/dev/vboxdrv and /dev/vboxnetctl going missing after reboot

[Bruce Williamson]

Howzit Folks?

Whenever I reboot my server I get the following error when starting VirtualBox:

VBoxManage startvm Win-VM --type gui

WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module available for the current kernel (2.6.34-12-desktop) or it failed to load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed. Oracle VM VirtualBox Command Line Management Interface Version 3.2.8 (C) 2005-2010 Oracle Corporation All rights reserved.

Waiting for the VM to power on ERROR: The virtual machine 'Win-VM' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1 Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component Machine, interface IMachine, callee

which is caused by /dev/vboxdrv and /dev/vboxnetctl going missing after reboot. Running sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup reinstates the missing devices and I can run VirtualBox.

My pc configuration is as follows:

OS/Desktop: openSUSE 11.3 - Linux 2.6.34-12-desktop x86_64 KDE 4.4.4

CPU: AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core Processor

Memory: 8GB DDR2 Ram

Motherboard: M2A-VM - AMD 690G Chipset

Graphics: 1GB ATI Radeon X1250 Graphics

Hard drive: Samsung 500GB SATA

Any questions, give me a shout.

Cheers Bruce

[Bruce Williamson]

vbox-install.log

[Bruce Williamson]

VBox.log

[Frank Mehnert]

Are these devices really gone after each reboot or only after you upgraded your Linux kernel?

[Bruce Williamson]

Replying to frank:

Are these devices really gone after each reboot or only after you upgraded your Linux kernel?

It never used to be an issue but whenever I reboot they've definitely gone awol. I upgraded to openSUSE 11.3 recently but have subsequently upgraded to VirtualBox 3.2.8 but I don't remember when exactly the problem started as I don't reboot that often and assumed that the problem was related to a recent upgrade of VirtualBox.

[Frank Mehnert]

Well, you installed VBox on a openSUSE host. That distribution does not provide the DKMS package. DKMS would ensure that the VirtualBox kernel modules are recompiled when you install a newer kernel. Therefore you have to execute /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup manually each time you installed a new kernel. Sorry, but there is not much we can do about this. Other distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva) provide this package and allow that automatism.

[Bruce Williamson]

Nothing to do with DKMS and automation, I have run /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup manually and have to after every reboot even though I haven't upgraded or installed a new kernel.

[Frank Mehnert]

Well, it works here on openSUSE 11.3 without any problems. So after a reboot you should check the following: Do

$ lsmod|grep vbox
vboxnetadp              5587  0
vboxnetflt             16481  0
vboxdrv              1806371  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

There should be three VirtualBox kernel modules loaded. If so, check the permissions of the vboxdrv device with

$ /bin/ls -l /dev/vbox*
crw------- 1 root vboxusers 10, 58 2010-08-19 08:19 /dev/vboxdrv
crw------- 1 root root      10, 57 2010-08-19 08:19 /dev/vboxnetctl

Furthermore check if the script /etc/init.d/vboxdrv is properly run during boot:

$ grep :initdefault /etc/inittab
id:5:initdefault
$ cd /etc/init.d/rc5.d
$ ls -l *vbox*
K01vboxdrv -> ../vboxdrv
S04vboxdrv -> ../vboxdrv

[Bruce Williamson]

After reboot:

lsmod|grep vbox
<- No output ->

ls -l /dev/vbox*
ls: cannot access /dev/vbox*: No such file or directory

grep :initdefault /etc/inittab
id:5:initdefault:

cd /etc/init.d/rc5.d
ls -l *vbox*
ls: cannot access *vbox*: No such file or directory

After /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

Stopping VirtualBox kernel module              done
Removing old VirtualBox netadp kernel module   done
Removing old VirtualBox netflt kernel module   done
Removing old VirtualBox kernel module          done
Recompiling VirtualBox kernel module           done
Starting VirtualBox kernel module              done

lsmod|grep vbox
vboxnetadp              5587  0 
vboxnetflt             16513  0 
vboxdrv              1806371  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

ls -l /dev/vbox*
crw------- 1 root vboxusers 10, 58 Aug 19 19:25 /dev/vboxdrv
crw------- 1 root root      10, 57 Aug 19 19:25 /dev/vboxnetctl

grep :initdefault /etc/inittab
id:5:initdefault:

cd /etc/init.d/rc5.d
ls -l *vbox*
ls: cannot access *vbox*: No such file or directory

So it looks like K01vboxdrv & S04vboxdrv have gone AWOL, I'll try re-installing VirtualBox and see if it fixes it, failing that I will create these 2 symlinks.

I'll report back shortly.

[Bruce Williamson]

I did a complete uninstall and re-install ... lo and behold K01vboxdrv & S04vboxdrv are there.

Thanks for your help Frank.

Cheers Bruce

[Frank Mehnert]

Thanks for the feedback!