RemoteBox is designed to connect to a VirtualBox instance running on a server, so we need to ensure that VirtualBox is configured correctly. These instructions do not go over installing VirtualBox itself as this is trivial, but they do describe the configuration you need to do. These instructions do not reference any specific Linux distribution, but should be compatible with most common distributions.

The documentation assumes the following:

• If the server is firewalled, port 18083 (tcp) is able to accept connections from your RemoteBox client.
• VirtualBox is installed, including The Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
• The steps are performed with sufficient root or administrator privileges

VirtualBox provides an agent called vboxwebsrv aka VirtualBox web service which provides network access to VirtualBox's API. RemoteBox connects to this agent in order to perform the various tasks such as administering the guests. This agent must run as a user, which is important to understand because it's the virtual machines of that user you will see when you connect.

For example, if the agent is running as the user joe, then you will see Joe's virtual machines and configuration, regardless of the credentials you connected with. It's also worth mentioning that extensions such as the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack may also need to be installed as this user, so that it's available in their configuration. You may already have an existing user you wish to use, or you can create a new one specifically for the purpose. If you are not sure how to create a user, please consult the documentation for your operating system.

For the purposes of this documentation, we will use the following values in the examples, however remember to change them to suit your setup.

vboxwebsrvuser:	virtualuser • This user should also be a member of the vboxusers group. This group is usually created by VirtualBox at install time
Server Name:	myserver.example.com
Server IP Address:	192.168.1.10
Default TCP Port:	18083

These actions should be performed with root privileges unless otherwise stated.

• Login as the user you want the VirtualBox web service as started as. A standard plist file is included with VirtualBox which is usually found at the location showb below. Edit the file with your preferred text editor and change the Diabled key from true to false

~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist

• The VirtualBox web service can then be started as follows

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.virtualbox.vboxwebsrv.plist

You should now be able to connect to the server using the RemoteBox client.

Disabling authentication to the VirtualBox web service is a big security risk as it allow anyone to connect, however it may be useful for debugging purposes. Particularly if you are experiencing authentication issues when trying to connect. Once set, you can connect with RemoteBox by simply leaving the username and password fields empty

• To disable authentication, run the following command on the server as the same user that the VirtualBox web service runs as:

vboxmanage setproperty websrvauthlibrary null