Bug in Darwin Additions Preventing Install on MacOS Catalina and Up

Discussions about using Mac OS X guests (on Apple hardware) in VirtualBox.
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gamu
Posts: 1
Joined: 6. Jan 2023, 01:12

Bug in Darwin Additions Preventing Install on MacOS Catalina and Up

Post by gamu »

Hi all, trying to figure out how to install guest additions on MacOS guest. But ran into issues like everyone else. There are too many threads opened already, here is another.

I figured from the install.log that a post install script in the installation package is failing. The line is touch "/System/Library/Extensions/" in VirtualBox-6.1.40/src/VBox/Additions/darwin/Installer/VBoxGuestAdditionsKEXTs/postflight:64.

Since MacOS Catalina, Apple has put in additional security feature to prevent modification to the system directories. In Catalina you can turn off SIP and the touch may succeed, but in Big Sur additional security was put in place to require remounting / as readwrite. And apparently in Monterey even that is no longer possible. You can't remount / or touch the /System/Library/Extensions/ even if you turned off SIP. So now this line will always fail.

I believe the addition was written with Mojave in mind back in 2018. Don't think touching KExt directory is necessary. As you can see in the next line (kextcache -update-volume / || true), it is a best effort update.

Hoping to run into a dev here who can submit a code change for us. All that needs to happen is make the touch best effort. Thanks so much

Code: Select all

touch "/System/Library/Extensions/" || true
fth0
Volunteer
Posts: 5661
Joined: 14. Feb 2019, 03:06
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Linux, Windows 10, ...
Location: Germany

Re: Bug in Darwin Additions Preventing Install on MacOS Catalina and Up

Post by fth0 »

Please create a ticket in the Bugtracker.
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