How do I start a virtual machine in background upon OSX system start?

VirtualBox comes with a series of command line tools all prefixed with VBox. The command you are looking for is

VBoxHeadless --startvm "my vm name"

You can see a short description of its options via VBoxHeadless --help.

If you don't know the name of the virtual machine you can find out via:

VBoxManage list vms

To to run upon startup on Mac OS X you can use the Automator application.

In the Automator App, select the Run Shell Script from the list and type the script:

How to add the shell script within the automator app

After saving the service, import it from System Preferences > Users & Groups > TheLoginUser > Login Items > Import the service above.

You can create the service without any additional apps

Open Terminal,

1 Create a file by writing

touch vm.command

2. Edit the file

vi vm.command

3. Press "i" button, then enter the following lines:

VBoxHeadless --startvm vmname

(make sure you've replaced "vmname" with actual name)

4.save the file by pressing Esc button, then typing :wq

5.allow it to run:

sudo chmod +x vm.command

7.Copy the vm.command file to Application folder

8.Now you can enable it with System Preferences > Users & Groups > TheLoginUser > Login Items > Import the service above

As for me nohup is essential:

$ nohup VBoxHeadless --startvm "xnode" > /dev/null &

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