virtualbox.org

Just installed VirtualBox 4.1.8-75467-OSX and even after a restart it is crashing on launch every time. Here's the crash log (is there a better place to report bugs? I'm not finding it):
[ Mod edit: please post long log files etc as attachments ].

Ok, ran VirtualBox under gdb and got slightly more information:

VirtualBox: Error -10 in SUPR3HardenedMain!
VirtualBox: Effective UID is not root (euid=501 egid=501 uid=501 gid=501)

VirtualBox: Tip! It may help to reinstall VirtualBox.

Program exited with code 01.

you have to run VirtualBox as ROOT? That's insane.

haikuty wrote:you have to run VirtualBox as ROOT? That's insane.

People jumping to conclusions? That's insane!

michaln wrote:

haikuty wrote:you have to run VirtualBox as ROOT? That's insane.

People jumping to conclusions? That's insane!

ah, The gdb output at crash, which I provided, says: "Effective UID is not root"
So I wasn't being like completely random in my comment....pretty much just reading what the error message said in fact.
( Yah, sure, it's likely expecting the suid bit to be set and not for me to login as root, but that's effectively the same, no?)

I did try reinstalling and restarting. I did provide a crash log (I have 4 more if you want them - they're all crashing in the same spot). I also did try running it under gdb and provided the output.
And I did try to compile the source to see if I could help identify the problem more fully (which also failed (the configure script doesn't even complete)).

So I think I went a step or three beyond novice user complaint into the land of actual bug report filing. IF there's someplace better to do that feel free to direct me there.

So I'm not sure what this accusation of 'jumping to conclusions' is based on.

haikuty wrote:So I'm not sure what this accusation of 'jumping to conclusions' is based on.

Only your statement. Of course you're not supposed to run VirtualBox as root, in fact it is highly discouraged.

But if you know of a better way to gain access to kernel services than suid root, we'd love to hear about it.

What VirtualBox actually does is start with (suid) root privileges, uses those to establish communications with kernel components, and then the root privileges are dropped. So e.g. file access is done with regular user privileges.

michaln wrote:

haikuty wrote:So I'm not sure what this accusation of 'jumping to conclusions' is based on.

Only your statement. Of course you're not supposed to run VirtualBox as root, in fact it is highly discouraged.

But if you know of a better way to gain access to kernel services than suid root, we'd love to hear about it.

What VirtualBox actually does is start with (suid) root privileges, uses those to establish communications with kernel components, and then the root privileges are dropped. So e.g. file access is done with regular user privileges.

Thanks for the reply. Sorry I was off kilter - stayed up too late getting frustrated by things not working :-/.

What you've said makes more sense; sorry I have no idea about access to kernel services (not worked at that level in OS X); I thought the idea was to make a user land component that communicated with the kernel components via mach ports (or something like that), but I don't really know.

Is it possible/likely that there's a conflict between Parallels which has it's own kexts?
Thanks.

So, is there a solution for this? I'm having the same problem. I've been happily using 4.1.6 for over 6 months now and as soon as I install 4.1.8, I can't start it up...