Cannot compile Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye

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MuratUrsavas
Posts: 4
Joined: 27. Dec 2021, 16:24

Cannot compile Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye

Post by MuratUrsavas »

Hi,

I've tried to find a solution on both here and web for my problem but couldn't find a proper solution. If I try to install Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye guest, it gives an error and cannot finish the install. Here's the output log:

Code: Select all

Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 6.1.30 Guest Additions for Linux........
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Copying additional installer modules ...
Installing additional modules ...
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting.
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel 
modules.  This may take a while.
VirtualBox Guest Additions: To build modules for other installed kernels, run
VirtualBox Guest Additions:   /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup <version>
VirtualBox Guest Additions: or
VirtualBox Guest Additions:   /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup all
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the modules for kernel 5.10.0-10-686-pae.

VirtualBox Guest Additions: Look at /var/log/vboxadd-setup.log to find out what 
went wrong
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Running kernel modules will not be replaced until 
the system is restarted
Two other log files has been attached. Basically the problem is vmalloc method. Kernel, from version 5.8 accepts fewer arguments compared to the older ones. And right now Debian Bullseye uses 5.10 kernel and VBoxLinuxAdditions still uses the old argument count.

Since I've already seen reports on this forum that it is actually compiled on even newer kernels like 5.15 I must be missing something in my install. And also this problem is pretty visible and could be caught easily before the release.

What do you recommend? How can I install Guest Additions in this Debian 11 guest?

Thanks in advance.

/// Murat
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MuratUrsavas
Posts: 4
Joined: 27. Dec 2021, 16:24

Re: Cannot compile Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye

Post by MuratUrsavas »

I think this is due to 32bit PAE guest kernel. Everybody else is probably running 64bit guests but I tried to install 32bit explicitly. This Slackware forum page has a great explanation:

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www linuxquestions org / questions/slackware-14/virtualbox-for-slackware-users-4175689027/page11.html
Note: Can't post proper links due to a forum rule.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Cannot compile Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye

Post by scottgus1 »

Have you got the Guest Additions installed now?
MuratUrsavas
Posts: 4
Joined: 27. Dec 2021, 16:24

Re: Cannot compile Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye

Post by MuratUrsavas »

Nope, waiting for a solution or I'll try to continue without it. It would be very slow on disk side especially, but will be used like a headless IoT test node, so I'm not expecting a heavy load.

And also I'll test a 64bit version today.
MuratUrsavas
Posts: 4
Joined: 27. Dec 2021, 16:24

Re: Cannot compile Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye

Post by MuratUrsavas »

Can confirm that this happens with a 32bit Linux kernel newer than 5.8. With the same configuration on amd64 version, everything is fine.

I guess the VBoxLinuxAdditions are not tested against 32bit kernels anymore.
scottgus1
Site Moderator
Posts: 20965
Joined: 30. Dec 2009, 20:14
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows, Linux

Re: Cannot compile Guest Additions on Debian 11 Bullseye

Post by scottgus1 »

There's a lot of folks still running 32-bit OS's in a VM, so I doubt he devs are intentionally abandoning 32-bit VM support. See the manual, section 3.1: there's lots of 32-bit Linux VM families still represented, though I don't know if the list includes your particular OS & kernel.

If you can pin down a specific method to reproduce this, a post on the Bugtracker with VM logs from working and failing setups may help the devs check if a bug has crept in.
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