vbox-send-cmd

#!/bin/bash

# Usage:
#
#   vbox-send-cmd <virtual-machine-name> <string-to-send>
#
# Example usage:
#
#    vbox-send-cmd test-machine-6 \
#        "linux ksdevice=link ks=http://kickstarter/ks-vm.cgi?build_ver=4.5.2.11&distro_ver=6.5 <ENTER>"
#


cleanup() {
  :
}

errHandler() {
  echo "$0:  some unexpected error happened" 1>&2
  cleanup
  exit 1
}

main() {
  IFS="`printf ' \n\t'`"
  set -E
  set -u
  trap errHandler ERR HUP INT QUIT TERM

  if [ $# != 2 ] ; then
    echo "Usage vbox-send-cmd <virtual-machine-name> <string-to-send>" 1>&2
    exit 1
  fi
  
  MACHINE="$1"
  MESSAGE="$2"
  
  KEYCODES=`ascii2keyboardscancode "$MESSAGE"`
  
  for k in $KEYCODES ; do
  
    VBoxManage controlvm "$MACHINE" keyboardputscancode "$k"
  
    # the reason for the pause here is that we have found that it is
    # easy to overrun the VirtualBox keyboard-scancode-reading
    # mechanism.
    perl -e ' select(undef, undef, undef, 0.100);'
  
  done
  
}

main "${@}"
exit $?