Ttgjyuk

I just set up a new dedicated server with a clean installation of Ubunutu 18.04.1 LTS minimal. I'm trying to install VirtualBox with PHPVirtualBox, preferably using VirtualBox 6, but also willing to settle for VirtualBox 5 if that's what it takes to work. ;-)

This is what I did after the installation of the OS:

apt update
apt upgrade
apt dist-upgrade
apt install virtualbox

The installation seems to have worked:

root@Ubuntu-1804-bionic-64-minimal ~ # vboxmanage --version
5.2.18_Ubuntur123745

But at this point, from my experience with previous versions of Ubuntu an VirtualBox, there should be four services installed (aka the respective files present in /etc/init.d): vboxautostart-service, vboxballoonctrl-service, vboxdrv and vboxweb-service

However, the /etc/init.s directory looks like this:

root@Ubuntu-1804-bionic-64-minimal /etc/init.d # ls -la
total 128
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 3 22:50 .
drwxr-xr-x 82 root root 4096 Apr 3 23:02 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4335 Mar 22 2018 apparmor
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1071 Aug 22 2015 atd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1232 Apr 19 2018 console-setup.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2489 May 6 2012 cpufrequtils
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3049 Nov 16 2017 cron
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2813 Nov 15 2017 dbus
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 985 Mar 4 2018 grub-common
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2363 Jul 17 2017 haveged
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3809 Feb 14 2018 hwclock.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1479 Feb 15 2018 keyboard-setup.sh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2044 Aug 15 2017 kmod
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6912 May 6 2012 loadcpufreq
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 695 Dec 3 2017 lvm2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 571 Dec 3 2017 lvm2-lvmetad
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 586 Dec 3 2017 lvm2-lvmpolld
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2653 Mar 7 2018 mdadm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1249 Mar 7 2018 mdadm-waitidle
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1191 Jan 17 2018 procps
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4355 Dec 13 2017 rsync
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2864 Jan 14 2018 rsyslog
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3837 Jan 26 2018 ssh
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 5974 Apr 20 2018 udev
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1306 Mar 15 2018 uuidd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6444 Nov 11 2017 virtualbox
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2757 Jan 20 2017 x11-common

When I check if the kernel modules are loaded, as described in this seemingly fine tutorial, via systemctl status vboxdrv, the output is:

root@Ubuntu-1804-bionic-64-minimal ~ # systemctl status vboxdrv
Unit vboxdrv.service could not be found.

When I try ot enable the VirtualBox Web Service, as described in the VirtualBox Web Service documentation, via systemctl enable vboxweb-service, the output is:

root@Ubuntu-1804-bionic-64-minimal ~ # systemctl enable vboxweb-service
Failed to enable unit: Unit file vboxweb-service.service does not exist.

The same happens when I manually add the virtualbox.org package source and analogously try to install VirtualBox 6. It looks like three services that should be present are missing. What am I missing?

The things you are missing:

• vboxautostart-service

On the Ubuntu version you are using it's not installed by default. Should be installed and configured manually.

Get the officual script, make it executable and register it as init script via update-rc.d:

# cd /etc/init.d/

# wget https://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Installer/linux/vboxautostart-service.sh -O /vboxautostart-service

# chmod +x /etc/init.d/vboxautostart-service

# update-rc.d vboxautostart-service defaults 24 24

• vboxballoonctrl-service

Same thing as in the vboxautostart-service section described:

# cd /etc/init.d/

# wget https://www.virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Installer/linux/vboxballoonctrl-service.sh -O vboxballoonctrl-service

# chmod +x vboxballoonctrl-service

# update-rc.d vboxballoonctrl-service defaults 24 24

• vboxweb-service

It's by default installed, but named as vboxweb.service instead. To enable and start it, simply run:

sudo systemctl enable vboxweb.service

• vboxdrv

It's not a service, but a module and needs to be loaded.

You can use modprobe to load it: modprobe vboxdrv and then reboot.

After reboot you can run the following to check if it's loaded (with -n --first-time arguments, -n stands for dry-run).

# modprobe -n --first-time vboxdrv

modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'vboxdrv': Module already in kernel

Or you can use modinfo to verify if the vboxdrv kernel module is loaded:

# modinfo vboxdrv

filename: /lib/modules/4.15.0-47-generic/updates/dkms/vboxdrv.ko
version: 5.2.18_Ubuntu r123745 (0x00290001)
license: GPL
description: Oracle VM VirtualBox Support Driver
author: Oracle Corporation
srcversion: 781CB3ECE0924C4811D34FD
depends: 
retpoline: Y
name: vboxdrv
vermagic: 4.15.0-47-generic SMP mod_unload 
parm: force_async_tsc:force the asynchronous TSC mode (int)

After you are done with all these things, simply reboot.

Further, for more information about the config specs of the individual Oracle VM VirtualBox services, you can refer to the officual manual:

• Autostart Webservice: page 259




• Web Service: page 254