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Installing VirtualBox 2 on a Linux Host

2,534 bytes added, 20:37, 5 March 2009
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This chapter of [[VirtualBox 2 Essentials]] covers the requirements for and steps to install the full, pre-built binrary edition of VirtualBox on a Linux host.  VirtualBox may be installed on Linux using either Linux distribution specific package archives, or manually using a distribution neutral shell script based installer. Each of these methods will be covered in this chapter.
== VirtualBox Linux Host Requirements ==
* '''SDL''' - Version 1.2.7 or newer of the ''libsdl'' graphics library must be installed.
Another, optional package is Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS). As part of the installation process, VirtualBox installed two kernel modules (vboxdrv and vboxnetflt) onto the host system. These modules must match the running Linux kernel at all times for VirtualBox to function. This can be an issue when the host kernel is updated at any point in the future. Whilst not required to install and run VirtualBox the presence of this the DKMS package will ease the transition to future kernel updates. When installed, DKMS ensures that the VirtualBox kernel module is modules are rebuilt automatically when the Linux kernel is updated. Without this package, the VirtualBox kernel module will need to be rebuilt manually each time a kernel update is applied to the host system.
The DKMS package is not supported on all Linux distributions, but may be installed on those that do as follows:
Ubuntu:
In addition to the above requirements, USB device support requires that the user account from which VirtualBox is running have read and write access to the ''usbfs'' USB filesystem. Also, if the virtual machines will be required to have access to host network adapters, the user must also have aread and write access to the ''/dev/net/tun'' device.
 
== Downloading VirtualBox for Linux ==
 
The binary version of VirtualBox, pre-packaged for a wide variety of Linux distributions may be downloaded from the [http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads VirtualBox web site]. Select the package which matches your Linux distribution (Fedora, Ubuntu, Red Hat, CentOS etc) and host architecture (i386 or AMD64) and download the archive to a suitable temporary location. If your Linux distribution is not listed download the appropriate archive for the ''All distributions'' option.
 
== Installing VirtualBox on Fedora, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux ==
 
The packaged version of VirtualBox for Fedora, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is supplied in the form of a Red Hat Package Management (rpm) file. When the link to download this archive is clicked, the browser will display a dialog providing the option to install the package using the ''Software Installer'', or saving the file to disk. If the Software Installer is selected, a dialog similar to the following will appear once the download has completed.
 
 
[[Image:virtualbox_software_installer.jpg|Installing the VirtualBox RPM package using the software installer on Red Hat based systems]]
 
 
To begin the installation, select the VirtualBox package and click the ''Apply'' button to initiate the installation process. If, during this process, the installer is unable to find pre-built kernel modules for the host operating system, it will attempt to build compatible modules from source code. If the installation fails, a log of the installation process, including any errors which were encountered, is stored in ''/var/log/vbox-install.log''. Review any errors reported in the log file, take appropriate corrective action and repeat the installation process. If the installation is successful, a ''Software Installed Successfully'' dialog will appear and VirtualBox is ready to run.
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