Guest additions

[Paolo_R]

Windows 7 Pro 64 bit + VB 3.1.6 + Solaris

I have attached Guest additions to my Solaris VM. When I boot Solaris, a CD icon of the Additions appears on my desk top. Am I supposed to install the Additions manually? I was under the impression that they would install automatically.

[SSCBrian]

For Solaris, you'll want to get a command line, cd into the directory that they live in (/cdrom/vboxadditions_3.1.6_59338 is where mine are) and then do a pkgadd -d on the appropriate one for Solaris (VBoxSolarisAdditions.pkg on mine). If upgrading from a previous version, you'd have to do a pkgrm of the old ones first or the pkgadd will fail. When you can't remember the already installed package name (like I never seem to be able to), a "pkginfo | grep box" will help narrow down the choices of which one to remove in that case...

[Paolo_R]

Thanks for your help.

OK, that seems to have installed OK (once I discovered getting a command line meant opening a terminal!). I presume I no longer need to mount to Guest Additions.iso as they are now installed?

[SSCBrian]

Thanks for your help.

OK, that seems to have installed OK (once I discovered getting a command line meant opening a terminal!). I presume I no longer need to mount to Guest Additions.iso as they are now installed?

That's correct.

[Ramshankar]

Autorun should work, you would not need to even open a terminal manually. Have you not tried double-clicking the mounted ISO?

[SSCBrian]

Autorun should work, you would not need to even open a terminal manually. Have you not tried double-clicking the mounted ISO?

Autorun doesn't work on Solaris & GNU/Linux distros that I've tried unless you're logged into the GUI as root (which is not recommended for it's own set of reasons).

[Ramshankar]

On Solaris guests, the AutoRun will utilize pfexec if it's available and the user can assume the role of root. Otherwise it will check and use 'su' and prompt the user to enter a password. None of this requires logging into GDM (the GUI) as root.

[SSCBrian]

On Solaris guests, the AutoRun will utilize pfexec if it's available and the user can assume the role of root. Otherwise it will check and use 'su' and prompt the user to enter a password. None of this requires logging into GDM (the GUI) as root.

Interesting. Do you install Solaris with some special options? It's never done that for me on any of my various Solaris installs into VBox. Autorun just flashes real quick and nothing happens.