Errors when installing “Guest Additions” using Oracle VM Virtual Box & Oracle Enterprise Linux

After upgrading Oracle VM VirtualBox from 3.x to 4.0.4, I created a new virtual machine and installed Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.2 (64-bit). While installing “Guest Additions” on the guest OS, I received the following error message:

***************************************************

Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules

The headers for the current running kernel were not found. If the following module compilation fails then this could be the reason.

The missing package can be probably installed with

yum install kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.el5 [FAILED]

***************************************************

The error description message in the “/var/log/vboxadd-install.log” log file was pretty clear. One of the RPM’s was missing.

Below is my first (failed) attempt of “Guest Additions” installation:

 [root@rac1 u01]# ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 4.0.4 Guest Additions for Linux.........
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Removing installed version 4.0.4 of VirtualBox Guest Additions...
Removing existing VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules           [  OK  ]
Removing existing VirtualBox non-DKMS kernel modules       [  OK  ]
Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules
The headers for the current running kernel were not found. If the following module compilation fails then this could be the reason.
The missing package can be probably installed with
yum install kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.el5
                                                           [FAILED]
Your system does not seem to be set up to build kernel modules.
Look at /var/log/vboxadd-install.log to find out what went wrong.
Once you have corrected it, you can run

  /etc/init.d/vboxadd setup

to build them.

Doing non-kernel setup of the Guest Additions              [  OK  ]
Installing the Window System drivers
Installing X.Org 7.1 modules                               [  OK  ]
Setting up the Window System to use the Guest Additions    [  OK  ]
You may need to restart the hal service and the Window System (or just restart
the guest system) to enable the Guest Additions.

Installing graphics libraries and desktop services componen[  OK  ]
[root@rac1 u01]# 

To get the thing working, we need to install the following RPM’s:

• kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.el5.x86_64.rpm

• kernel-headers-2.6.18-92.el5.x86_64.rpm

• glibc-headers-2.5-24.x86_64.rpm

• glibc-devel-2.5-24.x86_64.rpm

• libgomp-4.1.2-42.el5.x86_64.rpm

• gcc-4.1.2-42.el5.x86_64.rpm

I had to install 6 packages as they are interdependent.

 [root@rac1 Server]# rpm -Uvh kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.el5.x86_64.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:kernel-devel           ########################################### [100%]
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# rpm -Uvh kernel-headers-2.6.18-92.el5.x86_64.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:kernel-headers         ########################################### [100%]
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# rpm -Uvh glibc-headers-2.5-24.x86_64.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:glibc-headers          ########################################### [100%]
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# 
 [root@rac1 Server]# rpm -Uvh glibc-devel-2.5-24.x86_64.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:glibc-devel            ########################################### [100%]
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# rpm -Uvh libgomp-4.1.2-42.el5.x86_64.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:libgomp                ########################################### [100%]
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# 
[root@rac1 Server]# rpm -Uvh gcc-4.1.2-42.el5.x86_64.rpm 
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:gcc                    ########################################### [100%]
[root@rac1 Server]# 

After installing the above packages, my “Guest Additions” installation was successful.

[root@rac1 u01]# ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 4.0.4 Guest Additions for Linux.........
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Removing installed version 4.0.4 of VirtualBox Guest Additions...
Removing existing VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules           [  OK  ]
Removing existing VirtualBox non-DKMS kernel modules       [  OK  ]
Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules
Your guest system does not seem to have sufficient OpenGL support to enable
accelerated 3D effects (this requires Linux 2.6.27 or later in the guest
system).  This Guest Additions feature will be disabled.


Building the main Guest Additions module                   [  OK  ]
Building the shared folder support module                  [  OK  ]
Doing non-kernel setup of the Guest Additions              [  OK  ]
Starting the VirtualBox Guest Additions                    [  OK  ]
Installing the Window System drivers
Installing X.Org 7.1 modules                               [  OK  ]
Setting up the Window System to use the Guest Additions    [  OK  ]
You may need to restart the hal service and the Window System (or just restart
the guest system) to enable the Guest Additions.

Installing graphics libraries and desktop services componen[  OK  ]
[root@rac1 u01]# 
[root@rac1 u01]# 

I can now move the mouse freely between the host & guest OS’s, copy & paste, …