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Troubleshooting VirtualBox

The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist

When starting VirtualBox OSE, the following message is shown:

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      WARNING: The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist.
               Please install the virtualbox-ose-modules package for your kernel and
               load the module named vboxdrv into your system.

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

Load the VirtualBox OSE kernel module (also load vboxnetflt in Debian Squeeze):

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$ su
      # modprobe vboxdrv

If the module is not found, refer to Installation to provide a virtualbox-ose-modules-* package to your system. To load the module(s) at system startup, edit /etc/default/virtualbox-ose and set LOAD_VBOXDRV_MODULE to 1.

You are not a member of the "vboxusers" group

As stated by VirtualBox OSE:

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WARNING: You are not a member of the "vboxusers" group. Please add yourself
               to this group before starting VirtualBox.

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

Add your user account to the vboxusers group via adduser(8), as described in Installation:

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      $ su
      # adduser yourusername vboxusers

Log out and log back in to your system to apply the group membership change.

/dev/vboxdrv not writable for some reason

As stated by VirtualBox OSE:

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WARNING: /dev/vboxdrv not writable for some reason. If you recently added the
               current user to the vboxusers group then you have to logout and
               re-login to take the change effect.

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

The following group ownership of /dev/vboxdrv is also assigned:

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      $ ls -l /dev/vboxdrv
      crw-rw—- 1 root root 10, 58 2009-06-22 16:33 /dev/vboxdrv

This is a known issue in Lenny’s VirtualBox OSE version (Debian bug 509014). To resolve, instruct udevd(8) to load the rule defined in /etc/udev/rules.d/z60_virtualbox-ose.rules and reload the VirtualBox OSE kernel module:

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      $ su
      # invoke-rc.d udev reload
      # modprobe -r vboxdrv ; modprobe vboxdrv
      # exit

The correct group ownership on /dev/vboxdrv should now be assigned:

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      $ ls -l /dev/vboxdrv
      crw-rw—- 1 root vboxusers 10, 58 2009-06-22 16:43 /dev/vboxdrv

32-bit userland with amd64 kernel

Prior to version 1.6.0, VirtualBox does not work in such scenarios, see Debian bug 456391. Since version 1.6.0, 32-bit guest OS can work under amd64 kernel.

-1909 VERR VM DRIVER NOT ACCESSIBLE

error-1909-VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_ACCESSIBLE.png

See You are not a member of the “vboxusers” group above.

VERR_SUPDRV_INTERFACE_NOT_SUPPORTED (bridged network)

With VirtualBox OSE 2.2.0, a bridged network interface may not function:

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Message error:
Failed to open/create the internal network ‘HostInterfaceNetworking-br-x’ (VERR_SUPDRV_INTERFACE_NOT_SUPPORTED).
Unknown error creating VM (VERR_SUPDRV_INTERFACE_NOT_SUPPORTED).

Ensure the installed virtualbox-ose-modules-* package matches the VirtualBox OSE version available in testing. If not, build and install a new virtualbox-ose-modules-* package using Module-Assistant, refer to the Installation section. See also http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/3733.

Could not find VirtualBox installation

The following message is displayed on the console while trying to launch VirtualBox:

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Could not find VirtualBox installation. Please reinstall.

To resolve, create the /etc/vbox/vbox.cfg file with the following content:

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# VirtualBox installation directory
INSTALL_DIR=”/usr/lib/virtualbox”

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