How To: Install VirtualBox 3.2 on Fedora 13

May

Posted by Derek@TheDailyLinux in Tutorials and Guides » 24 Comments »

How To: Install VirtualBox 3.2 on Fedora 13

This is a step by step tutorial on how to get VirtualBox 3.2 up and running on Fedora 13. Specifically, this guide was written using the VirtualBox 3.2.0 (32-bit) version. It can be adapted to upcoming versions and different CPUs (64-bit). The folks at VirtualBox have made it easy to install for Fedora users and I’m going to show you how in a few easy steps. Right, open a terminal window and let’s get to it…

Step 1: Download, Copy, and Edit Repository File

This is a one-liner command that will download, copy, and edit the VirtualBox repository file at once.

su -c 'wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo; sed -i "s,enabled=0,enabled=1,g" /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo'

Step 2: Update Repository and Install VirtualBox-3.2

This command will update yum repositories to include the new VirtualBox repository file we copied in the last step and then it will attempt to install VirtualBox-3.2 with dependencies.

su -c 'yum update; yum install -y VirtualBox-3.2 dkms gcc'

Step 3: Run VirtualBox Setup Script

This command will run the VirtualBox driver setup script.

su -c '/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup'

If you’re having issues, try installing “kernel-PAE-devel” or “kernel-devel”.

Step 4: Setup Groups for VirtualBox Access

This command will add you to the vboxusers group. Replace “username” with your actual username found by using the whoami command.

su -c 'usermod -G vboxusers -a username'

If you find that you’re getting SELinux errors or denials, try adding VirtualBox.so as an exception with this command:
su -c 'chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so'

Step 5: Run VirtualBox

Finally, run VirtualBox and have fun with it!

VirtualBox

Appendix A: To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

Appendix B: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image [Tutorial/Guide]

Appendix C: Shrinking a VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

Shrinking a Dynamic VirtualBox Disk Image

Feel free to donate if this post prevented any headaches! Another way to show your appreciation is to take a gander at these relative ads that you may be interested in:

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There's 24 Comments So Far

kistej
May 26th, 2010 at 4:04 pm

Hi,
how do you call the kernel-source package in fedora? My install failed because the missing kernel sources and I do not know how it is call in fedora (just changed from suse and in that the package was called kernel-source).

Thanks a lot!
k
Derek@TheDailyLinux
May 26th, 2010 at 4:59 pm

“yum install -y kernel-devel” ought to take care of it for you. ;)
Nasser M. Abbasi
June 1st, 2010 at 7:00 am

I followed the above instructions. It can’t find the kernel sources. WhenI do

yum install -y kernel-devel

It telling me that the sources allready installed? What do I do now?

I am using fedora 13, 64 bit

# yum update; yum install -y VirtualBox-3.2 dkms gcc

……

Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing : kernel-devel-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64 1/2
Installing : dkms-2.1.0.1-1.fc12.noarch 2/2

Installed:
dkms.noarch 0:2.1.0.1-1.fc12

Dependency Installed:
kernel-devel.x86_64 0:2.6.33.5-112.fc13

Complete!

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

Stopping VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module [FAILED]
(Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)

# cat /var/log/vbox-install.log
Attempting to install using DKMS

Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/vboxdrv/3.2.0/source ->
/usr/src/vboxdrv-3.2.0

DKMS: add Completed.

Error! Your kernel source for kernel 2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64 cannot be found at
/lib/modules/2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64/build or /lib/modules/2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64/source.
You can use the –kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it’s located.
Failed to install using DKMS, attempting to install without
Makefile:159: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR= and run Make again. Stop.

# yum install -y kernel-devel

Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Package kernel-devel-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

# VirtualBox

WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module
available for the current kernel (2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64) or it failed to
load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.
WARNING: The compilation of the vboxdrv.ko kernel module failed during the
installation for some reason. Starting a VM will not be possible.
Please consult the User Manual for build instructions.

thanks
–Nasser
Derek@TheDailyLinux
June 1st, 2010 at 7:55 am

From what I can see, you’ve installed kernel version 2.6.33.5-112.fc13 (kernel-devel.x86_64 0:2.6.33.5-112.fc13) but DKMS is trying to look for kernel version 2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64 (kernel 2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64).

For the record, I have never installed a 64-bit version of VirtualBox. I would suggest making sure that your packages are all up to date with ‘yum update’.
Nasser M. Abbasi
June 1st, 2010 at 11:15 am

Hello Derek@TheDailyLinux;

I did do yum update, and I also below show all the steps again, and it still says it can’t find the sources. please see below. You are correct that the kernel sources are not there. I have this:

# ls -l /lib/modules/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 4096 May 31 06:04 2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64
drwxr-xr-x. 7 root root 4096 Jun 1 06:31 2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64

# cd /lib/modules/2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64
# cd source
bash: cd: source: No such file or directory

But the sources for the 2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64 exist:

# cd /lib/modules/2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64
# cd source
# ls -l
total 2716
drwxr-xr-x. 25 root root 4096 Jun 1 06:48 arch
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Jun 1 06:48 block
drwxr-xr-x. 3 root root 4096 Jun 1 06:48 crypto
etc…

So, when I tell it to use the sources that exist, it goes one step more, but it still fail:

# export KERN_DIR=/lib/modules/2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64/source
# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
Stopping VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Starting VirtualBox kernel module [FAILED]
(modprobe vboxdrv failed. Please use ‘dmesg’ to find out why)

# dmesg | grep vboxdrv
vboxdrv: version magic ’2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64 SMP mod_unload ‘ should be ’2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64 SMP mod_unload ‘
[root@cpe-75-84-8-49 source]#

So, I guess what I need is the sources for 2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64 , which is what vbox wants, but what I have is the sources for 2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64, which is not what vbox wants!

How to get the correct kernel sources?

# yum update
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Setting up Update Process
No Packages marked for Update

# wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo; sed -i “s,enabled=0,enabled=1,g” /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo
–2010-06-01 10:36:04– http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo
Resolving download.virtualbox.org… 137.254.16.69
Connecting to download.virtualbox.org|137.254.16.69|:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: 238 [/text]
Saving to: “/etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo”

100%[==================================================================================>] 238 –.-K/s in 0s

2010-06-01 10:36:04 (30.9 MB/s) – “/etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo” saved [238/238]

# yum update; yum install -y VirtualBox-3.2 dkms gcc
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
virtualbox | 951 B 00:00
Setting up Update Process
No Packages marked for Update
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
Package VirtualBox-3.2-3.2.0_61806_fedora13-1.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Package dkms-2.1.0.1-1.fc12.noarch already installed and latest version
Package gcc-4.4.4-2.fc13.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
Stopping VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module [FAILED]
(Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)

# cat /var/log/vbox-install.log
Attempting to install using DKMS
removing old DKMS module vboxdrv version 3.2.0

——————————
Deleting module version: 3.2.0
completely from the DKMS tree.
——————————
Done.

Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/vboxdrv/3.2.0/source ->
/usr/src/vboxdrv-3.2.0

DKMS: add Completed.

Error! Your kernel source for kernel 2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64 cannot be found at
/lib/modules/2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64/build or /lib/modules/2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64/source.
You can use the –kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it’s located.
Failed to install using DKMS, attempting to install without
Makefile:159: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR= and run Make again. Stop.

–Nasser
Derek@TheDailyLinux
June 1st, 2010 at 5:42 pm
I’m sort of at a loss here and I don’t know how to explain the issues you’re seeing. If you need the kernel sources for the current running kernel, you may be able to use the following untested commands:
```
yum install kernel-source-`uname -r`
yum install kernel-dev-`uname -r`
```
Nasser M. Abbasi
June 1st, 2010 at 8:40 pm

Thank you for the suggestion. I tried your command, but no packages found:

# yum install kernel-source-`uname -r`
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
No package kernel-source-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64 available.
Nothing to do

# yum install kernel-dev-`uname -r`
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
Setting up Install Process
No package kernel-dev-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.x86_64 available.
Nothing to do
Derek@TheDailyLinux
June 1st, 2010 at 9:45 pm

The only thing I could find in the Fedora 13 documentation for “kernel source” was this page:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/13/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Linux_Kernel.html

At this point, you’ll want to bring up any questions you have with the Fedora Forums.
Nasser M. Abbasi
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:00 am

Hello;

Good news. Someone must have fixed something at the repository. I did an update now, and repeated the same steps you showed, and it all went ok ! Can start VirtualBox ok now.

Thanks for your help.

yum update; yum install -y VirtualBox-3.2 dkms gcc
Loaded plugins: presto, refresh-packagekit
virtualbox | 951 B 00:00
….
Dependencies Resolved

Total download size: 2.7 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Package dkms-2.1.0.1-1.fc12.noarch already installed and latest version
Package gcc-4.4.4-2.fc13.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Resolving Dependencies
–> Running transaction check
—> Package VirtualBox-3.2.x86_64 0:3.2.0_61806_fedora13-1 set to be updated
–> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

Installing:
VirtualBox-3.2 x86_64 3.2.0_61806_fedora13-1 virtualbox 42 M

Downloading Packages:
VirtualBox-3.2-3.2.0_61806_fedora13-1.x86_64.rpm | 42 MB 00:41
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing : VirtualBox-3.2-3.2.0_61806_fedora13-1.x86_64 1/1

Creating group ‘vboxusers’. VM users must be member of that group!

No precompiled module for this kernel found — trying to build one. Messages
emitted during module compilation will be logged to /var/log/vbox-install.log.

Success!

Installed:
VirtualBox-3.2.x86_64 0:3.2.0_61806_fedora13-1

Complete!

#/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
Stopping VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Removing old VirtualBox netadp kernel module [ OK ]
Removing old VirtualBox netflt kernel module [ OK ]
Removing old VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Starting VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Derek@TheDailyLinux
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:43 am

That’s great news! Thanks for coming back to share.
Mohaed talaat
June 12th, 2010 at 2:50 pm

i just run
yum install binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel kernel-headers kernel-devel

dkms
and update kernel
249 designs
June 26th, 2010 at 1:13 pm

Awesome. Worked perfect.. I had to install wget (yum install -y wget) first but it worked perfect.
Derek@TheDailyLinux
June 26th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
That’s weird! The Fedora installation that I tested this on had ‘wget’ installed by default. Hmmm…

You could’ve used ‘curl’ as well. Something like this would’ve done it:
```
su -c 'curl http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo; sed -i "s,enabled=0,enabled=1,g" /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo'
```
249 Designs
June 29th, 2010 at 5:03 am

I install from the live CD, not the full DVD, so that could be why ‘wget’ wasn’t included.I have since installed from the DVD and ‘wget’ was installed… Strange, right.
Dado-PG-MNE
July 8th, 2010 at 5:27 am

Thank you for great help!!!
These instructions were the best of all I could find!!!
Emilio Anaya
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 pm

download the rpm kernel-devel from

# http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/14000745/dir/fedora_13/com/kernel-devel-2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64.rpm.html

install the rpm

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
Thomas Shores
July 30th, 2010 at 8:36 pm

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I’ve been using qemu, which has worked fine until Fedora 13, at which point I was unable to successfully install Windows XP as a guest — an unresolved bug is hanging around. So I followed your instructions to the letter and they worked perfectly. Installed guest Windows XP without a single hitch!

I really appreciate tutorials like yours — they save rather ordinary users like myself an infinite amount of work. Thanks again!
Martin Grotzke
August 6th, 2010 at 5:49 am

Hi,

just to share this: I’m running a PAE kernel (uname -r: 2.6.33.6-147.2.4.fc13.i686.PAE) and had to `yum install kernel-PAE-devel` instead of kernel-devel.

Cheers,
Martin
Peter
August 18th, 2010 at 1:04 pm

Thank you, Martin.

Installing ‘kernel-PAE-devel’ instead of ‘kernel-devel’ worked for me too!!

Peter
Tan
August 27th, 2010 at 9:44 am

Appreciate advice to resolve problem when running Virtual box driver script:

su -c ‘/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup’
Stopping VirtualBox kernel module [ OK ]
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module [FAILED]

Error message:
===========
Attempting to install using DKMS
removing old DKMS module vboxdrv version 3.2.8
——————————
Deleting module version: 3.2.8
completely from the DKMS tree.
——————————
Done.

Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/vboxdrv/3.2.8/source ->
/usr/src/vboxdrv-3.2.8
DKMS: add Completed.

Error! Your kernel source for kernel 2.6.33.6-147.fc13.i686 cannot be found at
/lib/modules/2.6.33.6-147.fc13.i686/build or /lib/modules/2.6.33.6-147.fc13.i686/source.
You can use the –kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it’s located.
Failed to install using DKMS, attempting to install without
Makefile:159: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR= and run Make again. Stop.
================================================
Derek@TheDailyLinux
August 30th, 2010 at 7:43 am

It’s having a hard time finding your kernel source. Try installing kernel-devel or kernel-PAE-devel with ‘yum install kernel-devel’.
sae
September 3rd, 2010 at 3:22 am

Do this:
export KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/2.6.34.6-47.fc13.x86_64/
Shehan Mendis
September 4th, 2010 at 6:38 am

Thank you.. And installing Virtual Box worked.