Bash completion script for VirtualBox

This script enables you to autocomplete command-line arguments when using the VBoxManage tool of VirtualBox with Bash.

Install on OS X

We recommend you install Homebrew. For a cleaner install, we also recommend that you install Homebrew Cask and then install VirtualBox with it, just running brew cask install virtualbox.

Once you have Homebrew, install its general Bash completion infrastructure:

brew install bash-completion

Then, install this script:

cd $(brew --prefix)/etc/bash_completion.d
curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bgandon/bash-completion-virtualbox/master/vboxmanage_completion.bash

As an alternative, you can install this script from a Git clone, which can help if you whant to share your improvements to the world:

mkdir ~/workspace && cd ~/workspace
git clone git@github.com:tfmalt/bash-completion-virtualbox.git
ln -s `pwd`/bash-completion-virtualbox/vboxmanage_completion.bash /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/

On OS X, a Homebrew Formula is still to be made.

Install on Linux

Pre-requisite

You first need the bash completion infrastructure. Most Linux distributions have it installed by default. If not, then install it:

• Run apt-get install bash-completion on Debian-based distributions
• Run yum --enablerepo=epel install bash-completion.noarch on CentOS, or equivalent for other RedHat-based distributions.

System-wide configuration (requires root)

Copy the file vboxmanage_completion.bash from this repo into /etc/bash_completion.d/. This folder contains the system completions configurations that will be run by the new shells you'll open later.

cd /etc/bash_completion.d
sudo curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bgandon/bash-completion-virtualbox/master/vboxmanage_completion.bash

For the completion to work in your current shell, source the completion file with

source /etc/bash_completion.d/vboxmanage_completion.bash

User-only configuration (doesn't require root)

Add the content of vboxmanage_completion.bash in ~/.bash_completion, except the first she-bang line (the one that starts with #!).

For the completion to work in your current shell, source the completion file with

source ~/.bash_completion

Authors and License

Copyright © 2012, Thomas Malt

Copyright © 2015, Benjamin Gandon

All rights reserved.

For more details, this code is under the BSD 2 Clause (NetBSD) license.