Launching VM from VirtualBox issue: Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

Issues & Assistance
1

So when I tried to launch any VM I would get this error:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver is either not loaded or not set up correctly. Please try setting it up again by executing

'/sbin/vboxconfig'

as root.

If your system has EFI Secure Boot enabled you may also need to sign the kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt, vboxnetadp, vboxpci) before you can load them. Please see your Linux system's documentation for more information.

where: suplibOsInit what: 3 VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (-1908) - The support driver is not installed. On linux, open returned ENOENT.

I can confirm I am not using secure boot.

Running:

uname -r

Reveals I am using this kernel:

7.1.1-2-cachyos

I have verified the header kernel packages are installed:

❯ pacman -Q | grep headers
linux-api-headers 1:7.0-1
linux-cachyos-headers 7.1.1-2
linux-cachyos-lts-headers 6.18.36-1

I have installed virtualbox-host-dkms which replaced this package virtualbox-host-modules-arch and I believe it has rebuilt and installed.

I have rebooted however still the same error message.

I don’t feel like replacing the kernel with a different one nor do I want to run '/sbin/vboxconfig' I would rather install what needs to be installed via the package manager.

It shows that the status was built for the lts kernel:

❯ dkms status
vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE, 6.18.36-1-cachyos-lts, x86_64: installed

Me manually building it for my kernel results in this error:

❯ sudo dkms install vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE -k $(uname -r)
Sign command: /usr/lib/modules/7.1.1-2-cachyos/build/scripts/sign-file
Signing key: /var/lib/dkms/mok.key
Public certificate (MOK): /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub

Building module(s)...(bad exit status: 2)
Failed command:
make -j24 KERNELRELEASE=7.1.1-2-cachyos -C /usr/lib/modules/7.1.1-2-cachyos/build M=/var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE/build LLVM=1

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 7.1.1-2-cachyos (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE/build/make.log for more information.

I think it might be a gcc versioning difference but not sure how to fix this?

2

I have the same problem.

==> dkms install --no-depmod vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE -k 7.1.1-2-cachyos

Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 7.1.1-2-cachyos (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE/build/make.log for more information.
==> WARNING: `dkms install --no-depmod vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE -k 7.1.1-2-cachyos’ exited 10
==> dkms install --no-depmod vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE -k 6.18.36-1-cachyos-lts

3

I was told I need to upgrade to 7.2.10 my current version is 7.2.8 r173730. Is the up to date version available in Arch Linux repo instead of Cachy repo?

4

I just installed extra/virtualbox rather than from cachyOS and version is: 7.2.10 r174163 however exact same error message when I tried to launch a VM.

I tried both with virtualbox-host-dkms and virtualbox-host-modules-arch

5

**Same thing after updating CachyOS

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)**

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver is either not loaded or not set up correctly. Please try setting it up again by executing

‘/sbin/vboxconfig’

as root.

If your system has EFI Secure Boot enabled you may also need to sign the kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt, vboxnetadp, vboxpci) before you can load them. Please see your Linux system’s documentation for more information.

where: suplibOsInit what: 3 VERR_VM_DRIVER_NOT_INSTALLED (-1908) - The support driver is not installed. On linux, open returned ENOENT.

Guess i will just the LTS kernel until VB get’s updated!

6

That’s a bit annoying the devs haven’t updated VB on their repo!

7

I removed virtualbox and installed virt-manager with qemu. For now i don’t have any problems.

8

I don’t think I can use my existing VMs on qemu that would be an issue.

9

I had a similar problem caused by cleaning out orphans and swapping out most AUR hosted packages. It’s frustrating when the repos update these multi-package sets at different rates.

Easiest solution was to simply paru -R all the virtualbox packages (including dkms and ext), reboot, install the main virtualbox package (which will prompt you to install the host packages, choose from the same repo as the main package), reboot, and you should be good. Launch the VB launcher, which will prompt to download the guest additions.

After that, I was on 7.2.8, which is 1 version behind and only out of date by a few days. No problems with the VMs I tried (uninstalling won’t affect their configuration or data). All other packages and kernel have been updated daily, so no idea if it’ll help folks running under kernel 6, LTS, or partially updated OS packages.

10

I can confirm that this works though I got higher version (7.2.10).

  1. Uninstall all the virtualbox packages
  2. Reinstall the virtualbox and the required packages
pacman -Q | grep virtualbox
virtualbox 7.2.10-3
virtualbox-guest-iso 7.2.10-1
virtualbox-guest-utils 7.2.10-3
virtualbox-host-dkms 7.2.10-3

linux-headers 7.0.12.arch1-1

I added to group user just to make sure

sudo gpasswd -a $USER vboxusers
sudo modprobe vboxdrv
sudo vboxreload

Kernel: Linux 7.1.1-2-cachyos

source how-to install: Virtualbox problem - #2 by Gunther-Schulz

11

I also had to do this, echo “blacklist kvm” | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/disable-kvm.conf otherwise i would immediately get an Aborted status. I am no linux expert, Gemini told me to do it and it worked. Thank you guys!

12

Thanks did all this but did NOT have to do this:

sudo gpasswd -a $USER vboxusers
sudo modprobe vboxdrv
sudo vboxreload