VBoxManage guestcontrol permission error

Question

I have a Ubuntu guest installed on virtualbox of a Ubuntu host. When I try to run a command from the host on the guest, I get a permission error:

max@Ubuntu1:~$ VBoxManage guestcontrol Ubuntu2 run ls
VBoxManage: error: The specified user was not able to logon on guest
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80bb0005), component GuestSessionWrap, interface IGuestSession, callee nsISupports
VBoxManage: error: Context: "WaitForArray(ComSafeArrayAsInParam(aSessionWaitFlags), 30 * 1000, &enmWaitResult)" at line 938 of file VBoxManageGuestCtrl.cpp

Answer 1

The command was rather incomplete. To run ls from a guest Ubuntu issue at least:

VBoxManage guestcontrol "<Name_of_VM>" run --exe "/bin/ls" --username <me> --passwordfile mypassword.txt  --wait-stdout

By this you need to give the full path to the application. We also need a user and a passwordfile which would be stored on the host directory from were we started VBoxManage.

A much easier approach would be to run an SSH server on the guest to enable SSH access from the host.