How to access a large preview of a headless VM in VirtualBox?

Question

I'm trying to debug a vagrant/virtualbox situation, but that is beside the point here.

Whilst in headless mode, it appears to never make it to the login screen (but is fine in GUI mode). The preview image appears as though it is still showing the boot log.

I'd like to see the state of the verbose output (AKA the preview image), rather then the actual log.

Is there a way to access that?

VirtualBox version: 4.2.6, Mac OSX Mountain Lion.

Answer 1

Like @Benoit mentioned, the logs are a great resource.

However, right-clicking on on the instance VM in the VirtualBox and clicking "Show" should bring up the image of the VM, even when it is running in Headless mode. You will be able to close the window and leave the VM running.

As far as modifying the Source code to enlarge your images (or perhaps create a way to generate your own), I would first look at https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox/trunk#src/VBox/Frontends/VBoxFB

Answer 2

Found this question while searching for the same solution.

Following @robert suggestion, use "Show" to view the GUI.

The answered did not provide a way to exit the GUI, so here here's the additional step. (using OSX VirtualBox 5.1.6)

To exit while leaving the machine running, use "Detach GUI" from the Machine menu.