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Running VMs "headless" (without windows for each VM being visible on the host) is a great feature of VirtualBox. How do I do it using Parallels Desktop on Mac OS X?
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For the headless configuration of Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS, you must configure the network (Wi-Fi or wired). To do that, eject and re-insert the microSD card on your computer. You should see a boot partition as you can see in the screenshot below. You should find a network-config file in the boot partition.
Here is how to install Linux on Mac using the Parallels Desktop software: Download a set of Linux virtual machines from the main installation Assistant Menu. Choose your preferred Linux distribution and download it. Once downloaded, you can install and begin running Linux on your Mac.
Make sure Parallels Desktop is not running. If it is running, the commands below will still create a console window.
From Terminal.app, use the Parallels command line: prlctl
# List available VMs prlctl list --all # Start a VM using its name prlctl start UbuntuServer # Stop the VM prlctl stop UbuntuServer # Pause and Resume prlctl pause UbuntuServer prlctl resume UbuntuServer # Reset and Restart prlctl reset UbuntuServer prlctl restart UbuntuServer rutgerw's answer does work, but doesn't work well if you need to run alongside virtual machines for which you need to use the GUI. Try this command in Terminal...
prlctl set UbuntuServer --on-window-close keep-running Now if you close the UbuntuServer window it will continue to run in the background. Parallels doesn't support true "headless" mode, but this gets you pretty close.
Further Reading: Parallels prlctl Reference
If you are a Parallels Desktop Enterprise user, you can run a VM as a background service. This is an enterprise-only feature. See the documentation.
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