Re: [gentoo-user] Kernel parameters for VirtualBox

[Mick]

On Wednesday 17 Feb 2016 17:01:51 Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Wednesday 17 February 2016 15:11:50 J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 01:32:56 PM Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > I'm going round in circles here. I've been running VirtualBox and
> > > BOINC for years with no problems to speak of.
> > >
> > > Over the last year or more I've experienced mysterious failures in many
> > > programs, some of them real nuisances, and recently I decided to replace
> > > my RAM modules with a single matched set, which seems to have done the
> > > trick - so far! It's required complete recompilation of everything, and
> > > throwing away quite a lot of data that seemed to have been damaged at
> > > some time (hello KMail).
> >
> > Corruption due to bad memory can't be blamed on the actual software.
>
> No, of course not. It's just that KMail can't cope with whatever kind of
> damage was caused. Archiving and importing the 30,000 mails didn't cure it
> either.
>
> > > Now however I can't get VirtualBox running properly. I've tried the
> > > latest
> > > stable version and two testing versions, but at every login via KDM I
> > > get
> > > a
> > > pop-up notice "VBoxClient: the VirtualBox kernel service is not
> > > running."
> > > That's without any clients active or trying to be. If I then start
> > > virtualbox- guest-additions I get this:
> > >
> > > # /etc/init.d/virtualbox-guest-additions start
> > >
> > >  * Loading kernel modules
> > >
> > > modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'vboxguest': No such device
> > > modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'vboxsf': No such device
> > >
> > >  * ERROR: virtualbox-guest-additions failed to start
> >
> > This is ONLY for guests, NOT the host.
>
> As I thought. However, some BOINC projects download a .vdi file and present
> it to VirtualBox as a guest. I wasn't sure (while going round in circles)
> whether that required me to set some kernel options to suit.
>
> > > I assume I'm missing something in my kernel config, but I can't see
> > > what.
> > >
> > > linux # grep -i virt .config
> > > # CONFIG_VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN is not set
> > > CONFIG_HAVE_VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN=y
> > > CONFIG_VIRT_TO_BUS=y
> > > # CONFIG_FB_VIRTUAL is not set
> > > # CONFIG_SND_VIRTUOSO is not set
> > > CONFIG_VIRT_DRIVERS=y
> > > # Virtio drivers
> > > # CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI is not set
> > > # CONFIG_VIRTIO_MMIO is not set
> > > # CONFIG_DEBUG_VIRTUAL is not set
> > > CONFIG_VIRTUALIZATION=y
> >
> > VirtualBox does NOT use these.
> > I only have the following set:
> > # CONFIG_VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN is not set
> > CONFIG_HAVE_VIRT_CPU_ACCOUNTING_GEN=y
> > CONFIG_VIRT_TO_BUS=y
>
> Okay. I've tried that and I still get the pop-up notice "VBoxClient: the
> VirtualBox kernel service is not running." This is with version 4.3.32. I'll
> try later versions and see what happens. Thanks for the info.
>
> > > Most of those unset values are for when this kernel is running as a
> > > guest
> > > of another OS, so I assume I don't need them when running as the host
> > > OS.
> > > Others I can't set because they're hidden until I set the values to be a
> > > guest.
> > >
> > > I can find lots of other people struggling with this and similar
> > > problems,
> > > but no fix.
> > >
> > > Any ideas here?
> >
> > Yes, for the host, make sure you load the virtualbox modules:
> >
> > % lsmod | grep vbox
> > vboxpci                12760  0
> > vboxnetflt             16280  0
> > vboxnetadp             17808  0
> > vboxdrv               347894  3 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt,vboxpci
> >
> >
> > I achieve this with the following:
> >
> > % cat /etc/conf.d/modules | grep vbox
> > modules="vboxdrv vboxnetadp vboxnetflt vboxpci"
> >
> > These can be found in " app-emulation/virtualbox-modules "
> >
> > It tells you to do this in the post-emerge:
> >  * If you are using sys-apps/openrc, please add "vboxdrv", "vboxnetflt"
> >  * and "vboxnetadp" to:
> >  *   /etc/conf.d/modules
>
> Yes, of course I did that long ago. I also found that it's important to
> specify vboxnetadp before vboxnetflt, otherwise adp doesn't get loaded.

Hmm ... it loads up here.  However, I've now set it up as you suggest.
-- 
Regards,
Mick