Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Discussions about using Linux guests in VirtualBox.
helmanfrow
Posts: 3
Joined: 26. Oct 2017, 12:49

Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by helmanfrow »

Hi, thanks for reading.
I've been having trouble installing Guest Additions on Ubuntu.
I am using the latest VirtualBox on a freshly-reformatted ThinkPad P50 running fully-updated Windows 10 installed from the factory image USB drive.

(As a side note I reformatted after [presumably] infecting my machine with some kind of malware (whoops). I created the recovery drive using Lenovo Companion on the infected OS.)

All virtualization options are enabled in the BIOS (latest). Hyper-V is disabled in Windows Features.

I created a machine using the latest Ubuntu Image, 17.10, and it completes installation but when it boots to the desktop for the first time there's an alert window open which reads:

Code: Select all

VBoxClient: (seamless): failed to start, Stage: Setting guest IRQ filter mask Error:
 VERR_INTERNAL_ERROR
I close the message and mount the Guest Additions ISO from the 'Devices' menu and run the software.

Code: Select all

Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 5.2.0 Guest Additions for Linux........
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Removing installed version 5.2.0 of VirtualBox Guest Additions...
Copying additional installer modules ...
Installing additional modules ...
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules.
This system is currently not set up to build kernel modules.
Please install the gcc make perl packages from your distribution.
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Running kernel modules will not be replaced until the system is restarted
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting.
Press Return to close this window...
I have no idea what to do with this. I've been digging through forums for hours but haven't found a solution that addresses this issue specifically. I'm still hunting but would be grateful for personal guidance!
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mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by mpack »

I see that you posted in "Windows Hosts". What makes you think this is an issue with your host? The actual question only seems to concern the Ubuntu guest.

Moving this topic to "Linux Guests" in the meantime.

Anyway the problem seems straightforward:
Error message wrote: "This system is currently not set up to build kernel modules.
Please install the gcc make perl packages from your distribution."
User manual section 4.2.2 gives instruction on how install the GAs on Linux.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by Perryg »

It also appears that Ubuntu 17.10 comes with its own pre-installed version of the guest additions. These must be removed prior to installing the ones from VirtualBox.

Note: still trying to figure out a clean way to do this since their additions are actually "ko" files tied to the kernel ( really strange ).
helmanfrow
Posts: 3
Joined: 26. Oct 2017, 12:49

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by helmanfrow »

I have to wonder whether there's something about my hardware that's causing these issues. I've used VirtualBox on several other computers and things have always gone smoothly.
helmanfrow
Posts: 3
Joined: 26. Oct 2017, 12:49

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by helmanfrow »

Perryg wrote:It also appears that Ubuntu 17.10 comes with its own pre-installed version of the guest additions. These must be removed prior to installing the ones from VirtualBox.

Note: still trying to figure out a clean way to do this since their additions are actually "ko" files tied to the kernel ( really strange ).
I've looked through some Ubuntu documentation and see nothing about built-in Guest Additions for VirtualBox. Would love to see your source.
Perryg
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Posts: 34369
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Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by Perryg »

Easy enough for you to find out but if there are any non-believers out there here is a LiveCD running ( not installed )
Ubuntu-17.10-LiveCD.png
Ubuntu-17.10-LiveCD.png (80.59 KiB) Viewed 64088 times
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by Perryg »

And here is the location of the ko files
Ubuntu-17.10 LiveCD-VBoxguest.png
Ubuntu-17.10 LiveCD-VBoxguest.png (34.69 KiB) Viewed 64086 times
So far all I have found that stops the distro files from conflicting has been to rename the vbox folder so they fail to load but that is far from desirable.
I will figure it out in time but limited in the amount of time I can spend on this right now.
socratis
Site Moderator
Posts: 27330
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Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by socratis »

A couple of notes:
  • helmanfrow, you must have missed the actual error message, to which mpack pointed you to. The lack of the build/development tools. You'll need to address that, independent of what goes on with the Ubuntu GAs.
  • Perry, I'm not particularly fluent in "Ubuntunese", but, in the "Software and Updates" » "Additional Drivers", there is a "guest utilities from virtualbox-guest-x11". Do you happen to know what this does, or at least what it's supposed to do? It is not activated by default, and it's listed as "proprietary", i.e. not from Ubuntu. Same thing with a "VirtualBox Guest Service".
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
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If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
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Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by Perryg »

The "virtualbox-guest-x11" do just that. Provide the Xorg portion package instead of the wayland ones.

You will not be able to see that the guest additions are actually installed ( execpt by the session information, lsmod. Etc. ) because technically they are not. They have gotten sneaky and instead of an installable package they used proprietary kernel modules ( ko ) that are loaded at boot. These provide the vboxvideo ( albeit an older release ) and vboxsf, but that is just about it. copy/paste will not work and of course DnD either. They seem to want you to install their own packages of the guest additions which of course will prevent us from helping at all, so the burden will fall on them I suppose.

All I can find is to remove their kernel modules, reboot, and install the official one if you want to keep up to date. I know that others are working on the same approach and even trying to build the support into their kernel versions. I see this as a big mistake kind of like systemd but who am I? Take something that works and is easy to modify and use then turn it into just another version of Windows where everything has to be difficult. Oh well.
socratis
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Posts: 27330
Joined: 22. Oct 2010, 11:03
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Win(*>98), Linux*, OSX>10.5
Location: Greece

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by socratis »

If you plan on enabling the "guest utilities from virtualbox-guest-x11" take a snapshot beforehand! You won't be able to boot afterwards! At least my setup wasn't...
Perryg wrote:I know that others are working on the same approach and even trying to build the support into their kernel versions.
I've been seeing it as well, and I honestly don't understand the additional effort, blood, sweat and tears that has to go into that. From reformatting the headers to constants, to ... name it, but maybe it's just me.

And I don't understand as well, why they if they want the GAs to be included in the distro, they simply don't take the existing ones (that actually work) and substitute them with their own that most (if not all) of the times half-work. And that includes the distros that have theological/philosophical/existential differences or questions. I'll close by plagiarizing your post: Oh well...
Do NOT send me Personal Messages (PMs) for troubleshooting, they are simply deleted.
Do NOT reply with the "QUOTE" button, please use the "POST REPLY", at the bottom of the form.
If you obfuscate any information requested, I will obfuscate my response. These are virtual UUIDs, not real ones.
Bubbles
Posts: 1
Joined: 28. Oct 2017, 17:54

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by Bubbles »

A few notes to clarify the disagreements above and to provide more detail:
  • This problem also exists on Xubuntu 16.04. (And yes I realize it is a linux guest issue not necessarily windows host; I didn't start this thread.)
    • The "problem" being that screen integration doesn't work properly (screen won't resize, seamless doesn't work, and/or the additions won't build - those all seem related in this case).
  • It happens even with gcc, make, and perl installed - also with build-essential, dkms, linux-headers, and other stuff that has variously (often incorrectly) asserted that needs to be installed (see below).
  • It happens with even the latest version of guest additions, 5.2.1-118447.
  • It also occurred under:
    • 5.2.0 GA version
    • 5.1.24 GA
  • Ubuntu most definitely does include their own built versions of Guest Additions with their kernel packages. How long they've been doing this, or if it's causing the problems, I don't know.
    • I do know that it has been for at least >1 year (if not several), and Oracle's versions have worked fine before - so I suspect this isn't the problem here.
    • If you manually try to install virtualbox-guest-utils or virtualbox-guest-utils-hwe, you'll get a warning that the already installed versions are newer. (Before installing Oracles guest additions. In other words, the ones provided with the kernels are newer.) I'm guessing this isn't always the case, depending on how and when Ubuntu updates their repositories, but it was the case in late October 2017.
    • I've tried removing the Ubuntu-provided modules manually; that did nothing to fix the problem.
    • If you install a specific kernel from the Ubuntu repositories, or get a new kernel apt-get dist-upgrade, you will get these ubuntu-provided guest additions modules, and there doesn't seem to be anything you can do to avoid it - other than write your own post-installation script, or otherwise manually delete them after-the-fact.
    • Location: /lib/modules/version/kernel/ubuntu/vbox/
This issue has affected me since about Virtualbox 5.1.2.6. But even reverting to earlier versions of the host software and guest additions doesn't fix the problem, so I actually suspect what originally triggered the issue was the most recent HWE update to Ubuntu.

Just to make sure, I installed a fresh version of Xubuntu 16.04.3. I then performed:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo reboot
sudo apt-get install dkms build-essential make gcc automake libssl-dev linux-headers-generic autoconf checkinstall intltool libtool module-assistant perl python python3
sudo reboot
Then I installed the Oracle guest additions ISO, version 5.2.1-118447.

As soon as I login, I get this error:
VBoxClient: (seamless): failed to start, Stage: Setting guest IRQ filter mask Error:
VERR_INTERNAL_ERROR
No amount of fidding with VM settings such as chipset type (PIIX, ICH9), memory, video settings (3D, memory, etc.) matters.

It happens on both a VM configured for BIOS, and a different one using UEFI.

But at least that's an improvement over what I had been living with for at least a month in a different, older and more customized VM (but all up-to-date) - that is, video wouldn't resize, and the video module wouldn't even build. (Logs showed some gcc error which I don't have handy.) That one is also Xubuntu 16.04.3.

Installed versions of gcc, make, perl, headers, build-essentials, dkms (I know dkms is no longer used but still seems to be frequently mentioned):

Code: Select all

apt list --installed gcc make perl linux-headers-* dkms build-essentials | sort
dkms/xenial-updates,xenial-updates,now 2.2.0.3-2ubuntu11.5 all [installed]
gcc/xenial,now 4:5.3.1-1ubuntu1 amd64 [installed]
linux-headers-4.10.0-28-generic/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 4.10.0-28.32~16.04.2 amd64 [installed,automatic]
linux-headers-4.10.0-28/xenial-updates,xenial-updates,xenial-security,xenial-security,now 4.10.0-28.32~16.04.2 all [installed,automatic]
linux-headers-4.10.0-37-generic/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 4.10.0-37.41~16.04.1 amd64 [installed]
linux-headers-4.10.0-37/xenial-updates,xenial-updates,xenial-security,xenial-security,now 4.10.0-37.41~16.04.1 all [installed,automatic]
linux-headers-4.4.0-97-generic/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 4.4.0-97.120 amd64 [installed,automatic]
linux-headers-4.4.0-97/xenial-updates,xenial-updates,xenial-security,xenial-security,now 4.4.0-97.120 all [installed,automatic]
linux-headers-generic-hwe-16.04/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 4.10.0.37.39 amd64 [installed,automatic]
linux-headers-generic/xenial-updates,xenial-security,now 4.4.0.97.102 amd64 [installed]
Listing...
make/xenial,now 4.1-6 amd64 [installed]
perl/xenial,now 5.22.1-9 amd64 [installed]
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
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VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
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Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by Perryg »

Steps I used to get a working version of 17.10 below screen shot.
Ubuntu-17.10_working.png
Ubuntu-17.10_working.png (60.96 KiB) Viewed 63938 times
  • 1) Clean install and ran apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade followed with a reboot.
    2) Rename /lib/modules/4.13.0-16-generic/kernel/ubuntu/vbox to vbox.old and reboot the guest. This step is no longer needed just make sure that /etc/depmod.d has the vboxvideo-upstream.conf file.
    3) Install my guest additions 5.2.1 r118468 followed with a reboot.
After I verified that this worked properly I did an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and the package returned nothing to do. If you find that your install tries to update I would pin, lock, even go so far as to create a script to stop ubuntu from updating these packages. (search for how to stop apt from installing a package if you don't know how).
I then tested a new install and simply installed the guest additions, rebooted and it does not work properly. I found conflicts with the Ubuntu kernel modules and the official ones I installed which prevented some features from working.
No longer pertinent.

Of course you also have the choice of using their guest additions but we you would need them to support you.

I have also noticed that the series 5.1.30 guest additions allow me to use 3D acceleration but nothing newer at this time. Still looking into that.
tux.gone.wild
Posts: 2
Joined: 6. Nov 2017, 21:18

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by tux.gone.wild »

Perryg wrote:Steps I used to get a working version of 17.10 below screen shot.
The attachment Ubuntu-17.10_working.png is no longer available
  • 1) Clean install and ran apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade followed with a reboot.
    2) Rename /lib/modules/4.13.0-16-generic/kernel/ubuntu/vbox to vbox.old and reboot the guest.
    3) Install my guest additions 5.2.1 r118468 followed with a reboot.
After I verified that this worked properly I did an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and the package returned nothing to do. If you find that your install tries to update I would pin, lock, even go so far as to create a script to stop ubuntu from updating these packages. (search for how to stop apt from installing a package if you don't know how).
I then tested a new install and simply installed the guest additions, rebooted and it does not work properly. I found conflicts with the Ubuntu kernel modules and the official ones I installed which prevented some features from working.

Of course you also have the choice of using their guest additions but we you would need them to support you.
Hello,

I've been having my most frustrating VirtualBox experience ever trying to get Guest Additions working. I'm a long-time VirtualBox user, and greatly appreciate its availability and utility. I've now tried to install Guest Additions with Ubuntu, Mint, ElementaryOS, and CentOS - without success in every case. As you can see, for my use case (development) I prefer the Debian based distros. CentOS was mainly an experiment, as I was sure the GA would install successfully there. Not so. I've seen basically the issue described here with all these distros. At any rate, if I can get things going with Ubuntu 17.10 I should be able to deal with the other Ubuntu based distros as well.

Host environment:
VirtualBox 5.2.0 r118431 (Qt5.6.2)
Windows 10 Enterprise, version 1607, build 14393.953
Xeon E3-1505M v5 2.8 GHz.
16 GB RAM

Guest environment:
Ubuntu 17.10 (kernel: 4.13.0-16-generic)
4 processors
10240 MB RAM
64 GB virtual disk

First off, I needed to do an extra step after the base install, update, and vbox -> vbox.old rename - the Guest Additions installer informed me that I had to install gcc, make and perl. I reverted to the snapshot before the vbox rename, and did that install, rebooted, renamed vbox, and rebooted. As expected, the VM booted without window resizing working, indicating that GA were disabled. I did get a dialog after several seconds stating "System program problem detected", which I presume relates to renaming the vbox kernel module dir.

I then proceeded to insert the GA image, start the install process, and authenticated as superuser. After building for a while, the message "VirtualBox Guest Additions: Look at /var/log/vboxadd-setup.log to find out what went wrong" appeared. That was followed by "VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting." but it didn't successfully start - no UI resizing on window resize.

Near the top of /var/log/vboxadd-setup.log, there appeared the missive:
test -e include/generated/autoconf.h -a -e include/config/auto.conf || ( \
echo >&2; \
echo >&2 " ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid."; \
echo >&2 " include/generated/autoconf.h or include/config/autoconf.h are missing."; \
echo >&2 " Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it."; \
echo >&2 ;
/bin/false)

This seemed strange, in that /usr/src/linux-headers-4.13.0-16-generic/include/config/auto.conf is in fact present. At any rate, I don't recall ever having these issues installing GA previously.

I've uploaded a tarball of the vbox-setup.log in case you want to look at all the gory details.

Thanks much for any help you can provide with this!
Attachments
vboxadd-setup-log.tar.gz
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sbradabang
Posts: 5
Joined: 8. Nov 2017, 18:42

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by sbradabang »

Perryg wrote:Steps I used to get a working version of 17.10 below screen shot.
  • 1) Clean install and ran apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade followed with a reboot.
    2) Rename /lib/modules/4.13.0-16-generic/kernel/ubuntu/vbox to vbox.old and reboot the guest.
    3) Install my guest additions 5.2.1 r118468 followed with a reboot.
After I verified that this worked properly I did an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and the package returned nothing to do. If you find that your install tries to update I would pin, lock, even go so far as to create a script to stop ubuntu from updating these packages. (search for how to stop apt from installing a package if you don't know how).
I then tested a new install and simply installed the guest additions, rebooted and it does not work properly. I found conflicts with the Ubuntu kernel modules and the official ones I installed which prevented some features from working.

Of course you also have the choice of using their guest additions but we you would need them to support you.
It didn't work, even with GA 5.2.1 r118918. I installed the additions, rebooted the VM and got a black screen. It's really frustrating.

Host:
VirtualBox 5.2.0 r118431 (Qt5.6.2)
Windows 10 Pro version 1709
Core I7 7700K 4.2 GHz
64 GB RAM

Guest:
Ubuntu 17.10 64 bit, kernel 4.13.0-16-generic
4 CPU's
16 GB RAM
200 GB virtual disk

VBox logs included.
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andro
Posts: 7
Joined: 6. Jul 2015, 13:22

Re: Ubuntu 17.10 - Guest Additions Installation Error

Post by andro »

Frustrating indeed. I have exactly the same issue. The downloads page shows a new ISO image for guest additions that is supposed to fix issues on certain Linux guests (they don't say which) but trying that with Ubuntu 17.10 and Virtualbox 5.2.0 latest release still results in a black screen and a system with no GUI.

How do we go about getting developer attention focused on this issue? This combination of latest Virtualbox and latest Ubuntu is completely unusable. It puzzles me that issues with guest additions and Virtualbox have been going on for years and years, ever since I first used the software - the forums are full of issues and questions about the difficulty of getting this going. Why is that so? What is fundamentally difficult about this aspect of the code?

Journalctl shows hundreds of lines with the error "warning vboxcall failed with vbox status code VERR_BUFFER_OVERFLOW".
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