[ale] what happens to vm if host reboots

[philip at turmel.org (Phil Turmel)]

On 02/14/2013 10:20 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I had a scenario where I was running Win 7 as a host with a virtualbox
> Mint 13 vm running inside it.  Microsoft issued their patches on the 2nd
> Tuesday, and, since the computer is set to automatically apply patches,
> the system decided to force a reboot.  So, I came back to the computer
> and found it waiting for me to enter the boot up password.
> 
> Now, I know all the Windows programs will properly shut down, and, as
> long as I haven't left any data unsaved, shouldn't be a problem.
> 
> My question is, what happens to the Mint 13 vm I had running?  It was
> just idling, and I didn't have any apps running inside it.  Will that vm
> shut down gracefully before the host shuts down?  Or, do I need to be
> concerned about not leaving vm's running prior to patch Tuesday?
> 
> As always, any help is appreciated.

I can't answer the question as posed, but I can offer a solution:
reverse the guest vs. host roles.  I've been running my few required
windows programs (industrial PLC tools, mostly) in Virtualbox hosted in
linux.  Since updates to my linux host *never* force an unattended
reboot, and rarely need a reboot anyways, the problem simply doesn't exist.

On top of that, I can run the windows VMs with no external network
connection, greatly reducing my malware exposure.

Seriously, friends don't let friends run Windows on bare metal.

HTH,

Phil