332 Comments

1. mumbai / March 4, 2013

   thanks

   Reply
2. Philip / March 9, 2013

   Does this work on Secure Boot enabled hardware?
   (VirtualBox in Fedora18)

   Reply
   • JR / March 14, 2013

     Hi Philip,

     I’m not totally sure what you mean? Do you have Fedora 18 installed on your computer?

     Reply
3. Joseph / March 14, 2013

   Thanks for the walk through. I have setup 3 hosts and 30+ virtual machines using your initial setup.

   Reply
4. Sergio / March 20, 2013

   to solve problems related to KERN_DIR:

   yum install binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel

   yum install kernel-headers-$(uname -r) kernel-devel-(uname -r) dkms

   Usually happens when there is a difference between kernel versions installed and downloaded headers.

   Reply
5. Sharon / March 21, 2013

   I got this errror message at the end of the installation.
   Installation error:
   Makefile:181: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel. Specify KERN_DIR= and run Make again. Stop.

   So I followed these directions – looks like the kernel source is missing.
   $ KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`-`uname -m`
   $ echo $KERN_DIR
   /usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64-x86_64
   $ ls -l /usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64-x86_64
   ls: cannot access /usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64-x86_64: No such file or directory
   $ ls -l /usr/src/kernels
   total 0

   $ sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
   [sudo] password for sfalcon:
   Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules [ OK ]
   Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules [FAILED]
   (Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)

   Installed Packages
   Name : VirtualBox-4.2
   Arch : x86_64
   Version : 4.2.10_84104_el6
   Release : 1
   Size : 139 M
   Repo : installed
   From repo : virtualbox
   Summary : Oracle VM VirtualBox
   URL : http://www.virtualbox.org/
   License : GPLv2
   Description : VirtualBox is a powerful PC virtualization solution allowing
   : you to run a wide range of PC operating systems on your Linux
   : system. This includes Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, DOS, OpenBSD
   : and others. VirtualBox comes with a broad feature set and
   : excellent performance, making it the premier virtualization
   : software solution on the market.
   $ VirtualBox-4.2
   Command not found. ^C
   $ VirtualBox
   WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module
   available for the current kernel (2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64) or it failed to
   load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by

   sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

   You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.

   Reply
6. Sharon / March 21, 2013

   I resolved the installation issue by installing:
   sudo yum install kernel-devel
   Add/Remove Software for:
   VirtualBox-OSE kernel modules
   gcc-4.4.6.4.el6 (with prereqs)

   Reply
   • JR / March 22, 2013

     Hi Sharon,

     Actually you should have kernel-devel installed after step 4.

     Reply
7. robb / March 25, 2013

   hi guys
   i can’t resolve the problem:

   virtualbox
   WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module
   available for the current kernel (3.8.3-103.fc17.x86_64) or it failed to
   load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by

   sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

   You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.
   -if i use the command:
   /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup this is the output

   [roberto@roberto /]$ /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
   Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules [ OK ]
   Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules/etc/init.d/vboxdrv: line 304: /var/log/vbox-install.log: Permesso negato
   [ OK ]
   Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMS/etc/init.d/vboxdrv: line 329: /var/log/vbox-install.log: Permesso negato
   [FALLITO]
   (Failed, trying without DKMS)
   Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules/etc/init.d/vboxdrv: line 337: /var/log/vbox-install.log: Permesso negato
   [FALLITO]
   (Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)

   ——————-
   [roberto@roberto /]$ rpm -qa kernel |sort -nr
   kernel-3.8.3-103.fc17.x86_64
   kernel-3.7.9-104.fc17.x86_64
   kernel-3.7.6-102.fc17.x86_64
   Help me please

   Roberto

   Reply
   • JR / March 29, 2013

     Hi robb,

     You have to install it as root user. Is it working then?

     Reply
     • robb / March 30, 2013

       Hi,
       thanks for your reply.
       So this is the report:
       I don’t Know How and When…but i resolve the problem on my dekstop pc with Fedora17.
       This one is Fedora 17 64bit..and now it works.

       -so i tried to install VM (with root user)on my laptop with Fedora17 i386,and here it doesn’t works.

       i try different ways with and without DKMS modules

       i think that the real problem is Here->

       [root@roberto ~]# rpm -qa kernel |sort -nr
       [root@roberto ~]#

       no outputs -_-”

       and in /var/log/vbox-install.log
       Makefile:190: *** Error: KERN_DIR does not point to a directory. Stop.

       [root@roberto ~]# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
       Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules [ OK ]
       Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules [FALLITO]
       (Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)
       ———————————————————————-

       [root@roberto ~]# uname -a
       Linux roberto 3.8.3-103.fc17.i686.PAE #1 SMP Mon Mar 18 15:52:06 UTC 2013 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
       ———————————————————————-
       [root@roberto ~]# echo $KERN_DIR
       /usr/src/kernels/3.8.3-103.fc17.i686.PAE
       ———————————————————————-

       I put the KERN_DIR in root .bash_profile

       [root@roberto ~]# cat .bash_profile
       # .bash_profile

       # Get the aliases and functions
       if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
       . ~/.bashrc
       fi

       # User specific environment and startup programs

       PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

       export PATH

       KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/3.8.3-103.fc17.i686.PAE

       export KERN_DIR
       ———————————————————–

       I hope i give u all the informations :)

       Reply
       • robb / March 30, 2013

         and…..

         [root@roberto kernels]# pwd
         /usr/src/kernels
         [root@roberto kernels]# ls

         this is empty -_-”

         why ???

         Reply
         • JR / March 30, 2013

           Hi again robb,

           Could you post again output of following command:

           rpm -qa kernel\* |sort

           Reply
8. robb / March 30, 2013

   Hi JR

   interesting…we have an output

   [root@roberto ~]# rpm -qa kernel\* |sort
   kernel-PAE-3.7.6-102.fc17.i686
   kernel-PAE-3.7.9-104.fc17.i686
   kernel-PAE-3.8.3-103.fc17.i686

   Reply
   • JR / March 30, 2013

     Hi robb,

     This is step 1.-4. in shorter…

     Do following:

     yum update   reboot

     Make sure that you have following packages installed:
     binutils
     gcc
     make
     patch
     libgomp
     glibc-headers
     glibc-devel
     kernel-headers
     kernel-PAE-devel
     dkms

     yum install binutils gcc make patch libgomp glibc-headers glibc-devel kernel-headers kernel-PAE-devel dkms

     And your running kernel have to match to kernel-headers and kernel-PAE-devel versions.

     Then follow this guide from step 5.

     Is it working then?

     Reply
9. robb / March 30, 2013

   Ok Now it works!!! =)

   some of these packages were not installed like

   glibc-headers
   glibc-devel
   kernel-headers
   kernel-PAE-devel

   now the directory is not empty =)

   [root@roberto /]# cd /usr/src/kernels
   [root@roberto kernels]# ls
   3.8.3-103.fc17.i686.PAE
   [root@roberto kernels]# cd 3.8.3-103.fc17.i686.PAE
   [root@roberto 3.8.3-103.fc17.i686.PAE]# ls
   arch crypto firmware include ipc kernel Makefile Module.symvers samples security System.map usr vmlinux.id
   block drivers fs init Kconfig lib mm net scripts sound tools virt
   [root@roberto 3.8.3-103.fc17.i686.PAE]#

   thank you so much JR

   you resolve all my problmes =)

   Reply
   • JR / April 3, 2013

     Excellent to hear robb, that you got it working. :)

     Reply
10. Abha / April 4, 2013

    Thnks.

    Reply
11. shrikant / April 29, 2013

    HI JR, I followed all the steps mentioned above, but I do not see matching results when I issue the commands:
    rpm -qa kernel |sort |tail -n 1

    uname -r

    Please give some hint as where I might have gone wrong, yhanks.

    Reply
    • rob / May 4, 2013

      Try with rpm -qa|grep kernel

      Reply
12. Ady / May 3, 2013

    I’m not new to linux, but always get in trouble and having hard time, even days to solve some simple issues.
    I’m running a server I5 with Centos 6.4 and wanted badly to install virtualbox.
    Problem:

    $ service vboxdrv setup
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules [ OK ]
Uninstalling old VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules [ OK ]
Trying to register the VirtualBox kernel modules using DKMSError! echo
Your kernel headers for kernel 2.6.32-358.6.1.el6.x86_64 cannot be found at
/lib/modules/2.6.32-358.6.1.el6.x86_64/build or /lib/modules/2.6.32-358.6.1.el6.x86_64/source.
[FAILED]
(Failed, trying without DKMS)
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel modules [FAILED]
(Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong)

    I tried all the solutions, even troubleshot, but still didn’t helped. I though I’m the dumbest person in the world :)

    I tried with:
    KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/`uname -r`-`uname -m`

    export KERN_DIR

    After manually browsing through /usr/src/kernels/ I found out that they are not the same directories as stated in `uname -r`-`uname -m`

    I’ve had 2 directories:
    3.8.10-3.8.y.20130430.ol6.x86_64
    2.6.32-358.6.1.el6.centos.plus.x86_64

    Not sure if its normal to have 2, but I have typed:

    KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-358.6.1.el6.centos.plus.x86_64

    export KERN_DIR

    and VOILA !
    IT WORKED !

    With 3.8.10-3.8.y.20130430.ol6.x86_64 didn’t work

    This site was very helpful, you should place a donate button, anyway I have donated through ads :)

    Reply