Bug in VBoxLinuxAdditions.sh 5.0.24_108355

[billR]

Tracked down failures to install guest additions on CentOS 7. Symptom was constant syslogs:

 dracut: Can't write to /boot/initramfs-: Directory /boot/initramfs- does not exist or is not accessible. 

Upon rebooting, the system would be unbootable and required a rescue disk.

problem is on line 1042 of VBoxLinuxAdditions.sh:

   for i in /lib/modules/*; do
        update_module_dependencies "${i#/lib/modules}"
    done

running the following code illustrates the problem:

   # for i in /lib/modules/*; do
        echo update_module_dependencies "${i#/lib/modules}"
     done
   
   update_module_dependencies /3.10.0-327.22.2.el7.x86_64

the correct code puts a trailing '/' after 'modules':

    for i in /lib/modules/*; do
        update_module_dependencies "${i#/lib/modules/}"
    done

To workaround this bug, do the following:

(mount GuestAdditions CD Image, cd to top level of CDROM).

# sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.sh

(errors - define the following shell function taken from the script)

# update_module_dependencies()
{
    depmod "${1}"
    test -d "/lib/modules/${1}/initrd" &&
        touch "/lib/modules/${1}/initrd/vboxvideo"
    test -n "${QUICKSETUP}" && return
    if type dracut >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        dracut -f "/boot/initramfs-${1}.img"
    elif type update-initramfs >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        update-initramfs -u -k "${1}"
    fi
}

# for i in /lib/modules/*; do
        update_module_dependencies "${i#/lib/modules/}"
  done

(the following files seem to be leftover and prevent my system from booting, delete them).

# rm -rf /var/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions

[Michael Thayer]

On the whole this report looks very reasonable, except that there is no file "VBoxLinuxAdditions.sh". The code you mention exists in other places, and your change seems to make sense, but where did you find that file?

[þorfinn]

confirmed the problem VB-5.1.0 and CentOS-7.7 VBoxLinuxAdditions.run fails with the default installation on CentOS-7 with /boot being read only to all, group and user # chmod u+w /boot and rerunning VBoxLinuxAdditions.run works. VBoxLinuxAdditions.run is supplied from the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso

[Frank Mehnert]

Fix is part of VirtualBox 5.1 and will be also part of the next VirtualBox 5.0 maintenance release.