VirtualBox failes with "undefined symbol: libssh2_knownhost_init" after security package update

[ilezcano]

I can't start VirtualBox after recent security update to some packages. When I attempt to start it from the command line, I get:

VirtualBox: dlopen("/usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxRT.so",) failed: /usr/lib64/libcurl.so.4: undefined symbol: libssh2_knownhost_init

Virtualbox package is "3.1.4_57640_fedora11" libcurl package is 7.19.7 release 5

[ilezcano]

Using yum to downgrade the libcurl package from 7.19.7-5 to 7.19.4-7 has provided a workaround for my issue. I don't want to stay on this version of libcurl for long, though. I need to update libcurl eventually due to these two bugs:

​https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=563240. ​https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=563220.

[Frank Mehnert]

VBox 3.1.4 works fine here on Fedora 11 / AMD64. Why do you think that it's a bug of VirtualBox when you only upgraded a package from the Linux distribution? The missing symbol is provided by /usr/lib64/libssh2.so.1 which comes from libssh2-1.2.2-4.fc11. I assume you just did not upgrade all packages.

[ilezcano]

No, I did not upgrade all packates. The upgrade I performed was only for security related updates, which at that time was only for libcurl and other dependent packages, not libssh2. I believed it was libcurl and not libssh2 because when I ran VirtualBox after the libcurl update I got:

VirtualBox: Error -610 in supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime! VirtualBox: dlopen("/usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxRT.so",) failed: /usr/lib64/libcurl.so.4: undefined symbol: libssh2_knownhost_init

Now I've reapplied the libcurl update as well as updated libssh2 and it works now.

[Frank Mehnert]

Yes, you upgraded libcurl but did not upgrade libssh2. IMO a bug in the libcurl package as it must have a versionied dependency to the new libssh2 library to satisfy the missing symbol.

[ilezcano]

I agree. If they had properly packaged libcurl, it would have saved me a little embarrassment.