Sun Microsystems VERSION 3.1.0_BETA2 user manual VBoxManage guestproperty

8 VBoxManage reference

Subcommands may apply to all objects and metrics or can be limited to one object or/and a list of metrics. If no objects or metrics are given in the parameters, the sub- commands will apply to all available metrics of all objects. You may use an asterisk (“*“) to explicitly specify that the command should be applied to all objects or metrics. Use “host” as the object name to limit the scope of the command to host-related met- rics. To limit the scope to a subset of metrics, use a metric list with names separated by commas.

For example, to query metric data on the CPU time spent in user and kernel modes by the virtual machine named “test”, you can use the following command:

VBoxManage query test CPU/Load/User,CPU/Load/Kernel

The following list summarizes the available subcommands:

list This subcommand shows the parameters of the currently existing metrics. Note that VM-specific metrics are only available when a particular VM is running.

setup This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples of metric data and the number of samples retained internally. The retained data is available for displaying with the query subcommand. The -list option shows which metrics have been modified as the result of the command execution.

query This subcommand retrieves and displays the currently retained metric data.

Note: The query subcommand does not remove or “flush” retained data. If you query often enough you will see how old samples are gradually being “phased out” by new samples.

collect This subcommand sets the interval between taking two samples of metric data and the number of samples retained internally. The collected data is displayed periodically until Ctrl-C is pressed unless the -detach option is specified. With the -detach option, this subcommand operates the same way as setup does. The -list option shows which metrics match the specified filter.

8.25 VBoxManage guestproperty

The “guestproperty” commands allow you to get or set properties of a running virtual machine. Please see chapter 4.11, Guest properties, page 73 for an introduction. As explained there, guest properties are arbitrary key/value string pairs which can be written to and read from by either the guest or the host, so they can be used as a low-volume communication channel for strings, provided that a guest is running and has the Guest Additions installed. In addition, a number of values whose keys begin with “/VirtualBox/“ are automatically set and maintained by the Guest Additions.

The following subcommands are available (where <vm>, in each case, can either be a VM name or a VM UUID, as with the other VBoxManage commands):

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