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rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

[Solved] Virtual Box kernel modules to be rebuilt after each boot

Beowulf on Kernel 5.6 with Mate Desktop, VB 6.1.10 directly loaded from Oracle and installed via dpkg -i.

Situation is that I have to rebuild kernel modules after each boot before being able to start a Win7 VM.

I am getting:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall virtualbox-dkms package and load the kernel module by executing

'modprobe vboxdrv'

as root.

where: suplibOsInit what: 3 VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (-1908) - The support driver is not installed. On linux, open returned ENOENT.

All the nice hints found do not fix the issue. When I read the announcement right my VBox version should already support the 5.7 kernel.

When I follow the instruction I can work with VBox, the game starts next day when I have shut down the PC the evening before and restarted or past any reboot.

What is going on here?

rolfie

Last edited by rolfie (2020-06-27 15:31:29)

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 381  

Re: [Solved] Virtual Box kernel modules to be rebuilt after each boot

All the nice hints found do not fix the issue.

What hints? The very useful one that VirtualBox provides when you try to start a VM without the kernel module loaded?

When I follow the instruction I can work with VBox

By "the instruction" you mean

modprobe vboxdrv

?

If that works then the kernel module has been built just fine, it simply needed to be loaded.

the game starts next day when I have shut down the PC the evening before and restarted or past any reboot.

What is going on here?

Unless you have configured the system to load that module at startup (i.e. in /etc/modules or some init script), you will need to load it when you want to use it.
What's unexpected about that?

ED. The repo at

https://people.debian.org/~lucas/virtualbox-buster/

is probably a better option than Oracle's .debs. It looks like it includes virtualbox-dkms for automatic rebuilds against new kernel versions, as well as an init script to load the modules at system startup.

I don't see anything in there that would make those Debian buster packages problematic on Devuan beowulf, but as always, YMMV.

Last edited by steve_v (2020-06-27 07:44:37)

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: [Solved] Virtual Box kernel modules to be rebuilt after each boot

Well, I had all pre-requisites present like kernel headers, build-essential, dkms. Installation of VBox went smooth without any errors.

Instructions I am talking about: Repeated vboxsetup, modprobe vboxdrv, rcvboxdrv setup: all run smooth, no errors, each of them fixes the issue temporarily. Just after any reboot everything seems to be forgotten.

Digged deeper into logs like the vbox logs, syslog and boot: nothing that caught my eye. The entry in /etc/init.d/vboxdrv is present, all permissions set correctly (afaik) ...

Then tried to add to /etc/modules: the entry vboxdrv was a game changer, the error when starting my Win7 VM changed. I saw that I needed to enter also vboxnetadp and vboxnetflt, and now it works.

Can't remember that I had to do this before, e.g. under Squeeze, Wheezy, or ASCII. Anyhow, I think I have got a solution now. Thanks for picking my brain, your hint to the /etc/modules finally did the job.

rolfie

PS: I used keywords like "virtualbox kernel module" and "kernel 5.6 virtualbox" and others and tags from the error messages and read through a bunch of pages without getting a clue, just an impression that kernel 5.5 works, while 5.6 seems to create issues.

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 381  

Re: [Solved] Virtual Box kernel modules to be rebuilt after each boot

Then tried to add to /etc/modules: the entry vboxdrv was a game changer, the error when starting my Win7 VM changed. I saw that I needed to enter also vboxnetadp and vboxnetflt, and now it works.

To be fair you shouldn't have to, something must be going wrong in the byzantine mess that is oracles init script...
The init script that I didn't see on cursory examination of the package because it's copied from /usr/lib/virtualbox by the byzantine postinst-common script, which is in turn called from another postinst script...
The init script that takes 20KB of shell to load 3 frickin modules, and clearly doesn't manage to do it reliably.
Sheesh, commercial vendors and their overengineering.

You could try debugging it, or you could just stick with those 3 lines in /etc/modules... I know which one I'd choose.

Can't remember that I had to do this before, e.g. under Squeeze, Wheezy, or ASCII. Anyhow, I think I have got a solution now.

VirtualBox was in the repos back then (It was dropped for buster due to oracle being "uncooperative" IIRC), so presumably you were using those packages rather than the ones from oracle, no?

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

PedroReina

Member

From: Madrid, Spain

Registered: 2019-01-13

Posts: 269  

Website

Re: [Solved] Virtual Box kernel modules to be rebuilt after each boot

Sheesh, commercial vendors and their overengineering.

This comment could lead us to another interesting thread. I think that it is somehow related with the systemd issue. It is all about "proprietary open source" software that I heard in this forum.

steve_v

Member

Registered: 2018-01-11

Posts: 381  

Re: [Solved] Virtual Box kernel modules to be rebuilt after each boot

I think that it is somehow related with the systemd issue.

Indeed it is, but that would be off topic for this thread.

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Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,171  

Re: [Solved] Virtual Box kernel modules to be rebuilt after each boot

Can't remember that I had to do this before, e.g. under Squeeze, Wheezy, or ASCII. Anyhow, I think I have got a solution now.

VirtualBox was in the repos back then (It was dropped for buster due to oracle being "uncooperative" IIRC), so presumably you were using those packages rather than the ones from oracle, no?

No, currently I am directly downloading the latest stuff from virtualbox.org and then using dpkg -i. I have been through all the methods from using the repo stuff, the following the sources.list setup as suggested by the VBox docs, then I found that I can ease my life. No enabling/disabling in sources.list, no key to care for .... Works for me.

Thanks, rolfie