What does it mean to run a virtual OS in "headless mode"?

vmware virtualization
Binarytales picture Binarytales · Oct 5, 2008 · Viewed 16.3k times · Source

I've been hearing a lot about about how the new version of VMWare Fusion can run virtual operating systems in "headless mode".

A Google search makes it clear that other virtualisation products also have similar features, however, I have not been able to find a good description of what this actually means? What is happening when you do this?

Answer

Petesh picture Petesh · Oct 5, 2008

Headless mode means that the virtual machine is running in the background without any foreground elements visible (like the Vmware Fusion application)
You would have no screen to see running the front end; i.e. the screen/console would not be visible, even though the operating system is running, and would typically have to access the machine via SSH.

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