How to make vm boot from live cd

Solution 1:

The method in AliNa answer if you have VirtualBox, but if you have VMWare Workstation, right click on the VM, choose Power, and then Power On to BIOS. Once you get the BIOS screen, go to the Boot Tab, and change the Boot order, save and exit.

Solution 2:

Run Oracle VM Virtualbox, select the virtual machine (if you have more than one) and open Settings.

Under the System portion of Settings you will see the Boot order, as in the below screenshot:

If you want to boot from an .ISO file, pause the VM on startup with Host+P (Host key is Right Ctrl by default) and browse for the file on Devices > CD/DVD Devices > Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file. Then resume it again by the same key combination. It will boot from the ISO file.

Solution 3:

Adding one more method for those of us configuring VMs on headless servers.

You'll need to know your storage controller's name and the port index of the dvd drive (usually 0). You can get that info from showvminfo.

vboxmanage storageattach MyVm --storagectl MyVm_sata --port 0 --type dvddrive --medium ubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

Launch the VM and then attach to it with an RDP client. If you do not have VRDP enabled you can do so with:

vboxmanage modifyvm MyVm --vrde on --vrdeport 5001

When you're done, remove the medium:

vboxmanage storageattach MyVm --storagectl MyVm_sata --port 0 --type dvddrive --medium none