virtualbox.org

Good morning. I'm a newbie when it comes to virtualization and only slightly less newbie when it comes to using Linux, so I hope that this isn't too silly of a question. I'm also not sure whether this question is more appropriate for this forum or the Jumpbox help forums, so I'm going to post it in both places.

I am running Virtualbox 2.2.2 on an Windows XP Home host. The only virtual machine I'm currently using is a Joomla! 1.5 Jumpbox, v 1.1.9. I am having trouble installing the Guest Additions in that VM. When I click the "Install Guest Additions..." I don't get any feedback from VirtualBox, but the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso does mount properly; I've checked it in Devices -> Mount CD/DVD ROM -> CD/DVD ROM Image

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserMa ... #id2507939

I've gotten the Jumpbox to step 2 of this installation. Jumpboxes are basically stripped down Ubuntu installations, so (after I figured out the difference between host-only and bridged network adapters) I think I was able to install all the packages I need to build the external kernel module using apt-get.

I don't know where VirtualBox is mounting the .iso in the Jumpbox's file system and I'm not sophisticated enough to find it on my own. Hopefully I'm not overlooking something completely obvious in the documentation, but I am stuck. In what directories should I look for the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso image in order to proceed with the Guest Additions install?

Welcome to the forum mfeltes,

You will probably get a lot more information here Forum FAQ on what you need to do to get this going.

Perry,

Thanks so much for the pointer. http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15679 is exactly what I needed to get past that issue. Of course, another problem immediately sprang up to take its place...

I'll post it here but it's really more an Ubuntu issue. Here is the feedback when I run sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

VirtualBox 2.2.2 Guest Additions installation
Please install the build and header files for your current Linux kernel.
The current kernel version is 2.6.24-23-generic
This system does not seem to have support for OpenGL direct rendering.
VirtualBox requires Linux 2.6.27 or later for this. Please see the log
file /var/log/vboxadd-install.log if your guest uses Linux 2.6.27 and you still see this message.
Problems were found which would prevent the Guest Additions from installing.
Please correct these problems and try again.

But the latest kernel image I can find available in the Ubuntu 8.04 repositories is linux-image-2.6.24-23-generic (2.6.24-23.52). So I either need to upgrade the Linux distro from the command line or build the latest kernel manually.

Boy, am I learning a lot about the nuts and bolts of system administration.

I think that all you will need to do is install the kernel-headers and it should have been installed if you ran the command that was in the FAQ. You will need to reboot the machine for these to take effect though.
You will not get OpenGL (3Deffects) with that version but you should be able to install the guest additions without that part supported and still have mouse integration, auto-resize, Shared Folders, and USB support.

There doesn't seem to be much benefit to installing the guest additions in the case of a JumpBox. According to the VirtualBox documentation they provide the following capabilities:

• Mouse pointer integration
• Improved Video support
• Time Sync
• Shared Folders
• Seamless Windows
• Shared Clipboard
• Automated Windows Login

Most of these don't even make any sense in the case of a JumpBox. Time Sync and Shared Folders might be useful, but it has been my experience that most virtualization platforms time sync feature tends not to work all that well (I have not tried with VirtualBox specifically) and I typically end up going with NTP anyway. I tend to prefer SFTP over trying something like shared folders.

I guess I am just responding for two reasons, first is to make sure that my understanding of VirtualBoxes Guest Additions is correct and the above list is the only benefit they provide. If anyone knows of anything else the provide I would like to know. Secondly, I hope to save some people the effort of getting the guest tools installed when the benefits may not be worth the effort for them. So if the features listed above don't appeal to you, don't bother with the guest additions. Guest tools are great, if not necessary for desktop guests but their value it limited for a server type guest like a JumpBox.

Austin Godber
Director of Engineering
JumpBox, Inc.