[SOLVED] virtualbox is installed along with virtualbox-dkms and virtualbox-ext-pack and linux-headers-generic, but error for no /dev/vboxdrv

Astral Axiom · 03-03-2019, 12:15 PM

I am trying to run a virtualbox image with the "vagrant up" command and I get this:

Code:

$ vagrant up
VirtualBox is complaining that the installation is incomplete. Please                                                           
run `VBoxManage --version` to see the error message which should contain                                                        
instructions on how to fix this error.

and then

Code:

$ VBoxManage --version                        
WARNING: The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist.
         Please install the virtualbox-dkms package and the appropriate
         headers, most likely linux-headers-generic.

         You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed. 5.2.18_Ubuntur123745

The virtualbox-dkms package and linux-headers-generic were installed automatically so they are installed. I have also installed virtualbox-ext-pack and it is enabled in VirtualBox's preferences -> extensions.

I am doing this on KDE-Neon.

just to clarify, vagrant is working fine my issue is VirtualBox, which I installed from Ubuntu repository with apt.

Thanks

BW-userx · 03-03-2019, 05:51 PM

did you reboot before you tried using it, and add yourself to the group I think it is vboxuser or someting like that.

Code:

cat /etc/group

you should see it, (on the bottom).

Astral Axiom · 03-04-2019, 08:09 PM

Thanks BW-userx, it actually turned out to be a secure boot issue. I have always gotten away with keeping it enabled on my Ubuntu based KDE-Neon installation, but apparently it really does cause an issue once VirtualBox is installed. That is why I never have that problem on my laptop, since with Arch Linux one must disable secure boot anyway, unless one wishes to deal with self signing new keys after every kernel update, which is like once a month, and I do not even know how to do that yet. I only wanted it enabled on my desktop because it is dual booted with Windows, even though I only boot Windows once every few months to keep it updated or update my Garmin gps. I just don't know how secure running Windows without secure boot is, not that Linux is impervious but probably not as big a threat to run without secure boot enabled.