Linux Guest Additions Errors in dracut execution -> fixed after (not in) 5.2.20

[DonC]

When installing the Linux 5.2.20 Guest additions on an Oracle Linux system (4.1.12-124.20.3.el6uek.x86_64) I get the following error:

Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 5.2.20 Guest Additions for Linux........
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Removing installed version 5.2.20 of VirtualBox Guest Additions...
vboxadd-service.sh: Stopping VirtualBox Guest Addition service.
You may need to restart your guest system to finish removing the guest drivers.
Usage: /sbin/dracut [OPTION]... <initramfs> <kernel-version>
Creates initial ramdisk images for preloading modules

  -f, --force           Overwrite existing initramfs file.
  -m, --modules [LIST]  Specify a space-separated list of dracut modules to
                         call when building the initramfs. Modules are located
                         in /usr/share/dracut/modules.d.
...

It then continues..

Copying additional installer modules ...
Installing additional modules ...
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules.  This may take a while.
Usage: /sbin/dracut [OPTION]... <initramfs> <kernel-version>
Creates initial ramdisk images for preloading modules

  -f, --force           Overwrite existing initramfs file.
  -m, --modules [LIST]  Specify a space-separated list of dracut modules to
                         call when building the initramfs. Modules are located
                         in /usr/share/dracut/modules.d.
  -o, --omit [LIST]     Omit a space-separated list of dracut modules.
...
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Running kernel modules will not be replaced until the system is restarted
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting.
Press Return to close this window...

[DonC]

Machine log file

[DonC]

Running the guest additions in Oracle Linux 4.14.35-1818.3.3.el7uek.x86_64 (Version 7) works fine. The above error is version 6 of Oracle Linux.

[James Brown]

The installer passes the --kver argument, which is only valid in RHEL7-derived distributions.

This appears to have been broken in r74579.

[Michael Thayer]

Terribly sorry. Fixed (by accident) in r74964, which is in the latest test builds<1> but not in 5.2.20.

1. wiki:Testbuilds

[TonyMo]

I just discovered the same with a guest running CentOS 6. The bug still exists in the Guest Additions for 5.2.22.

Until it is fixed in VB, I overcame it with a temporary wrapper around /sbin/dracut:

1. # mv /sbin/dracut /sbin/dracut.orig

2. Create a new /sbin/dracut to contain the following:

#!/bin/bash

while [[ "$#" > 0 ]]; do case "$1" in
  --kver) version="$2"; shift 2;;
  *)      args+=("$1"); shift 1;;
esac
done
exec /sbin/dracut.orig "${args[@]}" "${version:+/boot/initramfs-${version}.img}" "${version}"

[Michael Thayer]

@TonyMo Sorry about this, but could you recheck that? Installing the 5.2.22 Additions will uninstall the 5.2.20 ones first, and I am wondering whether you saw the error in the 5.2.20 uninstaller rather than in the 5.2.22 installer. If that was the case then you should be able to re-install the 5.2.22 ones without seeing the error.

[DonC]

For Oracle Linux 6 (4.1.12-124.21.1.el6uek.x86_64) update 5.2.22 seems to have fixed the issue. During the first install phase, I got the error but only once. (Not twice like above.) Running the Guest Additions install again was error free.