Failure to re-install VB GuestAdditions Centos7 kernel upgrade

[antartica]

I -very unfortunately- upgraded Centos7 linux kernel and long tribulations followed.

Upgrade kernel: 3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86_64
VirtualBox: 5.2.22
Host: Win7

After the upgrade, Centos7 froze at boot. I applied the solution described by @toracat: installing the kernel-patch:

kernel-3.10.0-957.1.3.bug15570.plus.el7.x86_64.rpm

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=90267&start=45

Centos7 remained frozen at boot, this time due to SELINUX policies, which I could not directly solve as previously done in:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=91049

Rather, I had to set SELINUX=permissive in order to get in, i.e., from the graphic black screen. There are a couple
of system complaints with this...

There, I set to install the GuestAdditions to no avail. I re-installed:

$ yum install kernel-devel and kernel-devel-$(uname -r)
$ uname-r

returns kernel-patch above.

See attached terminal failure messages.

Any help I can get would be much appreciated. This is a productivity system (down).

[toracat]

I have two suggestions.

(1) Update the VBox to the latest 5.2 package (5.2.24).
(2) You need the -devel package that matches the running kernel. In your case it is:

https://people.centos.org/toracat/kerne ... x86_64.rpm

[antartica]

Hi, thanks for the feedback.

I fear suggestion 1 will break things further.

Suggestion 2: I install kernel-devel from the linked rpm?

[toracat]

Suggestion 2: I install kernel-devel from the linked rpm?

Yes, assuming your kernel is from that same place (kernel-3.10.0-957.1.3.bug15570.plus.el7).

[antartica]

For the "problematic" kernel-devel rpm install I had to issue:

Code: Select all

$yum install -y [url-to-rpm]

It completed. Then I run the GuestAdditions install. It completed with these messages:

Code: Select all

VirtualBox Guest Additions: Look at /var/log/vboxadd-setup.log to find out what went wrong
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting

I assumed the install was successful and I issued a reboot. At reboot, system was back on black screen again.

I tried to login from my previous working kernel (3.10.0-862.el7.x86-64) which is listed on the grub boot menu
but it too hangs: not a black screen but at the Gnome start. See attached screenshot.

-- How do I disable/wipe-out the problematic kernel and its patch (3.10.0-957.1.3.el7.x86-64) forever from the system?
-- What can I do to fix the situation with my older working kernel?

[toracat]

If you want to install Guest Additions, you must update the version of GuestAddition to 5.2.24. Either that or downgrade the kernel to the one from CentOS 7.5. With GA 5.2.22 and the 7.6 kernel, the guest kernel modules fail to build. Please see:

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/18093

[antartica]

How do I downgrade back to my previous kernel, which is showing in boot menu as explained previously.

Can you please point to a reference/walk-through to do that?

[toracat]

When you see the kernel selection screen upon boot, go to the earlier kernel you wish to boot and hit e to edit it. Scroll down to the kernel command line (starting with linux16 or linuxefi) and append a space to the end of that line followed by the digit 3 then press ctrl-x to boot up. That will get you to a command line only boot.

[toracat]

Those who got here with the same or a similar issue may want to look at the CentOS forum thread where this issue has "migrated" to.