VirtualBox 4.1.22 released on 2012-09-07

Oracle has released the latest maintenance version of VirtualBox Please find below the details of the changelog :

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed a potential host crash triggered by shutting down a VM when another VM was running (only affected 32-bit hosts and 64-bit OS X hosts, 4.1 regression, bug #9897)
• VMM: fixed a potential host crash under a high guest memory pressure (seen with Windows 8 guests)
• VMM: respect RAM preallocation while restoring saved state.
• VMM: fixed handling of task gates if VT-x/AMD-V is disabled
• Storage: fixed audio CD passthrough for certain media players
• USB: don’t crash if a USB device is plugged or unplugged when saving or loading the VM state (SMP guests only)
• RTC: fixed a potential corruption of CMOS bank 1
• Mac OS X hosts: installer fixes for Leopard (4.1.20 regression)
• Windows Additions: fixed memory leak in VBoxTray (bug #10808)

 

VirtualBox 4.1.20 released on 2012-08-20

Oracle has released the latest maintenance version of VirtualBox Please find below the details of the changelog :

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed a crash under rare circumstances for VMs running without hardware virtualization
• VMM: fixed a code analysis bug for certain displacement instructions for VMs running without hardware virtualization
• VMM: fixed an interpretion bug for TPR read instructions under rare conditions (AMD-V only)
• Snapshots: fixed a crash when restoring an old snapshot when powering off a VM (bugs #9604, #10491)
• VBoxSVC: be more tolerant against environment variables with strange encodings (bug #8780)
• VGA: fixed wrong access check which might cause a crash under certain conditions
• NAT: final fix for crashes under rare conditions (bug #10513)
• Virtio-net: fixed the problem with receiving of GSO packets in Windows XP guests causing packet loss in host-to-VM transfers
• HPET: several fixes (bugs #10170, #10306)
• Clipboard: disable the clipboard by default for new VMs
• BIOS: the PCI BIOS was not properly detected with the chipset type set to ICH9 (bugs #9301, #10327)
• Mac OS X hosts: adaptions to Mountain Lion
• Linux Installer: fixes for Gentoo Linux (bug #10642)
• Linux guests: fixed mouse integration on Fedora 17 guests (bug #2306)
• Linux Additions: compile fixes for RHEL/CentOS 6.3 (bug #10756)
• Linux Additions: compile fixes for Linux 3.5-rc1 and Linux 3.6-rc1 (bug #10709)
• Solaris host: fixed a guru meditation while allocating large pages (bug #10600)
• Solaris host: fixed possible kernel panics while freeing memory
• Solaris Installer: fixed missing icon for menu and desktop shortcuts

To install it on Linux, whatever your distro:

VirtualBox on Linux

PhpVirtualBox

If VirtualBox is your solution for virtualization, you should install and have a try with PhpVirtualBox. VirtualBox instances can be managed through a web interface. Most of the functions in the GUI are enabled here.

PhpVirtualBox official website

Before deploying it :

Install a web server

And now put PhpVirtualBox in your webserver :

How to install it

Do not forget to start vboxwebsrv otherwise you will not be able to connect to the web interface :

Enjoy !

VirtualBox 4.0.8 released on 2011-05-16

Oracle released a new version of VirtualBox a few days ago.

Please find below all the fixes applied and all new features added :

• Mac OS X hosts: fixed incompatibility with recent Mac OS X versions in 64-bit mode (bug #8474)
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed incompatibility with hosts with more than 16 cores (bug #8389)
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed painting corruptions on a second monitor in 64-bit mode (bug … (closed)” href=”http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/7606″>#7606)
• GUI: restored functionality to set an empty host key to disallow any host key combination (4.0.6 regression; bug Fixed in SVN (closed)” href=”http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8793″>#8793)
• VBoxManage: added controlvm screenshotpng subcommand for saving the screenshot of a running VM in PNG format
• VBoxHeadless: fixed potential crash during shutdown (Windows hosts only)
• NAT: built-in services use the correct Ethernet addresses in Ethernet header and in ARP requests
• Host-only networking: fixed adapter reference counting
• E1000: fixed rare guest crashes with Linux SMP guests (bug Fixed in SVN (closed)” href=”http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8755″>#8755)
• SATA: fixed guest disk corruption under rare circumstances (only relevant for guests with more than 2GB RAM; bug Fixed in SVN (closed)” href=”http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8826″>#8826)
• Storage: fixed data corruption after a snapshot was taken with asynchronous I/O enabled (bug #8498)
• Floppy: several improvement
• HPET: another fix for time jumps (bug Fixed … (closed)” href=”http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8707″>#8707)
• USB: removed assumption that string descriptors are null-terminated (Windows hosts only)
• 3D support: fixed a potential crash when resizing the guest window
• 3D support: fixed GNOME 3 rendering under Ubuntu 11.04 and Fedora 15
• Snapshots: fixed another bug which could lose entries in the media registry when restoring a snapshot (bug #8363)
• Shared Folders: don’t stop mounting the other valid folders if one host folder is inaccessible (4.0.6 regression)
• Linux Additions: check whether gcc and make are installed before building kernel modules (bug #8795)
• Solaris Additions: added support for X.Org Server 1.10
• Guest Additions: fixed inappropriate Guest Additions update notification when using vendor-specific version suffixes (bug #8844)

For more information for installing it :

Download VirtualBox 4.0.8

Virtualbox OSE 3.0.12 available within the Debian Lenny backports repositories

After a fresh installation of Debian Lenny, I wanted to use a quite very recent version of VirtualBox.
One solution is the Debian backports : Here are the VirtualBox packages available
To make VirtualBox work well, you need to install the following packages : virtualbox-ose, virtualbox-ose-qt and virtualbox-ose-source

Here are the version(s) available for each package mentioned above :

virtualbox-ose : 3.0.12-dfsg-1~bpo50+1 (for i386)
virtualbox-ose-qt : 3.0.12-dfsg-1~bpo50+1 (for i386)
virtualbox-ose-source : 3.1.4-dfsg-1~bpo50+1 (for all platforms)

As you may have noticed, virtualbox-ose-source version is higher than the ones above. As a test, I installed all of them. I compiled the modules needed with module-assistant. I failed to launch a virtual machine.
Here is the message I got :

VBoxHeadless: Error -1912 in supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime!
VBoxHeadless: RTR3Init failed with rc=-1912

Running as a normal user the command vboxheadless, I encountered the same message :

fool@localhost:~$ vboxheadless

VBoxHeadless: Error -1912 in supR3HardenedMainInitRuntime!
VBoxHeadless: RTR3Init failed with rc=-1912

VBoxHeadless: Tip! It may help to reinstall VirtualBox.

The only workaround I found for this problem is to install the Sun’s package available here .
To install it :

root@localhost:~# dpkg -i virtualbox-3.1_3.1.4-57640_Debian_lenny_i386.deb

Make sure that the good modules are loaded correctly :

root@localhost:~# lsmod |grep vbox

vboxnetadp              6436  0
vboxnetflt             12332  0
vboxdrv               155144  2 vboxnetadp,vboxnetflt

As a last test, run the following command :

root@localhost:~# /usr/bin/VBoxHeadless

You should have the message below :

Sun VirtualBox Headless Interface 3.1.4
(C) 2008-2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Usage:
-s, -startvm, –startvm <name|uuid>   Start given VM (required argument)
-v, -vrdp, –vrdp on|off|config       Enable (default) or disable the VRDP
server or don’t change the setting
-p, -vrdpport, –vrdpport <ports>     Comma-separated list of ports the VRDP
server can bind to. Use a dash between
two port numbers to specify a range
-a, -vrdpaddress, –vrdpaddress <ip>  Interface IP the VRDP will bind to
-c, -capture, –capture               Record the VM screen output to a file
-w, –width                           Frame width when recording
-h, –height                          Frame height when recording
-r, –bitrate                         Recording bit rate when recording
-f, –filename                        File name when recording.  The codec
used will be chosen based on the
file extension

A similar problem is registered in the Debian bug tracking system :

Bug #537864

Here is another solution to install a very recent version of VirtualBox :

http://code.google.com/p/virtualboxoseforifl/

Can’t open perl script « /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-1-common/scripts/recordmcount.pl »

I have recently installed the lastest kernel version from the testing Debian repositories : 2.6.32-1-686
Once downloaded, I must recompile some modules, particularly Virtualbox modules.

root@localhost:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-ose-dkms
Removing all DKMS Modules
Done.
Loading new virtualbox-ose-3.1.2 DKMS files…
Building for 2.6.32-1-686 and 2.6.32-trunk-686
Building initial module for 2.6.32-1-686

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 2.6.32-1-686 (i686)
Consult the make.log in the build directory
/var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build/ for more information.

The error message is within the log file /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build/make.log

root@localhost:~# cat /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build/make.log

DKMS make.log for virtualbox-ose-3.1.2 for kernel 2.6.32-1-686 (i686)

LD      /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build/vboxdrv/built-in.o
CC [M]  /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.o
Can’t open perl script “/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-1-common/scripts/recordmcount.pl”:
make[4]: *** [/var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build/vboxdrv/linux/SUPDrv-linux.o] Erreur 2
make[3]: *** [/var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build/vboxdrv] Erreur 2
make[2]: *** [_module_/var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-ose/3.1.2/build] Erreur 2

Here is a workaround to get the missing file :

root@localhost:~# apt-get source linux-kbuild-2.6.32

then

root@localhost:~# cd /root/linux-kbuild-2.6-2.6.32/kbuild/scripts && cp recordmcount.pl /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-1-common/scripts/

I reconfigure the package virtualbox-ose-dkms :

root@localhost:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-ose-dkms

Removing all DKMS Modules
Done.
Loading new virtualbox-ose-3.1.2 DKMS files…
Building for 2.6.32-1-686 and 2.6.32-trunk-686
Building initial module for 2.6.32-1-686
Done.

vboxdrv.ko:
Running module version sanity check.
- Original module
- No original module exists within this kernel
- Installation
- Installing to /lib/modules/2.6.32-1-686/updates/dkms/

vboxnetadp.ko:
Running module version sanity check.
- Original module
- No original module exists within this kernel
- Installation
- Installing to /lib/modules/2.6.32-1-686/updates/dkms/

vboxnetflt.ko:
Running module version sanity check.
- Original module
- No original module exists within this kernel
- Installation
- Installing to /lib/modules/2.6.32-1-686/updates/dkms/

depmod…………….

DKMS: install Completed.
Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules.
Starting VirtualBox kernel modules.

fool@localhost:~$lsmod |grep vbox

vboxnetflt             10854  0
vboxnetadp              5366  0
vboxdrv               117917  2 vboxnetflt,vboxnetadp

This compilation problem has already been encountered :

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=562512

VirtualBox OSE 3.1.2 available within the Debian Squeeze repositories

A new release of VirtualBox is available in the Debian testing repositories.
If already installed on your system, it will be automatically upgraded if you are using Debian testing.
Unfortunately, some errors occurred concerning the modules used by VirtualBox.
During the upgrade, the modules of the previous version are not removed correctly.
The package, virtualbox-ose-dkms, is not installed because the new release seems to use the previous modules.
I failed to launch the VirtualBox application. Here is the error message I got :

RTR3Init failed with rc=-1912 (rc=-1912)
Please install the virtualbox-ose-dkms package and execute ‘modprobe vboxdrv’ as root.

So, I installed the package virtualbox-ose-dkms :

root@localhost:~# apt-get install virtualbox-ose-dkms

The installation did not complete correctly :

DKMS: install Completed.
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules.
Starting VirtualBox kernel modulesmodprobe vboxnetflt failed. Please use ‘dmesg’ to find out why … failed!
failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript virtualbox-ose, action “restart” failed.

It took me some time to find out what was wrong exactly. I got a first clue after checking if the vbox* modules were still loaded. There were still remaining :

root@localhost:~# lsmod |grep vbox
 vboxnetadp             65312  0
 vboxnetflt             70648  0
 vboxdrv               100992  1 vboxnetflt

In the previous version, they could be found in this repository :
/lib/modules/2.6.30-2-686/updates/dkms/

After seeking for the timestamp of the DKMS repository, I unloaded the vbox* modules and I deleted the DKMS repository contents.

root@localhost:~# modprobe -r vboxnetadp
root@localhost:~# modprobe -r vboxnetflt
root@localhost:~# modprobe -r vboxdrv
root@localhost:~# cd /lib/modules/2.6.30-2-686/updates && rm -Rf dkms

Then, I relaunch a “dpkg-reconfigure” process :

root@localhost:~#dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-ose-dkms
DKMS: install Completed.
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules.
Starting VirtualBox kernel modules.

root@localhost:~#lsmod |grep vbox
vboxnetflt             12660  0  
vboxnetadp              6652  0  
vboxdrv               157000  2 vboxnetflt,vboxnetadp

root@localhost:~#modinfo vboxnetflt
filename:       /lib/modules/2.6.30-2-686/misc/vboxnetflt.ko
version:        3.1.2_OSE ((0xA2CDe001U))
license:        GPL
description:    VirtualBox Network Filter Driver
author:         Sun Microsystems, Inc.
srcversion:     AC748926D77F3C073851FAD
depends:        vboxdrv
vermagic:       2.6.30-2-686 SMP mod_unload modversions 686

The new modules are located in the /lib/modules/2.6.30-2-686/misc repository.

Virtualbox 3.0.12 in Debian Squeeze

In order to use the latest version of VirtualBox (3.0.12) available in Debian testing repositories, you have to install the following packages :

root@localhost:~# apt-get install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-qt virtualbox-ose-source
the package virtualbox-ose-source contains the sources for the modules to be compiled and to be included into the current kernel.

Nevertheless, it is possible that these modules are not compiled for the  kernel currently running.

With Debian, it is possible to relaunch manually the configuration of a package :

root@localhost:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-ose-source

Here is the output :

Removing all DKMS Modules
Done.
Adding modules to DKMS build system
Doing initial module builds

I got this error :

Error! Your kernel headers for kernel 2.6.30-2-686 cannot be found at
/lib/modules/2.6.30-2-686/build or /lib/modules/2.6.30-2-686/source.
Installing initial modules.

In order to solve this problem, you have to install linux-headers-2.6.30-2-686 :

root@localhost:~# apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.30-2-686

Run again the command below :

root@localhost:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-ose-source

Removing all DKMS Modules
Done.
Adding modules to DKMS build system
Doing initial module builds
Installing initial modules
Done.
Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules.
Starting VirtualBox kernel modules.

There is no more problem with the modules.

You can check that there are here :

fool@localhost:~$ lsmod |grep vbox

vboxnetflt             70648    0
vboxnetadp           65312    0
vboxdrv               100992      1          vboxnetflt

Virtualbox and DKMS

While upgrading VirtualBox to the lastest version (3.0.12) available in Debian repositories (for squeeze), I discovered that the modules needed for VirtualBox to work were compiled on the fly. An unknown process did the job for me : DKMS.

Until very recently, I had to compile myself the source of the following modules : vboxdrv and vboxnetflt

The compilation process was made with module-assistant.

Then, I had to load myself the new modules :

root@localhost:~# modprobe vboxdrv

root@localhost:~# modprobe vboxnetflt

Since the version 3.0 of VirtualBox, its installation has changed a bit.

Manual compilation is no more needed. This job is henceforth done by DKMS.

DKMS stands for Dynamic Kernel Module Support Framework.

Some programs need extra modules to work. These can be already compiled and included in a dedicated Debian package and possibly be loaded at boot time or manually loaded during an user session.

If you want VirtualBox to run properly, the following modules must exist and be loaded :

vboxnetflt, vboxnetadp and vboxdrv

These modules are compiled at boot time by a DKMS process if there are not already present. Then they are automatically loaded.

Before launching VirtualBox, check whether they are here or not :

root@localhost:~# lsmod |grep vbox
vboxnetflt             72328  0
vboxnetadp             66864  0
vboxdrv               102576  1 vboxnetflt

For further technical information about DKMS, please visit the following websites :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support

Dell and DKMS