Installing VirtualBox guest editions on Linux CentOS

Installing VirtualBox guest editions on Linux CentOS - Printable Version

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Installing VirtualBox guest editions on Linux CentOS - Mark - 07-07-2014

Installing VirtualBox guest editions on Linux Cent OS

After performing a fresh install of Cent OS 6.5, then trying to install VirtualBox Guest Additions failed.

Error message:

Quote:Building the main Guest Additions module [FAILED]
(Look at /var/log/vboxadd-install.log to find out what went wrong)

If we look at the log file.

Code:
less /var/log/vboxadd-install.log

The thing that stands out is:

Quote:Specify KERN_DIR=<directory> and run Make again.

Download the VirtualBox repo file so that it will be included whenever you run the yum update command:

Code:
cd /etc/yum.repos.d/

Code:
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/rhel/virtualbox.repo

It turns out the problem was that kernel headers were not installed.

Check what Kernel you have installed.

Code:
uname -r

You will get an output something like:

Quote:2.6.32-431.el6.x86_64

See what kernel headers are installed, it won't return anything if non are installed.

Code:
ls /usr/src/kernels/

Install kernel headers/

Code:
yum install kernel-headers kernel-devel gcc

Check kernel headers again.

Code:
ls /usr/src/kernels/

It will return something like:

Quote:2.6.32-431.20.3.el6.x86_64

Specify the KERN_DIR

Code:
KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-431.20.3.el6.x86_64

Echo KERN_DIR to confirm that you've set it up properly:

Code:
echo $KERN_DIR

Export the KERN_DIR

Code:
export KERN_DIR

Re-Run the guest additions setup

Code:
cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_4.3.12_93733

Run the installer

Code:
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

I was then getting a different error in in /var/log/vboxadd-install.log

Quote:KERN_DIR does not point to a directory. Stop.

Check that the kernel is the same as kernel-devel

Code:
rpm -qa kernel\* | sort

Install the latest kernel for your distro

Code:
yum install kernel

Quote:Installed: kernel.x86_64 0:2.6.32-431.20.3.el6

Reboot

Reset the KERN_DIR

Code:
KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/2.6.32-431.20.3.el6.x86_64

export the KERN_DIR

Code:
export KERN_DIR

Re-Run the guest additions installer

Code:
cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_4.3.12_93733

Code:
./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

It should now install OK. If it does, reboot one last time and that should be it.