VirtualBox Systemd

To control the start/stop of your VM’s with systemd, and use systemd to auto start and stop them on system boot.

Run sudo systemctl edit vbox@.service --full --force and paste the following content in, updating User and Group to your username.

Before using the template below, confirm your VBoxManage path:

command -v VBoxManage

[Unit]
Description=Virtual Box Guest %I
After=network.target vboxdrv.service
Before=runlevel2.target shutdown.target

[Service]
User=USERNAME
Group=GROUPNAME
Type=forking
Restart=no
TimeoutSec=5min
IgnoreSIGPIPE=no
KillMode=process
GuessMainPID=no
RemainAfterExit=yes

ExecStart=/usr/bin/VBoxManage startvm %i --type headless
ExecStop=/usr/bin/VBoxManage controlvm %i acpipowerbutton

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then, reload systemd: sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Get a list of your VM’s:

VBoxManage list vms
  "Ubuntu" {1ba32309-d4c4-420a-a9c8-a38177f00bc4}
  "Windows" {573df054-0e33-4389-896a-1234f10e25ad}

Use the name returned in step 3 to manage the VM via systemd. For example, to manage the “Ubuntu” VM you would run:

sudo systemctl start vbox@Ubuntu     # Start the VM
sudo systemctl enable vbox@Ubuntu    # Start the VM on boot

Update Changelog

Changed On

2026-07-04

Summary of Updates

Added VBoxManage path verification step before creating the systemd unit.

Reason for Change

Reduce path-related failures on systems where VBoxManage is not in the expected location.

Compatibility Notes

Unit example assumes systemd and a valid VBoxManage path on the host.

Tested On

Documentation review only (commands not executed in this repo).