Ubuntu could not install Virtualbox Guest addons

[AdlerHorst]

It seems that Ubuntu is not able to install the VirtualBox Guest add-ons even Ubuntu is able to detect it.

See Attachement.

Ubuntu 20.04
Basic install after Reboot, Update and Reboot again.

Similar Tickets in Launchpad but really old:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-drivers-common/+bug/1434579

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for the bug report, indeed there is something weird with software-properties

Starting a focal iso in virtual, sofware-properties-gtk lists VMware drivers with only with continue manual mode available, but 'sudo ubuntu-drivers install' does install open-vm-tools

seems rather an issue with the gui

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

I can reliably observe the problem in a groovy VM.
However, contrary to what Séb is observing, "sudo ubuntu-drivers install" raises an error:

ubuntu@groovyvm:~$ LANG=C sudo ubuntu-drivers install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 virtualbox-guest-dkms-hwe : Conflicts: virtualbox-guest-dkms
 virtualbox-guest-x11-hwe : Depends: virtualbox-guest-utils-hwe (= 6.1.8-dfsg-1ubuntu20.10.1) but it is not going to be installed
                            Conflicts: virtualbox-guest-x11
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

And the output of "dpkg -l | grep virtualbox-guest" is empty.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Output of "ubuntu-drivers devices" in that same VM:

ubuntu@groovyvm:~$ ubuntu-drivers devices
== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:04.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000080EEd0000CAFEsv00000000sd00000000bc08sc80i00
vendor : InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH
model : VirtualBox Guest Service
manual_install: True
driver : virtualbox-guest-dkms - distro non-free
driver : virtualbox-guest-dkms-hwe - distro non-free

== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000080EEd0000BEEFsv00000000sd00000000bc03sc00i00
vendor : InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH
model : VirtualBox Graphics Adapter
driver : virtualbox-guest-x11 - distro non-free
driver : virtualbox-guest-x11-hwe - distro non-free

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Manual mode is selected (and consequently other options are greyed out) because the UbuntuDrivers module reports manual_install=True for the device. Diving into the ubuntu-drivers-common code, it invokes "modinfo vboxguest" and if the return value is 0, it considers the module to be manually installed.

ubuntu@groovyvm:~$ modinfo vboxguest
filename: /lib/modules/5.4.0-28-generic/kernel/virtualbox-guest/vboxguest.ko
version: 6.1.6_Ubuntu r137129
license: GPL
description: Oracle VM VirtualBox Guest Additions for Linux Module
author: Oracle Corporation
srcversion: 2A221C27F4AB41327E708B4
alias: pci:v000080EEd0000CAFEsv00000000sd00000000bc*sc*i*
depends:
retpoline: Y
name: vboxguest
vermagic: 5.4.0-28-generic SMP mod_unload
sig_id: PKCS#7
signer: Build time autogenerated kernel key
sig_key: 42:A8:A9:98:8B:E6:F1:71:2C:AF:A3:32:4E:72:D5:45:3C:41:3F:7A
sig_hashalgo: sha512
signature: 41:5D:D4:94:4A:0E:64:89:C4:6C:E8:20:76:5E:37:0B:5C:FB:DF:8A:
  69:46:BB:6E:B2:2E:61:E5:FE:E1:8C:66:40:5F:B1:89:95:3A:7F:3C:
  F3:B0:CD:B3:96:FB:79:79:DA:3D:FB:E8:B2:C8:40:BA:8B:99:C7:4A:
  BA:F3:AF:A3:FC:AB:7C:06:C1:DA:11:7C:4D:33:3B:AE:55:14:A8:6D:
  70:26:2A:C4:BA:3A:3E:8B:D5:E8:43:5D:1F:50:2F:2B:84:4A:61:A1:
  9C:02:6C:F0:45:28:CB:A5:30:C8:0E:78:B9:F9:B2:5B:3A:95:F0:48:
  7D:87:55:C3:6B:65:58:31:CB:FB:03:AA:D1:EB:D6:D0:4F:29:0E:0E:
  87:6B:DC:FA:C5:3E:7A:00:93:B9:F8:F6:9A:8F:3B:F5:39:8E:45:FE:
  53:19:4F:B9:2B:66:54:B9:FC:56:4A:C2:5F:AB:E7:41:CE:40:A7:86:
  8B:4E:54:28:24:4A:F9:A5:54:8B:8B:8F:F3:E7:4D:6B:EC:1B:64:E0:
  A2:13:A7:88:B1:7F:5D:B8:D1:6B:D0:E0:32:0A:F1:4C:8D:F5:79:14:
  7A:D7:A9:E4:F2:53:1E:29:BC:67:B8:6E:8C:E0:91:14:D4:A2:0E:FC:
  FE:49:B2:86:96:1B:73:77:E6:31:FE:47:47:4E:87:8A:83:AB:BA:AA:
  6E:62:DF:A7:F3:9E:CE:B9:E8:9C:27:C8:95:4C:25:B8:5C:8B:64:C7:
  E4:3B:82:B9:A1:12:30:63:D6:F6:83:D1:2B:C7:40:93:85:C8:0D:3C:
  67:95:C5:5E:DC:D6:83:D5:75:1F:6B:50:ED:1B:83:FA:4E:D0:5C:5F:
  BB:A5:ED:F6:63:CA:F1:FF:51:5B:82:84:F9:1C:14:B3:86:E8:E0:72:
  AC:0E:32:4A:87:82:76:2E:4D:5C:3A:B0:19:94:82:34:E1:D4:C9:94:
  BB:C9:44:1C:2A:F3:6D:FD:FE:5D:D1:03:FA:C6:79:8C:09:40:6B:54:
  FB:59:71:16:F0:33:B1:A1:B2:89:69:62:C3:DB:A6:8A:25:07:05:19:
  A6:58:C2:FE:83:1B:F0:73:C4:5C:F7:D1:B8:A3:31:CA:62:F9:FE:7F:
  2C:B3:00:77:43:53:90:CC:00:C2:E0:BF:0A:69:DA:AE:AD:AC:61:D4:
  95:97:26:C7:25:EC:EF:41:29:F4:A2:F7:CE:19:A9:B9:94:FB:F7:D0:
  C2:76:5A:88:B3:BF:AE:D3:07:73:B5:B8:A1:39:2C:63:3D:80:AE:2D:
  16:C1:01:0B:95:E1:E7:28:B3:31:F6:D5:35:85:1B:CD:99:AF:06:10:
  E6:5D:EC:9C:1D:8F:E6:21:42:85:41:B5

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

As suggested in the description, this is really the same issue as bug #1434579. Since that old bug report was tracking resolved problems in other components, instead of making this one a duplicate I'll split off the ubuntu-drivers-common task here.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Copying in a relevant comment from Adam Conrad in the original bug report:

This isn't a bug in software-properties. What I can't decide is if it's a bug in virtualbox-guest* or ubuntu-drivers-common. Basically, here's what's happening:

1) The virtualbox-guest* packages have a modalias for the "guest services", but not the VGA controller.
2) We pulled the DKMS drivers into the kernel.
3) The above situation confuses ubuntu-drivers-common, which really wants to install vbox-dkms, but we have it builtin.
4) Nothing wants to install vbox-x11, which we actually want.

So, the lack of modaliases on vbox-x11 is definitely a vbox bug, and the dependencies are also a bit strong between vbox packages (we should drop some recommends to suggests, to stop trying to forcefully install compilers to get an X driver).

That said, we might also want to quirk the ubuntu-drivers-common detection a bit to either hide vbox-dkms altogether, or actually let us use it if it's a potential upgrade. Currently, neither of these options is in play, and we see it, but it's greyed out, which is amazingly confusing.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1878553