Cannot run a VirtualBox VM on Slackware

Francexi · 04-18-2020, 04:02 AM

Good morning/evening
I'm trying to run a Virtual Machine on Slackware. When I try to start it, VirtualBox reports: "Kernel driver not accessible". I checked /dev/vboxdrv

Code:

    crw-rw---- 1 root vboxusers 10, 59 apr 16 11:05 /dev/vboxdrv

and obviously my user is member of vboxusers group (I checked using "groups").

Any idea of how to resolve?

business_kid · 04-18-2020, 01:30 PM

Quote:

and obviously my user is member of vboxusers group (I checked using "groups").

Hi. Try this

Code:

 [sudo] usermod -aG vboxusers your_user

Francexi · 04-18-2020, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

Hi. Try this

Code:

 [sudo] usermod -aG vboxusers your_user

As said, I already added myself to that grooup. I tried you command anyway, and still changed nothing

frankbell · 04-18-2020, 08:07 PM

What version of Slackware and what version of VirtualBox?

I don't know whether it applies, but I ran VB on Slackware successfully for years, until I tried to upgrade to VB v. 6. (I used the "other distros" *.tar.gz from the VB website.)

ehartman · 04-18-2020, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Francexi

As said, I already added myself to that group. I tried you command anyway, and still changed nothing

As Frank Bell already said: what version of Slackware (and if -current: which version of the kernel) and what version of VB.
VB is very kernel dependant and the newest kernel versions often aren't supported (yet).
And anyway, you will have to rebuild the kernel modules each and every kernel update (which in -current is about twice a week!).
14.2 had a kernel update (to 4.4.217) less then a month ago too, so even there you will have to rebuilt your vboxdrv etc modules.

cwizardone · 04-18-2020, 09:15 PM

VirtualBox-6.1.6-137129-linux_amd64.run is working fine on this box with -current and the 5.4.33 kernel.

Francexi · 04-19-2020, 02:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankbell

What version of Slackware and what version of VirtualBox?

I don't know whether it applies, but I ran VB on Slackware successfully for years, until I tried to upgrade to VB v. 6. (I used the "other distros" *.tar.gz from the VB website.)

I use Slackware-current, kernel 5.5.13 self built. VirtualBox is 6.1.6 and I already rebuilt the kernel modules

business_kid · 04-20-2020, 01:52 PM

Just gone through this. You need the kernel source with the kernel config compiled in it for the modules to compile. I presume you have a prebuilt kernel? You need to copy /boot/config-for_your_kernel to the kernel source as .config AFTER running 'make mrproper' there first. Then run 'make all' and reboot. The kernel modules should be made on the reboot.

Francexi · 04-20-2020, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

Just gone through this. You need the kernel source with the kernel config compiled in it for the modules to compile. I presume you have a prebuilt kernel? You need to copy /boot/config-for_your_kernel to the kernel source as .config AFTER running 'make mrproper' there first. Then run 'make all' and reboot. The kernel modules should be made on the reboot.

Kernel modules are already built and loaded

Code:

# lsmod | grep vbox
vboxnetadp             28672  0
vboxnetflt             32768  0
vboxdrv               520192  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

Francexi · 04-25-2020, 04:20 AM

I add. Trying to tail /dev/vboxdrv gives me an "operation not permitted" error, while doing it as root gives me "argument invalid"

I post also the output of groups

Code:

$ groups francesco
francesco : francesco lp audio video cdrom apache plugdev power scanner users bumblebee vboxusers