Hi,
Does anyone know if it's possible to run vitualbox on linode?

No you can't Linode is a VPS "Virtual Private Server" you can't run "Virtualbox" in Linode

You can't? From looking at the SlackBuild for VirtualBox, it looks like it just uses a kernel module on the host, so I don't see why it wouldn't run under Xen.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't it have it's own kernel mod's like vboxdrv?

Besides even attempting to run a VM under a VM is ..... well ... we'll leave it at that.

By host in this context, I meant your Linode, since that is the host for vbox.

Exactly, you have to use Linode's Kernel and again correct me if I'm wrong but you "can't" load any kernel modules with Linode.

So you can't load up the vboxdrv kernel module

Xen linodes can load kernel modules.

I don't know if vbox will work in xen though. Worth a try, I guess.

From http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 3196#13196


From http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 4043#14043

MMM I could have swore that was one of the restrictions with Linode was no Kernel Mod's ....

Anyway back to the point, running a VM in a VM? Really ....

From the thread



I think that falls well into that category

That was (is) the case with UML-based linodes, but no longer with nodes that have been created on (or migrated to) Xen.

Hi, I'm trying to run Vbox.

I'm using Ubuntu Server Image from linode, i downloaded VirtualBoxOSE2.0.4 and compiled it.

The kernel i used 2.6.18.8-linode10.tar.bz2
In order to enable load vboxdrv module i download kernel source from http://linode.com/src/

Untar in /usr/src/linux

copied kernel config from /proc/config.gz gunziped and moved to .conf in the kernel

then builded kernel modules and installed
sudo make modules
sudo make modueles_install

The vboxdrv magic differs with the gcc version, but forcing module should work, but gives the error

vboxdrv: Unknown symbol register_cpu_notifie

Reading in vbox forums
register_cpu_notifier is part of the SMP support in the Linux kernel. I guess that this is missing from the VectorLinux 2.6.20 kernel.

But is clear that linode kernel enable SMP in the kernels.

I'm trying to do this with a newer kernel version from linode.

I hope do a guide howto vbox linode soon

=P

hi

Finally i get it.

Just do what i tell.

I tried with the 2.6.26.lino13 version and WORKS, i recompiled the vboxdrv module, and now i'm running Vbox !!

At nigth i'll post a full howto[/u]

When i try to run the virtualmachine i get this error

invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP
Modules linked in: vboxdrv(F)

Pid: 4336, comm: VirtualBox Tainted: GF (2.6.26-linode13 #1)
EIP: 0061:[<d7250172>] EFLAGS: 00010246 CPU: 0
EIP is at 0xd7250172
EAX: 00000000 EBX: d7228000 ECX: 00000000 EDX: 00000000
ESI: 0abde000 EDI: 00000000 EBP: ca831eb8 ESP: ca831ce8
DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0033 SS: 0069
Process VirtualBox (pid: 4336, ti=ca830000 task=cb05d400 task.ti=ca830000)
Stack: 0abde000 00000000 d7228000 00000000 00001000 cccaf4d4 fd2f06c6 002b5384
00002620 00000000 00000005 00000000 00000005 00000000 00000000 00000000
00000000 00000041 0000002c 00000000 000027ff 00000000 00002000 00000000
Call Trace:
[<d723d67c>] supdrvIOCtl+0x15fc/0x1ac0 [vboxdrv]
[<d723d6cb>] supdrvIOCtl+0x164b/0x1ac0 [vboxdrv]
[<d723f588>] rtMemAlloc+0x78/0x90 [vboxdrv]
[<c0173b21>] vmalloc+0x31/0x40
[<d723f588>] rtMemAlloc+0x78/0x90 [vboxdrv]
[<d723f588>] rtMemAlloc+0x78/0x90 [vboxdrv]
[<d72391af>] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl+0xff/0x1c0 [vboxdrv]
[<d72390b0>] VBoxDrvLinuxIOCtl+0x0/0x1c0 [vboxdrv]
[<c018c09b>] vfs_ioctl+0x2b/0xa0
[<c010a140>] do_IRQ+0x40/0x80
[<c018c16c>] do_vfs_ioctl+0x5c/0x2c0
[<c018c438>] sys_ioctl+0x68/0x80
[<c0107256>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
=======================
Code: 89 95 54 fe ff ff 31 d2 89 d1 25 00 20 00 00 09 c1 75 0c 8b 85 50 fe ff ff 80 cc 20 0f 22 e0 89 fa 89 f0 31 c9 89 d0 31 d2 50 56 <f3> 0f c7 34 24 77 0e 74 07 b9 5e f0 ff ff eb 05 b9 5d f0 ff ff
EIP: [<d7250172>] 0xd7250172 SS:ESP 0069:ca831ce8
---[ end trace a58d89095bf664fd ]---

And no more...

Are you trying to run virtualbox on your linode, or on your own machine? It won't run on linode; virtual on virtual doesn't work too well

_________________
Rgds
Stephen
(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

Most hypervisors or virtualzation products need to make ring 0 (aka hardware) calls. Xen kernels are special kernels that have all the ring 0 calls replaced with Xen hypervisor calls (because a VM can't make a ring 0 call, only the Xen hypervisor can).

Unless the virtualbox kernel module has specifically been written to either not require ring 0 calls, or to replace those ring 0 calls with Xen hypervisor calls when running on Xen, then virtualbox won't be able to run on a Xen kernel.

_________________
Chet Burgess