virtualbox.org

I'm running VirtualBox 2.0.4 on a 64-bit Vista host, Centos 5.1 64-bit guest, with all the latest updates.

When I tried to run the VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run script, I get this error:

"Please install the build and header files for your current Linux kernel. The current kernel version is 2.6.18-92.1.13.el5"

I searched Google for that error message and found links to various VirtualBox bug reports, but they seemed to relate to versions 1.5+ or 1.6+ and all claimed to have been fixed.

I also found a reference to installing the kernel-devel package for my kernel version and did that... but to no effect. The same error keeps on being generated.

Any further enlightenment that anyone can give as to how I can install the Additions properly in this guest would be gratefully received.

You need to install the kernel-source gcc gcc-++ and make
After that run the script file in 'Guestadditions'

Thanks for replying. Can you be more specific?

There is no gcc-++ package for Centos. There is a gcc-c++ package, and that is already installed. So are the others you mentioned, I think:
As for kernel sources, do I really need them? I've compiled Oracle databases and Lord knows what on Linux boxes aplenty and have never had to do the sort of things described in http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/I_need_the_Kernel_Source in order to get the "true" Kernel Sources. Kernel-devel has always proved sufficient in the past. I don't mind doing their Section 2 if I really have to, but I'd like to be sure that's really the issue rather than one of the bugs I mentioned I'd discovered earlier...

Kernel-devel will be enough for creating kernel modules. That is just the whole problem with the different distro's. One calls them kernel-headers, another calls it kernel-devel and yet another one calls it kernel-sources.
Of course you need the compilers too, next to kernel-devel.

Thanks, that's what I hoped and thought.

But that leaves me up a certain creek without a paddle: I have the sources, I have the compilers and still the additions won't install!

Any other suggestions?

Check the error message and log, do what it says and you should be good to go. Do you still get the same error?

Oh, and do a uname -a to see what kernel you are currently running and check your package manager to see what version of the kernel-devel you installed. They have to be the same.