[SOLVED] Hardy and virtual box

[buckyjunior]

I've installed Virtual Box 3.16 (or so) on Hardy but it doesn't seem to want to start up. The install from the Adept Manager didn't quite fully set up Virtual Box for my use. I get a common error "The VirtualBox kernel driver is not accessible to the current user." The current user does not have write permissions for /dev/vboxdrv.

The suggested correction doesn’t seem to be working for me. That is to add each user to the vboxusers group. This I've done as well as logged out, logged in, rebooted, double checked user permissions, etc.

/dev/vboxdrv is owned by root with a group of vboxusers.

Any idea where I can look to a solution for my problem?

Bucky

[Untitled]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

You need to add yourself to the vboxusers group. Kuser is a gui to manage groups, or you can do it in terminal

useradd -G {group-name} username

[buckyjunior]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Thanks for the note.

useradd -G {group-name} username

I had tried this in the terminal (and again). What I got back was

bucky:-$ user bucky exists

logout, login, reboot and still the same permissions hurdle.

Bucky

[Untitled]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Sorry, my mistake, the command should be:

sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers USERNAME

[buckyjunior]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Thanks On a Roll for these attempts to get me on track and get vbox up and running.

Unfortunately, the usermod didn't do it either. It came back successful, but a complete reboot still has me looking at the "Failed to start the virtual machine ...." with the suggestion to be added to the group.

What I'm doing here seems to be what has been suggested elsewhere, but it doesn't seem to work for me. I wonder what it could be that I'm doing in error?

Bucky

[Untitled]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Can you try the following:

sudo chgrp vboxusers /dev/vboxdrv

[buckyjunior]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

On a Roll, et al,

Thanks for continuing to try to sort this out for me.

Can you try the following:

sudo chgrp vboxusers /dev/vboxdrv

The chgrp returns successfully but unfortunately, the end result is the same. No joy.

I also attempted to change owners (chown), but the error was that 'vboxusers' was an invalid group. Huh? It shows up in my User Management as 121 with members including all the goofy pseudonyms I've created for myself. It shows up as group owner on the /deb/vboxdrv file.

This continues to be frustrating. I'm wondering if I ought to try to "upgrade" to the "K" version to get VB working? What is it now? Klutzy Kiwi? No, it's Karmic something....

Buckeroo,
seemingly always at odds with the system

[Untitled]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Did you log out and back in?

[buckyjunior]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Yes, I rebooted and logged back in.

Just the extra measure of restarting everything.

THX,
Bucky

[Untitled]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Right...
My last suggestion, before you upgrade to Karmic or Lucid, is to remove VirtualBox and install the proprietary version from the VirtualBox repository.

[buckyjunior]

Re: Hardy and virtual box

Hey Untitled,

I finally managed to get Virtual Box running on my instance of Hardy.

The solution that worked for me was to install (through the Adept software install/removal program) a downgraded version. It was version 2.2 that worked for me.

Originally, I had downloaded 3.1.6 from the Sun site, then when I got the notice that it was available through the channels, I had installed it there. No good--as above. Reinstall. Same. Install from my downloaded copy. Boo.

Uninstall. Reinstall 2.2. It is working and I imported "an appliance" (a working machine from another computer) and hooked it up in Virtual Box on my Hardy Linux box.

Whew!

Thanks for all your help and suggestions. Is there a way to mark this thread solved? This PC is old and limited so I don't think this one will move up Karmic or Lucid.

Bucky