How to uninstall Guest Additions in Ubuntu guest?

[riobard]

I installed Guest Additions in Ubuntu guest. Now I copied the Ubuntu guest to a real harddisk and used it on a separate machine, so I no longer need the Guest Additions. How do I uninstall it? Thanks in advance!

[stefan.becker]

Dont really know it exact.

Little Tip: Start the installer with "--help". That shows possible Parameters.

[riobard]

I tried --help option but it does not say anything about uninstallation

here is what I got:
-------------------------------------------------
Makeself version 2.1.4
1) Getting help or info about ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run :
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run --help Print this message
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run --info Print embedded info : title, default target directory, embedded script ...
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run --lsm Print embedded lsm entry (or no LSM)
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run --list Print the list of files in the archive
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run --check Checks integrity of the archive

2) Running ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run :
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run [options] [--] [additional arguments to embedded script]
with following options (in that order)
--confirm Ask before running embedded script
--noexec Do not run embedded script
--keep Do not erase target directory after running
the embedded script
--nox11 Do not spawn an xterm
--nochown Do not give the extracted files to the current user
--target NewDirectory Extract in NewDirectory
--tar arg1 [arg2 ...] Access the contents of the archive through the tar command
-- Following arguments will be passed to the embedded script

[Sasquatch]

All I know is that after a kernel upgrade you need to reinstall the GA if you want to have most things working again, like shared folders. That takes my assumption that it only installs a few kernel modules. A 'find' or 'locate' should give you some idea of where any virtualbox files might be and you can then remove them. Do not forget to modify your xorg.conf file if you haven't done so already for your mouse and video driver (video has to be, else you wouldn't have X).

[riobard]

I guess it is much more complicated than just deleting kernel modules. I even found a /dev/vboxadd any hints about this? Thanks!

[TerryE]

You are correct in that their isn't a proper remove utility but the vbox device drivers and the ubuntu forum give simple instructions on how to remove them.

You also need to remove the /etc/rc1.d/ entries. After the reboot, I think that you'll find all vbox entries are related to VirtualBox and can be removed

[riobard]

I tried the following lines and it turned out to be OK now. Thanks guys for your help!

Code: Select all   Expand viewCollapse view

sudo find /etc -name "*vboxadd*" -exec rm {} \;
sudo find /etc -name "*vboxvfs*" -exec rm {} \;
sudo rm -r /usr/src/vboxadd-*
sudo rm -r /usr/src/vboxvfs-*
sudo rm /usr/sbin/vboxadd-timesync
sudo rm /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/vboxadd.ko
sudo rm /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc/vboxvfs.ko


A little explanation:
1. All vboxadd* entries belongs to Guest Additions
2. All vboxvfs* entries are related to Shared Folder feature which is also part of Guest Additions

[TheBigKahoona]

for everyone how ends up here by googleing this matter:
/opt/[VboxAddonsFolder]/uninstall.sh