vboxdrv creation and permission issues during install

[quixote]

Binary package hint: virtualbox-ose

I installed the dependencies and then VirtualBox-ose 2.2.4 r47978 from source on Karmic (9.10). I could run it initially only as sudo because a vboxusers group hadn't been created during the install. I added the group, and my user to the group.

Vbox would start, but the virtual machines (eg winxp) would not. Turned out the kernel module had not been compiled. "modprobe vboxdrv" fixed that, but then the permissions were insufficient. A question <a href="https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/virtualbox-ose/+question/74867">here</a> indicated that changing permission on /dev/vboxdrv to 666 might help. That does solve the problem for that particular session, but rebooting reverts to 660.

I'm saw somewhere that the kernel module not being compiled is related to the fact that vboxusers is not created at the right time during install.

This report I think is related to these older ones, <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/virtualbox-ose/+bug/147076">Bug#147076</a> and <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/virtualbox-ose/+bug/137599">Bug #137599</a>.

#147076 has the suggestion to do "sudo chgrp vboxusers /dev/vboxdrv" Again, this works, just like changing perms to 666, but is not persistent between boots.

I should probably also mention that the file /etc/init.d/vboxdrv is never created. So running "sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup" does nothing.

[Felix Geyer (debfx)]

Did you install the virtualbox-ose/virtualbox-ose-source package or manually compile the source tarball?

If you installed the package(s), please purge and reinstall them:
sudo aptitude purge virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-source
sudo aptitude install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-source

[quixote (commer-greenglim)]

I manually compiled the source package. There is -- or was -- no package for karmic which is why I went the tarball route.

[Felix Geyer (debfx)]

virtualbox-ose has always been in the karmic archive.
Please install the virtualbox-ose package instead and reopen this bug if it's still an issue.