Ubuntu 10 - Cannot install guest extensions.

[rlr_leon]

Aside: I have tried and tried and tried again. Seems to be a military secret to get the correct commands for installing the extensions pack.

START HERE:
I have ubuntu server 10.04LTS installed with Virtualbox 4.X.X (latest one) installed. I have successfully set up and and connected to virtual installations of Win7 , WinXP, and WinSvr2008. These all run fine and good. I am trying to install the guest extensions and utilities so that I can get the full-screen capabilities.

Have followed several suggestions from forums and installed the packages:
sudo apt-get install dkms build-essential linux-headers-generic

I also downloaded the extention pack for linux distributions from the virtualbox site: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

This download comes as a file named:http://dlc.sun.com.edgesuite.net/virtua ... ox-extpack . I cannot get the system to recognize this file and install anything from it. I have used 7Zip and extracted it. There is a directory inside for linux x86 and 64 but no clue on how to get the extensions installed. And there is no readme or instruction file.

The Virtualbox user document located at: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.h ... ge-extpack says to use the command of "VBoxManage extpack install <tarball>" to install the package, but that DOES not work. OR I am typing the wrong info into the command. My command is: VBoxManage extpack install Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.10-72436.vbox-extpack - and this gets the syntax error of "Syntax error: Invalid command 'extpack'". This is consistent with the manual located at: http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#idp9330960 .

Has anyone installed the extensions using this downloaded package? AND if so, how did you get it to work? Any assistance will be appreciated.

[Sasquatch]

There are two different things here. You have the Guest Additions that should be installed on the Guest system and are shipped with VirtualBox install package as an ISO file so you can load it into the DVD drive of the VM. When the VM is booted, you click on Devices > Install Guest Additions. This loads the ISO in the drive and the Guest should show you an autorun dialogue to install the Guest Additions. The installation is very simple for Windows Guests, other guests require a bit more work, so check the manual and tutorial section.

Next to the Guest Additions is the ExtPack that you're talking about. This is also quite easy to install. If you can't double click it, then you can always open the main GUI and use File > Preferences to install the ExtPack. Using the commandline is a last resort in case the graphical way fails.
If the commandline doesn't work and you get the error you've noted, it means you do NOT run 4.0.x, as it was added since that version. If you enter the command 'VBoxmanage' without any arguments, then you get the help output with available options and parameters.

[rlr_leon]

Thanks Sasquatch,
I will be trying this today/now. I did run the "VboxManage -v" command and my version reports as 3.1.8r61349... So I guess the first action will be upgrading to the version 4.X that will support the command that is needed. Thanks and hopefully I can report success sometime later today.

[rlr_leon]

Thanks Again .... I was able to upgrade to the 4.0 package and then install the extension package.