VBox: Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

[aga021]

Hi, I'm new to Virtual Box and came across this problem today. I've tried the fix, but am getting this message:


$ sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-dkms
[sudo] password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package virtualbox-dkms

I see somebody else had this problem, but I did not understand the solution offered, please can somebody put it in layman's terms?

I'm using Ubuntu 11.04.

Thanks.

[CharlesA]

That package is only installed if you have the version of virtualbox that is in the ubuntu repos, not the one from virtualbox.org installed.

[aga021]

Thanks for your reply, I did install from virtualbox.org - is there another fix for this?

[CharlesA]

Run this:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

[Chuck Glenn]

Here's what my newly-installed VirtualBox says a day after installing 12.10:

Error! Your kernel headers for kernel 3.5.0-17-generic cannot be found.
Please install the linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic package,
or use the --kernelsourcedir option to tell DKMS where it's located

And as for the suggestion to run sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup...

sudo: /etc/init.d/vboxdrv: command not found

So I guess I wait for... something???

[CharlesA]

Install the kernel headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic

Unless something has change between 12.04 and 12.10, there should be vboxdrv in /etc/init.d/

[deymos34]

Faced that situation with new 12.10 as well (clean installation, Virtualbox installed from repo, tried to reinstall both VirtualBox and Ubuntu itself).

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)
The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing
'/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup'
as root. If it is available in your distribution, you should install the DKMS package first. This package keeps track of Linux kernel changes and recompiles the vboxdrv kernel module if necessary.

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine Ubuntu.
The virtual machine 'Ubuntu' has terminated unexpectedly during startup with exit code 1.
Result Code: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: Machine
Interface: IMachine {5eaa9319-62fc-4b0a-843c-0cb1940f8a91}

But there is no /etc/init.d/vboxdrv, only /etc/init.d/virtualbox. I tried to install linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic, and installation was a success, but that changed nothing.

Would be interesting to hear a word from a person, who use Virtualbox in 12.10, so we'll now things are not completely broken.

[emrys]

Install the kernel headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic

Unless something has change between 12.04 and 12.10, there should be vboxdrv in /etc/init.d/

OK, problem solved. With 12.10 I had to:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic
sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-dkms
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms

And then, in VBox, go to Settings, System, Acceleration, and disable the option "Enable VT-x/AMD-V" - This might be a specific problem of my setup though.

Thanks!

[deymos34]

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic
sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-dkms
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms

Confirm, reinstallation of virtualbox-dkms after installation of linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic solved problem for me as well. Happily there was no need to disable option "Enable VT-x/AMD-V" in my case.

[undoIT]

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-3.5.0-17-generic
sudo apt-get remove virtualbox-dkms
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms

This worked perfectly for me with Virtualbox installed from repos. Didn't have to reboot or disable anything. There was an error with the network connection on the Appliance I had imported. I set Network to "Not Attached" and then back to "Bridged" and now Virtualbox is working just fine.

Thanks for sharing.