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Re: [LUG] Debian stretch virtualbox

 

On 15/09/18 14:25, Simon Waters wrote:
> On Friday, 7 September 2018 22:38:01 BST mr meowski wrote:
>>
>> Make sure you haven't got any conflicting virtualization platforms running.
> 
> ^^ This - thanks
> 
> The Oracle version of Virtualbox 5.2 vboxconfig script tests for the existence
> of /proc/xen and puts a helpful warning up
> 
> "Running VirtualBox in a Xen environment is not supported"
> 
> The Debian Virtualbox Team version of virtualbox 5.2 doesn't.
> 
> So basically I had to reboot and pick the non-Xen version of Linux in grub.
> 
> I'd like to say I went straight to that as the way to remove Xen support from
> Debian Stretch kernel, but I may have read /boot/grub/grub.cfg and a few other
> bits before deciding it was time to reboot and see what grub actually offered.
> 

Yes, the Debian Xen dom0 kernel is a type 1 hypervisor so wants 
exclusive locks on all the virtualization instructions in the silicon - 
it's an all or nothing situation for type 1s, you can't mix and match 
them on the same system even if you only want one in action at the same 
time.

Same thing for Windows - Hyper-V is a type 1 as well so just having it 
installed and enabled on a box is enough to stop you running a type 2 
platform on top of it, even if Hyper-V isn't even active. If you install 
VMWare Workstation or Player for example on a Hyper-V system it will 
seem to work fine until you try and run them and then you'll get the 
same issue, essentially: "virtualization extensions in use, please try 
again".

VBox is another type 2, hence why it won't run on top of a type 1 like 
Xen. Xen is the only FLOSS type 1 incidentally - KVM is a type 2.

To add even more confusion some hypervisors support - officially or 
otherwise - nesting hypervisors: fiddling with conf files will let ESX, 
VMWare Workstation or KVM virtualize virtualization platforms, which is 
fun. Turtles all the way down!

As much as I love good old Debian I'm afraid I don't actually use it 
very much in its standard form any more - how did you 'fix' it in the 
end? Are you sticking with just picking the non-Xen kernel from grub at 
boot time when you want to use VBox? Presumably you don't want to 
uninstall the Xen stuff, I'm guessing you had it installed in the first 
place for a reason.

Anyway, glad it worked. Don't forget to add your user to the xboxuser 
group (quite important) and install the - proprietary, non-FLOSS - 
Extension Pack (very important) on the host.

https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.2.18/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.2.18.vbox-extpack

Cheers

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