Is there a host system unique ID in VirtualBox?

Question

Is there any chance to get an unique host system ID within my VM that is hosted in VirtualBox?

Asked different: is there an unique ID of the host system that I can read from the virtual machine. In case I import the same VM into another host system, can the VM detect that it runs in another host system?

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 12 '13 at 16:16

5

With KVM/libvirt you can run dmidecode -t system on the host VM, it exports the UUID generated in libvirt from the XML description. It should be unique to each VM.

answered Dec 12 '13 at 16:16

Matthew Ife

23,567

The question was tagged [tag:virtualbox]. I edited the question to make it clearer. – Wesley Dec 12 '13 at 16:17
From my googling there appears to be good indication that the same values can also exported in virtualbox. – Matthew Ife Dec 12 '13 at 16:24
I get UUID: EAF44EA1-F755-4E9C-B506-400..., seems to be good – PeterMmm Dec 12 '13 at 16:28
@MIfe oooOOOOoo, spifftastic. – Wesley Dec 12 '13 at 16:32
1

@PeterMmm But isn't this only on the host system and not from within the guest? – Wesley Dec 12 '13 at 16:32
@Wesly I'm running Debian guest on Win7 host and runnig the mentioned command on Debian. I get the posted UUID and a different on a newly imported (cloned) VM. – PeterMmm Dec 12 '13 at 16:44

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

2

Each .vdi file has a UUID that can be seen by using the vboxmanage command. For example vboxmanage showhdinfo \path\to\file.vdi

From within the guest you'll need to read MIfe's answer! =) first user vboxmanage from the host to set a GuestProperty starting like this: vboxmanage guestproperty set and name it UUID. Then from within the guest you'll retrieve it with vboxcontrol, something like this: vboxcontrol guestproperty get /VirtualBox/GuestProperty/whateverYouNamedTheProperty

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:14

Community

1

answered Dec 12 '13 at 16:18

Wesley

32,840

Running vboxmanage on host system. But I'm interested in getting an ID from within the VM ... – PeterMmm Dec 12 '13 at 16:24

Is there a host system unique ID in VirtualBox?

2 Answers2