Using the Alternative Generic Installer (VirtualBox.run)
The alternative generic installer performs the following
steps:
-
Unpacks the application files to the target directory
/opt/VirtualBox/, which cannot be
changed.
-
Builds and installs the kernel modules:
vboxdrv, vboxnetflt,
and vboxnetadp.
-
Creates /sbin/rcvboxdrv, an init
script to start the kernel module.
-
Creates a new system group called
vboxusers.
-
Creates symbolic links in /usr/bin to
a shell script /opt/VirtualBox/VBox
which does some sanity checks and dispatches to the actual
executables: VirtualBox,
VBoxVRDP,
VBoxHeadless and
VBoxManage.
-
Creates
/etc/udev/rules.d/60-vboxdrv.rules, a
description file for udev, if that is present, which makes
the USB devices accessible to all users in the
vboxusers group.
-
Writes the installation directory to
/etc/vbox/vbox.cfg.
The installer must be executed as root with either
install or uninstall as
the first parameter. For example:
sudo ./VirtualBox.run install
Or if you do not have the sudo command
available, run the following as root instead:
./VirtualBox.run install
Add every user who needs to access USB devices from a
VirtualBox guests to the group vboxusers.
Either use the OS user management tools or run the following
command as root:
sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username
The usermod command of some older Linux
distributions does not support the -a
option, which adds the user to the given group without
affecting membership of other groups. In this case, find out
the current group memberships with the
groups command and add all these groups
in a comma-separated list to the command line after the
-G option. For example: usermod -G
group1,group2,vboxusers username.