1 First steps For how to export an image at the command line, please see chapter 8.9, VBoxManage export, page 116. Note: OVF cannot describe snapshots that were taken for a virtual machine. As a result, when you export a virtual machine that has snapshots, only the current state of the machine will be exported, and the disk images in the export will have a “flattened” state identical to the current state of the virtual machine. 1.13 Alternative front-ends As briefly mentioned in chapter 1.3, Features overview, page 11, VirtualBox has a very flexible internal design that allows for using multiple interfaces to control the same virtual machines. To illustrate, you can, for example, start a virtual machine with the VirtualBox Manager window and then stop it from the command line. With VirtualBox’s support for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), you can even run virtual machines remotely on a headless server and have all the graphical output redirected over the network. In detail, the following front-ends are shipped in the standard VirtualBox package: 1. VirtualBox is the VirtualBox Manager. This graphical user interface uses the Qt toolkit most of this User Manual is dedicated to describing it. While this is the easiest to use, some of the more advanced VirtualBox features are kept away from it to keep it simple. 2. VBoxManage is our command-line interface for automated and very detailed control of every aspect of VirtualBox. It is described in chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 99. 3. VBoxSDL is an alternative, simple graphical front-end with an intentionally limited fea- ture set, designed to only display virtual machines that are controlled in detail with VBoxManage. This is interesting for business environments where displaying all the bells and whistles of the full GUI is not feasible. VBoxSDL is described in chapter 9.1, VBoxSDL, the simplified VM displayer, page 134. 4. Finally, VBoxHeadless is yet another front-end that produces no visible output on the host at all, but merely acts as a RDP server if the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Extension (VRDE) is installed. As opposed to the other graphical interfaces, the headless front-end requires no graphics support. This is useful, for example, if you want to host your virtual machines on a headless Linux server that has no X Window system installed. For details, see chapter 7.1.2, VBoxHeadless, the remote desktop server, page 91. If the above front-ends still do not satisfy your particular needs, it is possible to create yet another front-end to the complex virtualization engine that is the core of VirtualBox, as the VirtualBox core neatly exposes all of its features in a clean API please refer to chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces, page 163. 28