Since I can never remember how to install Virtualbox Guest Additions I thought I’d write it down. Maybe it’ll save you a few minutes; I know it will save me a lot of time ;)
For this post I used the latest versions at the time of writing:
- Virtualbox 6.1.10 for Linux (my host is running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS)
- Oracle Linux 8.2 (V996906-01.iso)
The VM was installed using the “minimal-environment” group and booted into UEK 6. I believe this change came with Oracle Linux (OL) 8.2 and I seem to remember OL 8.1 used the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK) by default. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, it’s just an observation. I am going to stick with UEK 6 in my lab, instructions are different from using RHCK.
As usual I run a “dnf update -y” (in a tmux session of course) to upgrade the software release to the latest and greatest software. After this completed, it’s time for a reboot and the installation of the Guest Additions. I hope you forgive me for not sharing screen output from the system upgrade, I thought it would have been boring …
Right after the system comes back online after the reboot, you might notice a new kernel: 5.4.17-2011.3.2.1.el8uek.x86_64 is now the default, previously it was 5.4.17-2011.1.2.el8.
Before you can install the Guest Additions a few additional packages are required.
[root@ol8base ~]# dnf install perl make bzip2 gzip unzip kernel-uek-devel-$(uname -r) tar
Last metadata expiration check: 0:22:15 ago on Fri 29 May 2020 14:11:17 BST.
Package gzip-1.9-9.el8.x86_64 is already installed.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================================================
Installing:
bzip2 x86_64 1.0.6-26.el8 ol8_baseos_latest 60 k
kernel-uek-devel x86_64 5.4.17-2011.3.2.1.el8uek
ol8_UEKR6 17 M
make x86_64 1:4.2.1-10.el8 ol8_baseos_latest 498 k
perl x86_64 4:5.26.3-416.el8 ol8_appstream 72 k
tar x86_64 2:1.30-4.el8 ol8_baseos_latest 838 k
unzip x86_64 6.0-43.el8 ol8_baseos_latest 196 k
Installing dependencies:
annobin x86_64 8.90-1.el8 ol8_appstream 202 k
binutils x86_64 2.30-73.0.1.el8 ol8_baseos_latest 5.8 M
binutils-devel x86_64 2.30-73.0.1.el8 ol8_appstream 1.1 M
cpp x86_64 8.3.1-5.0.3.el8 ol8_appstream 10 M
dtrace x86_64 2.0.0-1.0.el8 ol8_UEKR6 1.3 M
[...]
qt5-srpm-macros-5.12.5-3.el8.noarch
redhat-rpm-config-122-1.0.1.el8.noarch
rust-srpm-macros-5-2.el8.noarch
tar-2:1.30-4.el8.x86_64
unzip-6.0-43.el8.x86_64
zip-3.0-23.el8.x86_64
zlib-devel-1.2.11-13.el8.x86_64
Complete!
The next step is to mount the Guest Additions (virtual) CD and run the installer:
[root@ol8base ~]# mount /dev/sr0 /mnt mount: /mnt: WARNING: device write-protected, mounted read-only. [root@ol8base ~]# /mnt/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run Verifying archive integrity... All good. Uncompressing VirtualBox 6.1.10 Guest Additions for Linux................ VirtualBox Guest Additions installer Copying additional installer modules ... Installing additional modules ... VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting. VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules. This may take a while. VirtualBox Guest Additions: To build modules for other installed kernels, run VirtualBox Guest Additions: /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup VirtualBox Guest Additions: or VirtualBox Guest Additions: /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup all VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the modules for kernel 5.4.17-2011.3.2.1.el8uek.x86_64.
This seems to have gone well, let’s check if the necessary kernel modules are present:
[root@ol8base ~]# lsmod | egrep -i 'Module|vbox' Module Size Used by vboxsf 81920 0 vboxguest 339968 2 vboxsf vboxvideo 36864 0 drm_kms_helper 184320 2 vmwgfx,vboxvideo ttm 106496 2 vmwgfx,vboxvideo drm 516096 5 vmwgfx,drm_kms_helper,vboxvideo,ttm [root@ol8base ~]#
This is it! Guest additions ready and working with Oracle Linux 8.2/ UEK 6
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