
                AllowOverride All
        </Directory>
        <Location />
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
                Order deny,allow
                SSLRequireSSL
        </Location>
        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/virtualbox_error.log
</VirtualHost>

The previous configuration is just an example, your installation/configuration may be a lot different.

Configure phpVirtualBox installation

The key file for your phpVirtualBox installation is the config.php file deriving from config.php-example file

root #

cd /usr/share/webapps/phpvirtualbox/4.1.7/htdocs

root #

cp config.php-example config.php

Edit this file and change the following variables

FILE /usr/share/webapps/phpvirtualbox/4.1.7/htdocs/config.phpPHPVirtualBox configuation

var $username = 'john'; # user who owns the virtual machines on the remote (or local) server
var $password = 'mysecretpass';  #password for that user

/* SOAP URL of vboxwebsrv (not phpVirtualBox's URL) */
var $location = 'http://192.168.1.205:18083/'; # Where are the virtual machines? This can either be 'localhost' or the IP or the remote server where your virtual machines are installed

Verification

Start the vboxwebsrv init service on the host where your virtual machines are located (in our case on 192.168.1.205)

root #/etc/init.d/vboxwebsrv start

Restart Apache on the host where your phpVirtualBox was installed

root #/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Connect to phpVirtualBox installation

Open your browser and connect to your phpVirtualBox by typing:

https://phpvirtualbox.mydomain.example

You should be able to login using the default credentials

user: admin
pass: admin

External resources

phpVirtualBox Wiki