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modprobe vboxguest failed

By Emma Valentine

I am running an Ubuntu Server (12.0.4-beta2; kernel 3.2.0) in VirtualBox (host is Win7) and I want to use shared folders. I've followed the manual to set up vbox guest additions but this error occurs with every startup:

Starting the VirtualBox Guest Additions ...fail!
(modprobe vboxguest failed)
Starting VirtualBox Guest Addition service VirtualBox Additions module not loaded!

When I try it myself:

$ modprobe vboxguest
FATAL: Module vboxguest not found.

Did I do something wrong, what do I need to fix it? Thanks for help.

4

8 Answers

I had this problem today, and solved it by installing the kernel-headers

yum install dkms binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel kernel-headers 

then

yum install kernel-devel

or

yum install kernel-PAE-devel

Then re-run VBoxLinuxAdditions.run.

6

I discovered here that the standard guest additions install includes a built-in setup function, so there's no need to reinstall:

/etc/init.d/vboxadd setup

This gave me the error about missing kernel sources, so as brendan's answer, yum install kernel-devel, and then that setup command works, and everything seems to be back to normal again!

1

I had a similar problem today, but it turns out the vagrant-vbguest plugin was not installed. So, in the folder with my Vagrantfile:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest

That solved it for me.

1

on Centos 8, first run

sudo yum install elfutils-libelf-devel
1

When installing from an ISO that has had point fixes made to it, the kernel-devel headers will most likely be a newer version than the kernel that shipped with the ISO.

You need to make sure everything is up to date and in lockstep.

What worked for me on a CentOS 8 install was the following:

  1. sudo yum update
  2. sudo yum install binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel elfutils-libelf-devel kernel-headers kernel-devel
  3. sudo reboot
  4. Insert VBox Guest Additions again

Had the same problem on a Debian guest. Based on dualed's answer:

  1. Find out your kernel architecture, i.e.:

    $ uname -r
    4.9.0-3-686
  2. Install make and the kernel headers (replace "686" with your architecture: "amd64", "686-pae",...):

    $ sudo apt install make linux-headers-686
  3. Finally, install the Guest Additions:

    $ sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

I followed till this below : None of them cleared issue. After below step, worked fine.

sudo yum install elfutils-libelf-devel

My environment: OVM : 6.1 Oracle Linux 7.9

I've found this and sort everything out!:

yum install kernel-uek-headers-$(uname -r)

yum install kernel-uek-devel-$(uname -r)

it's intall what VBoxLinuxAdditions.run needs.

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