virtualbox-python

NOTE: ⚠️ I am no longer actively maintaining this project. If you have a vested interest in seeing it continued to be maintained please reach out to me via email. Complete implementation of VirtualBox's COM API with a Pythonic interface.

Installation

Go to VirtualBox's downloads page (https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads) and download the VirtualBox SDK. Within the extracted ZIP file there is a directory called "installer". Open a console within the installer directory and run python vboxapisetup.py install using your system Python. This installs vboxapi which is the interface that talks to VirtualBox via COM.

Next is to install this library:

To get the latest released version of virtualbox from PyPI run the following:

$ python -m pip install virtualbox

or to install the latest development version from GitHub:

$ git clone https://github.com/sethmlarson/virtualbox-python
$ cd virtualbox-python
$ python setup.py install

Getting Started

Listing Available Machines

>>> import virtualbox
>>> vbox = virtualbox.VirtualBox()
>>> [m.name for m in vbox.machines]
["windows"]

Launching a Machine

>>> session = virtualbox.Session()
>>> machine = vbox.find_machine("windows")
>>> # progress = machine.launch_vm_process(session, "gui", "")
>>> # For virtualbox API 6_1 and above (VirtualBox 6.1.2+), use the following:
>>> progress = machine.launch_vm_process(session, "gui", [])
>>> progress.wait_for_completion()

Querying the Machine

>>> session.state
SessionState(2)  # locked
>>> machine.state
MachineState(5)  # running
>>> height, width, _, _, _, _ = session.console.display.get_screen_resolution()

Interacting with the Machine

>>> session.console.keyboard.put_keys("Hello, world!")
>>> guest_session = session.console.guest.create_session("Seth Larson", "password")
>>> guest_session.directory_exists("C:\\Windows")
True
>>> proc, stdout, stderr = guest_session.execute("C:\\\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe", ["/C", "tasklist"])
>>> print(stdout)
Image Name                   PID Session Name     Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ====== ================ ======== ============
System Idle Process            0 Console                 0         28 K
System                         4 Console                 0        236 K
smss.exe                     532 Console                 0        432 K
csrss.exe                    596 Console                 0      3,440 K
winlogon.exe                 620 Console                 0      2,380 K
services.exe                 664 Console                 0      3,780 K
lsass.exe                    676 Console                 0      6,276 K
VBoxService.exe              856 Console                 0      3,972 K
svchost.exe                  900 Console                 0      4,908 K
svchost.exe                 1016 Console                 0      4,264 K
svchost.exe                 1144 Console                 0     18,344 K
svchost.exe                 1268 Console                 0      2,992 K
svchost.exe                 1372 Console                 0      3,948 K
spoolsv.exe                 1468 Console                 0      4,712 K
svchost.exe                 2000 Console                 0      3,856 K
wuauclt.exe                  400 Console                 0      7,176 K
alg.exe                     1092 Console                 0      3,656 K
wscntfy.exe                 1532 Console                 0      2,396 K
explorer.exe                1728 Console                 0     14,796 K
wmiprvse.exe                1832 Console                 0      7,096 K
VBoxTray.exe                1940 Console                 0      3,196 K
ctfmon.exe                  1948 Console                 0      3,292 K
cmd.exe                     1284 Console                 0      2,576 K
tasklist.exe                 124 Console                 0      4,584 K

Registering Event Handlers

>>> def test(event):
>>>    print("scancode received: %r" % event.scancodes)
>>>
>>> session.console.keyboard.set_on_guest_keyboard(test)
140448201250560
scancode received: [35]
scancode received: [23]
scancode received: [163]
scancode received: [151]
scancode received: [57]

Powering-Down a Machine

>>> session.console.power_down()

License

Apache-2.0