What's the best way to run this Virtual Appliance Scanner on a Ubuntu 12.10 server? Note that the server doesn't have any desktop GUI running, it's only command line.
I thought I would try and get started using Virtualbox, but it's not clear how to launch the qVSA-2.0.16-2.ova image using the command line. Also, once I am able to start the image up, is there a web URL or some way to access the virtual appliance to interact with it, i.e. kick off our scans?
Any advice, best practices, how-to's are much appreciated!
A QualysGuard Virtual Scanner Appliance is extremely hardened and has no remote access interfaces.
Background
QualysGuard appliances should be thought of as extensions to the Cloud Platform. They provide a bare minimum interface for getting network configuration onto them so that they can dial home to the Platform. Once they have successfully dialed home and you have joined them to your QualysGuard subscription using an activation/personalization code, you typically never need to "touch" them again.
Appliances call home continually (every 180 seconds by default, but configurable to between 60 and 360 seconds). They automatically download new software updates and new security signatures as they are released. And if you have launched any scans or a scheduled scan's time has arrived, the appliance will pick up the job, execute the work, and return the results back to the Platform.
Recommendations
So, while you will not need an interface to access the appliance on an ongoing basis, you will need an interface on the appliance for its initial setup. This needs to be done through a console interface (equivalent to monitor/keyboard connected to virtual machine). A graphical console interface on the virtual appliance will allow you to tab, arrow, and type your way through the initial network setup and personalization of the appliance.
The GUI desktop implementation of VirtualBox provides this console interface natively. For Linux servers without a desktop GUI, I've had customers use X Window over SSH to access a remote console interface on the virtual machine. A quick web search on VirtualBox approaches brought me to this VirtualBox help file (Chapter 7. Remote virtual machines) on getting remote access to virtual machines on "headless" servers.
Alternate
Another approach that some have had success with is to use a "desktop" machine to perform the initial personalization/setup of the virtual scanner appliance. Then to shut down the machine, copy the virtual disk to the headless server, and launch it there already configured.