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2 Installation
The VirtualBox kernel module is automatically installed on your system when you
install VirtualBox. To maintain it with future kernel updates, for recent Linux distribu-
tions – for example Fedora Core 5 and later, Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) and later and Man-
driva 2007.1 and later –, generally we recommend installing Dynamic Kernel Module
Support (DKMS)
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. This framework helps to build kernel modules and to deal with
kernel upgrades.
If DKMS is not already installed, execute one of the following:
• On an Ubuntu system:
sudo apt-get install dkms
• On a Fedora system:
yum install dkms
• On a Mandriva system:
urpmi dkms
If DKMS is available and installed, the VirtualBox kernel module should always work
automatically, and it will be automatically rebuilt if your host kernel is updated.
Otherwise, there are only two situations in which you will need to worry about the
kernel module:
1. The original installation fails. This probably means that your Linux system is not
prepared for building external kernel modules.
Most Linux distributions can be set up simply by installing the right packages -
normally, these will be the GNU compiler (GCC), GNU Make (make) and pack-
ages containing header files for your kernel - and making sure that all system
updates are installed and that the system is running the most up-to-date kernel
included in the distribution. The version numbers of the header file packages must
be the same as that of the kernel you are using.
• With Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must install the right version of the
linux-headers and if it exists the linux-kbuild package. Current
Ubuntu releases should have the right packages installed by default.
• In even older Debian and Ubuntu releases, you must install the right version
of the kernel-headers package.
• On Fedora and Redhat systems, the package is kernel-devel.
• On SUSE and openSUSE Linux, you must install the right versions of the
kernel-source and kernel-syms packages.
• Alternatively, if you have built your own kernel, /usr/src/linux should
point to your kernel sources. If you have not removed the files created
during the build process, then your system will already be set up correctly.
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See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support for an introduction.
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