Virtualbox on Debian Wiki Rumi, May 27, 2011 VirtualBox is an x86 emulator developed by innotek (bought by Sun/Oracle) comparable to VMware. A version called VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE) is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is a relatively new program and still has some minor issues, but generally is reliable, stable and above all, very fast. It has been used successfully for installation tests with Debian Installer. Install the relevant linux-headers and virtualbox-ose packages: # aptitude install linux-headers-2.6-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') virtualbox-ose This will also install virtualbox-ose-dkms and other recommended packages. DKMS will build the VirtualBox OSE modules for your system. VirtualBox OSE can now be started. To not load the VirtualBox OSE modules at system startup, edit /etc/default/virtualbox-ose and set LOAD_VBOXDRV_MODULE to 0. Lenny Install the virtualbox-ose package and appropriate kernel module package for your system: # aptitude install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-modules-$(uname -r) Instruct udevd(8) to reload the installed udev rules (Debian bug 509014): # invoke-rc.d udev reload Load the VirtualBox kernel module: # modprobe vboxdrv Add your user account to the vboxusers group: # adduser yourusername vboxusers Log out and log back in to your system to apply the group membership change. VirtualBox OSE can now be started. To load the vboxdrv module at system startup, edit /etc/default/virtualbox-ose and set LOAD_VBOXDRV_MODULE to 1. Lenny Backports As VirtualBox OSE 1.6.6 is obsolete, you may want to use the version in lenny-backports to experience new features and more importantly, to resolve some issues existing in the old version. Add the Debian Backports repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. For example: # Backported packages for Debian Lenny/5.0 deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports lenny-backports main Update the list of available packages: # aptitude update Install the relevant linux-headers package for your system, for example: # aptitude install linux-headers-2.6-$(uname -r|sed 's,[^-]*-[^-]*-,,') Install the lenny-backports/virtualbox-ose package: # aptitude -t lenny-backports install virtualbox-ose This will also install lenny-backports/virtualbox-ose-dkms and other recommended packages. DKMS will build the VirtualBox OSE modules for your system. VirtualBox OSE can now be started. To not load the VirtualBox OSE modules at system startup, edit /etc/default/virtualbox-ose and set LOAD_VBOXDRV_MODULE to 0. Starting Desktop In KDE, go to: KDE menu > System > VirtualBox OSE In GNOME, go to: GNOME menu > Applications > System tools > VirtualBox OSE From an X terminal: $ virtualbox Or $ VirtualBox Server You can start VirtualBox in Headless mode using VBoxHeadless like this: $ VBoxHeadless -startvm "VMName" You should run this inside a screen instance and detach the screen after starting the VM with Ctrl+a d. Troubleshooting The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist When starting VirtualBox OSE, the following message is shown: WARNING: The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist. Please install the virtualbox-ose-modules package for your kernel and load the module named vboxdrv into your system. You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed. Load the VirtualBox OSE kernel module (also load vboxnetflt in Debian Squeeze): $ su # modprobe vboxdrv If the module is not found, refer to Installation to provide a virtualbox-ose-modules-* package to your system. To load the module(s) at system startup, edit /etc/default/virtualbox-ose and set LOAD_VBOXDRV_MODULE to 1. You are not a member of the "vboxusers" group As stated by VirtualBox OSE: WARNING: You are not a member of the "vboxusers" group. Please add yourself to this group before starting VirtualBox. You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed. Add your user account to the vboxusers group via adduser(8), as described in Installation: $ su # adduser yourusername vboxusers Log out and log back in to your system to apply the group membership change. /dev/vboxdrv not writable for some reason As stated by VirtualBox OSE: WARNING: /dev/vboxdrv not writable for some reason. If you recently added the current user to the vboxusers group then you have to logout and re-login to take the change effect. You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed. The following group ownership of /dev/vboxdrv is also assigned: $ ls -l /dev/vboxdrv crw-rw—- 1 root root 10, 58 2009-06-22 16:33 /dev/vboxdrv This is a known issue in Lenny's VirtualBox OSE version (Debian bug 509014). To resolve, instruct udevd(8) to load the rule defined in /etc/udev/rules.d/z60_virtualbox-ose.rules and reload the VirtualBox OSE kernel module: $ su # invoke-rc.d udev reload # modprobe -r vboxdrv ; modprobe vboxdrv # exit The correct group ownership on /dev/vboxdrv should now be assigned: $ ls -l /dev/vboxdrv crw-rw—- 1 root vboxusers 10, 58 2009-06-22 16:43 /dev/vboxdrv 32-bit userland with amd64 kernel For Lenny, VirtualBox (version 2.x and before) does not work in such scenarios, see Debian bug 456391. For Lenny Backport, Squeeze and after, VirtualBox (version 3.x and after) works without problem. -1909 VERR VM DRIVER NOT ACCESSIBLE See You are not a member of the "vboxusers" group above. VERR_SUPDRV_INTERFACE_NOT_SUPPORTED (bridged network) With VirtualBox OSE 2.2.0, a bridged network interface may not function: Message error: Failed to open/create the internal network 'HostInterfaceNetworking-br-x' (VERR_SUPDRV_INTERFACE_NOT_SUPPORTED). Unknown error creating VM (VERR_SUPDRV_INTERFACE_NOT_SUPPORTED). Ensure the installed virtualbox-ose-modules-* package matches the VirtualBox OSE version available in testing. If not, build and install a new virtualbox-ose-modules-* package using Module-Assistant, refer to the Installation section. See also http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/3733. Could not find VirtualBox installation The following message is displayed on the console while trying to launch VirtualBox: Could not find VirtualBox installation. Please reinstall. To resolve, create the /etc/vbox/vbox.cfg file with the following content: # VirtualBox installation directory INSTALL_DIR="/usr/lib/virtualbox" Tips & Tricks Switching consoles The normal way to switch consoles in Linux is to use the ctrl-alt-Fx key combination. This does not work for a VirtualBox virtual machine (VM); it will switch consoles for the host system instead. You should use <Host Key>-Fx instead, where <Host Key> is the key defined in File->Preferences->Input. This also works for ctrl-alt-del and ctrl-alt-backspace This is documented in the VirtualBox user manual in the section "Keyboard and mouse support in virtual machines", subsection "Typing special characters". (An alternative method to switch between text consoles is to use alt-left and alt-right, but that does not work for graphical consoles like XOrg or DirectFB.) Setting up bridged networking for VirtualBox (VirtualBox < 2.1.0) By default VirtualBox uses NAT for the network interfaces of virtual machines and use an internal DHCP server to obtain an IP address. This works well but the disadvantage is that the machine will not have an IP address visible outside the VM and so you cannot connect to it from the host system or from other systems. By attaching the VM's interface to "Host Interface" and creating a bridge on the host system, the VM can be made visible on the local network. This also allows to do fun stuff like netbooting the VM (boot from LAN using PXE). It is comparable to the "bridged networking" option in VMWare. NB To use a wireless host device you need one that has support for Master mode (eg. it can be used as an access point, afaik only the Atheros and Prism drivers has this support) Preparation First install the bridge-utils package. Next, change the network configuration of the host system so that the network interface becomes part of a bridge. Note that this requires restarting the network, so be careful when doing this on a remote system! Change the file /etc/network/interfaces to look something like this: # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # An entry for eth0 is no longer needed #auto eth0 #iface eth0 inet dhcp # Create the bridge (with the regular IP address of the host) auto br0 iface br0 inet dhcp bridge_ports eth0 bridge_fd 2.5 In this example the bridge gets its IP address and configuration from DHCP. For static configuration information, see bridge-utils-interfaces(5). Restart the networking of the host system using: # /etc/init.d/networking restart After this brctl show should show the bridge and ifconfig should show the bridge has the host's IP address. It is also necessary for your user to own the device /dev/net/tun. Run the following command to change the owner of that device: # chown <username> /dev/net/tun If you have built your own kernel/modules then ensure the host machine has the vboxnetflt driver loaded. Configuring the VirtualBox VM There are different ways the TAP interface for the VM can be created: statically (before VirtualBox is even started) on demand (when a VM is being started) See also the chapter on "Virtual networking" in the VirtualBox user manual. Static interfaces In this case you only need to "define" an interface for use by a particular user once. All defined interfaces are "remembered" in the file /etc/vbox/interfaces and recreated by the VirtualBox init script every time the host system is booted. Example to create an interface for a user: # VBoxAddIF vbox0 <username> br0 You can of course create multiple interfaces per users, but all interfaces should have unique names. To configure the VM to use static bridged networking, go to the "network" page of the VM's settings and change the following fields: Attached to: Host Interface Interface Name: vbox0 Setup Application: <empty> Terminate Application: <empty> Dynamic interfaces (on demand) The example below shows the second method. This example will allow you to use multiple VM's, but the script assumes that each interface will be named in the form "vbox*". You may need to adapt the script to match your needs. Note that the script assumes you can execute the needed commands using sudo. A snippet of a sudoers file is included below as an example. set -e BRIDGE="br0" case "${1}" in "up" ) # Get the last vbox interface that was created or "" if none TAP=$(cat /proc/net/dev | grep vbox | tail -n 1 | cut -d":" -f1 | sed 's/\s*vbox\(\.*\)/\1/') # If there was no previous interface then set to -1 (this is so the += works) [ "${TAP}" = "" ] && TAP=-1 # Increment TAP let "TAP+=1" # prepend vbox onto the TAP no TAP="vbox${TAP}" # Create the new TAP device sudo VBoxTunctl -b -u $(whoami) -t ${TAP} # Bring up the TAP (without an ip) sudo ifconfig ${TAP} up # Add the TAP to the Bridge sudo brctl addif ${BRIDGE} ${TAP} # Echo the name of the TAP so VirtualBox knows which one to use # on lenny the echo must be commented for virtuabox to work correctly echo ${TAP} ;; "down" ) # VirtualBox tells us which TAP it used TAP=${3} # Bring the TAP down sudo ifconfig ${TAP} down # Remove the TAP sudo VBoxTunctl -d ${TAP} > /dev/null 2>&1 ;; esac Save the script, for example as ~/.VirtualBox/bridge_setup. The script can be tested by running it from the command line. If successful, brctl show should show interface vbox* (where * will be a number) added to the bridge. Here is a snippet of a sudoers file to help (replace username and hostname with the appropriate values): Cmnd_Alias VIRTUALBOX = /usr/bin/VBoxTunctl, /sbin/ifconfig vbox* up, /sbin/ifconfig vbox* down, /usr/sbin/brctl addif br0 vbox* username ALL=(ALL) PASSWD: ALL username hostname = NOPASSWD: VIRTUALBOX To configure the VM to use dynamic bridged networking, go to the "network" page of the VM's settings and change the following fields: Attached to: Host Interface Interface Name: <empty> Setup Application: ~/.VirtualBox/bridge_setup up Terminate Application: ~/.VirtualBox/bridge_setup down When the VM is started after that, the interface should be created automatically and the VM can be used just like it was a system connected directly to your local network. How to remotely start virtual machines using VNC Remote: log onto your remote box install tightvncserver launch it (you don't need a display), pick a password determine which port it is using, a way to do so: netstat -tap | grep vnc Let's say it's 5901 unlog from there since the server forked in the background Local: install xtightvncviewer create a ssh tunnel to your box: ssh -L 5901:localhost:5901 you@remote use it: (note there are two colons) xtightvncviewer localhost::5901 then VBoxManage startvm $yourvm & and start as many virtual machines as wanted. Src: http://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox#Squeeze Virtualbox Virtualization