Has anyone successfully installed RHEL 9 on Virtualbox?

[Tested in Production]

Hello,

I'm curious if anyone has successfully installed RHEL 9 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) version 9 on Virtualbox? At the Red Hat discussion (bottom, sorry, I can't post a proper web link until tomorrow) people have encountered difficulty installing RHEL 9 (I'd like to see how Oracle Linux 9 works after it's ready too) on VirtualBox.

NOTE: I'm speaking of Red Hat Linux version 9 that was released in May of 2022.

2nd question - same as above, only, when Oracle Linux 9 arrives - if anyone has successfully installed Oracle Linux 9 (Oracle Linux 9 is not available as I type this now at "yum oracle com /oracle-linux-isos.html" ) on VirtualBox.

For reference, please see this discussion at Red Hat "access redhat com /discussions/6535371"

Thanks
"Tested_in_Production"

[toracat]

I have installed RHEL 9.0 on Virtualbox 6.1.34 without any issue. However, my host is Linux, not Windows.

[Alvaro Palma]

It seems there's an issue regarding Virtualization. Bottom line, you need to turn it off to make it work. This WASN'T required for RHEL 8, not sure what happened in RHEL 9.0 (maybe the kernel 5.x has different prerrequisites than the 4.x in RHEL 8?).

[mpack]

It seems there's an issue regarding Virtualization. Bottom line, you need to turn it off to make it work.

I'm afraid that makes no sense to me. You can't turn off virtualization (if by that you mean VT-x or AMD-v being enabled in the PC BIOS) as VirtualBox needs that for every VM. VirtualBox v6 provides no option to run without it.

[Alvaro Palma]

Well, at least a couple of people already tried that and worked:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlmaLinux/comm ... malinux_9/

which refers to

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=99390

[scottgus1]

regarding Virtualization Hyper-V. Bottom line, you need to turn it off to make it work.

FTFY. The forum link you posted is for turning off Hyper-V, a Windows-provided service.

Turning off "virtualization" can also refer to turning off the VT-x/AMD/V/SVM of the host computer in its BIOS, which cannot be done if one wants to run Virtualbox 6.1.

Hyper-V is not VT-x/AMD/V/SVM. One can and must have VT-x/AMD/V/SVM turned on. But one might be able to turn off Hyper-V, and in many cases, for best Virtualbox performance, one must turn off Hyper-V.

[Alvaro Palma]

OK, my mistake. But I think the point remains valid, that (Hyper-V enabled) seems to be the issue initially posted.

Just as a side note, I was able to install AlmaLinux9 (which is pretty much the same as RHEL9) in "another" virtualization software by turning off that feature (as the "other" software allows to do it in a simple manner than VirtualBox). In that case I was also facing the same issue (kernel panic when trying to install without disabling Hyper-V.

I haven't looked in the bug tracker to check if this is an ackowledged issue or something that will be eventually solved, as it doesn't happen regarding RHEL8 (meaning, it's not necessary to turn off Hyper-V to make it work).

[scottgus1]

I think the point remains valid, that (Hyper-V enabled) seems to be the issue initially posted.

Yes, you're right. It's just that your initial terminology 'virtualization' was a bit vague. Even Virtualbox and VMware are 'virtualization' in a loose sense. To tighten up, there's Hyper-V itself, and there's the host hardware virtualization VT-x/AMD-V/SVM.

turning off that feature (as the "other" software allows to do it in a simple manner than VirtualBox)

A little vague there, too, I'm afraid. What is "that feature"? Hyper-V? Host hardware virtualization VT-x/AMD-V/SVM? Something else?

Virtualbox does not have a way to turn off Hyper-V or to turn off host hardware virtualization VT-x/AMD-V/SVM. One has to run the correct commands on the Windows host OS to turn off Hyper-V. And turning off host hardware virtualization VT-x/AMD-V/SVM would kill any use of Virtualbox 6.1, or 64-bit VMs in earlier Virtualbox.

[mpack]

@Alvaro Palma: you are clearly working with obsolete information, not fully understood. VirtualBox used to have an option to run some VMs without requiring VT-x or AMD-v, provided the VM was limited in certain ways (no 64bits, no data execution prevention, single core only). That option has been removed since it was basically obsolete - not compatible with modern OS kernels, especially the "no data execution" part.

[Alvaro Palma]

@mpack, I think you misunderstood my point.

Currently I have in my system:

WIndows 10, latest patch, Hyper-V enabled
Virtual Box 6.1.34 (latest available)
Guest1: AlmaLinux 8 (kernel 4.x) working fine
Guest2: Tried with AlmaLinux9, RHEL9 and CentOS9. None even installs, all of them throws kernel panic. My hunch (although it can be very wrong) is that this is related to kernel 5.x. Disabling Hyper-V seems to fix the issue, as suggested in the attached links, but I haven't tried personally (as I'd like to keep my current environment since it works for my previous guest).

[Tested in Production]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

[Alvaro Palma]

Were you able to install without disabling Hyper-V?

[Woody_98]

Still not able to install Cent9 guest (win10 host) with WSL and all hyperv components removed.

[AndyCot]

Try the test build 6.1.35. I have not installed the one released last night, but the previous two test builds allowed you to run WSL2 and VirtualBox without disabling Hyper-V.

Looks like you have not been reading other thread posts. As such I would advice to occasionally use the search option to see if your reported issue has been discussed on other threads and if they contain a fix or work around.

[Alvaro Palma]

Tested using 6.1.36. Still failing if Hyper-V is enabled