[PLUG] Shifting a virtual box instance to another user

[Joe Shisei Niski]

On 02/28/2015 03:55 PM, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> I set up a practice virtualbox instance as keithl, and now want to
> move it to user "sally" on the same machine, or share it with her.
> Is there an easy way to do that?  What files should I copy or
> link?  Only one user using one instance at a time.
>
> Alternately, is there a way to set up su or sudo so that sally
> can run a shell script to run my instance as keithl?  I fiddled
> with that, but again virtualbox seems unable to find all the
> files it needs.
>
> Keith
>
Hi Keith:

I've done this a few times.

Vbox stores its configuration (and by default, its disk image files) 
within the user's .VirtualBox directory, in VirtualBox.xml. If you have 
plenty of disk and don't mind maintaining a second Windows VM, you can 
simply copy that whole directory to sally's home dir and and adjust the 
file permissions, *and* edit the paths in her VirtualBox.xml to point at 
her files instead of keithl's.

Alternatively you can move move the HardDisks directory from 
keithl/.VirtualBox to a shared location, and then copy the .VirtualBox 
dir to /home/sally and modify both users VirtualBox.xml files accordingly.

HTH,

Joe
________________________________________
Joe Shisei Niski
Portland, Oregon, USA
至誠