Re: [gentoo-user] Kernel parameters for VirtualBox

[J. Roeleveld]

On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 05:01:51 PM 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:

[....]

> > 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.

Shouldn't be necessary on the host.

> > > 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.

I actually run 4.3.28 myself at the moment.


> > > 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.

I use the order listed above and all modules actually get loaded.

One other thing, are you in the "vboxusers" group?
My user is and I have the following devices:

% ls -lsa /dev/vbox*
0 crw------- 1 root root      10, 56 Feb  7 13:16 /dev/vboxdrv
0 crw------- 1 root root      10, 55 Feb  7 13:16 /dev/vboxdrvu
0 crw------- 1 root root      10, 54 Feb  7 13:16 /dev/vboxnetctl

/dev/vboxusb:
total 0
0 drwxr-x---  3 root vboxusers   60 Feb  7 15:24 .
0 drwxr-xr-x 18 root root      6360 Feb 17 18:13 ..
0 drwxr-x---  2 root vboxusers  100 Feb 17 18:13 001

What do you get for the following:

% ls -lsa /dev/vbox*
% lsmod | grep vbox


--
Joost