How to restart VM and wait till it fully starts up again using VirtualBox CLI?

Question

I'm automating VM creation using VBoxManage unattended install and want to run script after installing which led me to --post-install-command option. The problem here is: the next steps in my script require Guest Additions, so I used --install-additions option in installation. Unfortunately, this option doesn't restart the machine after installing the Guest Additions, So I'm looking for a workaround so I restart the VM(from host or guest) and then continue my main script.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, I didn't find any event triggered by VBox on VM boot up, so I had to wait for it to fully boot up.

It takes an average of 2-3 mins to fully boot up, so I used a timer of 3 mins.

$postInstallCommands = 'VBoxControl guestproperty set installation_finished y && (shutdown /s || shutdown -P now)'

########## Initiate unattended installation
VBoxManage unattended install "$vmName"  `
    --iso="$isoFile"                         `
    --user="$userName"                       `
    --password="$password"                   `
    --full-user-name="$userName"             `
    --install-additions                      `
    --locale=en_US                           `
    --country=US                             `
    --time-zone=EST                          `
    --image-index=1                          `
    --post-install-command="$postInstallCommands" *> $null
    
########## Start VM and wait to finish install
VBoxManage startvm "$vmName" --type headless

Write-Host "Waiting for VM to finish OS installation..."
VBoxManage guestproperty wait "$vmName" installation_finished *> $null

Start-Sleep -s 180