I noticed that when you install the current FedoraLIve on a VirtualBox VM (both F37), the VM after first boot has an issue with the “automagically” installed kernel module of the virtualbox-guest-additions.
Runtime Information says it is running GA 6.0.0 (like the installer and live boot), VM machine is in fact running 6.1.38 (febr 15 2023) and after upgrade to current GA 7.0.6 to complete install (‘dnf update’) Runtime Information is still reporting 6.0.0 active. Some functionality issues occur.
Deinstalling the Fedora virtualbox-guest-additions and compiling/installing from .iso downloaded from virtualbox.com (after installing kernel-devel) solves all.
So i wonder why Fedora ships an incompatible upgrade version of virtualbox-guest-addition, if so? Or is there something else i overlooked?
virtualbox-guest-additions in Fedora’s repo are version 7.0.6 which match the release version of VB.
You are talking about the iso? Of course any package on the iso is the version it was when the iso was created and released, maybe that was 6.0.0 for vbox-guest-additions in October 2022 (or earlier when the freeze happened).
What do you mean by this? The VM you are running is with VirtualBox 6.1.38??
Fedora does not refresh the isos. Once created it remains the same for the entire lifecycle of a release. (Fedora is not like an Ubuntu LTS where they respin the isos once year or so).
If you want a smarter install, use the smaller netinstall image (apparently called Everything these days), which pulls the latest version of each package for install. Otherwise you end up with 2 GB+ of updates right after a fresh install.
My Fedora 37 guest is running VB 7.0.6 of course. But when i use the LiveDVD as mentioned to be installed on a virtualbox VM, the installer starts with 6.0.0 (no problem), installs a single kernelmodule 6.0.0 (no problem) with an upgrade version 6.1.38 (should not be a problem, but upgrade during installation to hard disk fails if you look at Runtime Information, at least partly) and then I upgrade to the latest version 7.0.6 (also fails according to Runtime Information); dnf upgrade process 6.1.38 → 7.0.6 doesn’t show a failiure. But these are partially failed upgrades, that’s my problem
It does’n matter if you update/upgrade the (obsolete) initial installed 6.0.0 kernel module ‘vboxguest’ (not from the virtualbox-guest-additions, but the “fallback module”) directly to the latest version: netinstall update will also fail
According to the virtualbox forum the LiveDVD ships with a single guest-addition kernel module of its own. When you install to the hard disk, the DVD packed kernel with this 6.0.0 module is first installed on hard disk, then “updated” to 6.1.38 (the version on DVD) during installation. That is when it (partly) fails to update.
So when i boot this VM, Runtime Information tells me i use GA 6.0.0, but output of ‘VBoxControl guestproperty enumerate’ tells me i use 6.1.38.
So something is wrong here and no sysadmin should ignore this.
It is very easy to test this on your own and to see that you are wrong here. Fedora 37 starts with virtualbox-guest-additions active as soon as you boot this LiveDVD in a VM.
Actually @augenauf is correct. Fedora does not install nor start any VirtualBox kernel module.
You are correct in that fedora installs the virtualbox-guest-additions, but that is not the same as a kernel module. It is software that enables fedora to function as a virtualbox guest VM but is not a kernel module.
So, the virtualbox-guest-additions package is preinstalled, the vboxguest module is provided by the kernel-core package and it should be loaded dynamically by the vboxservice.service.
Then the version of the virtualbox-guest-additions package matches the version in the source URL on the VirtualBox site, so blame upstream for their runtime showing inaccurate information.
Finally, a broken state after an upgrade is best reported according to the documentation:
This is the 6.0.0 version Runtime Information is keeping reporting. The virtualbox-guest-additions installed during installation should replace this module for a newer version, right? Just trying to understand here how things are happening.
lol, they on their turn point to Fedora
So what do you think of the output of ‘lsmod | grep vboxguest’ on the guest? To be clear, i am talking about a virtualbox-guest-addition kernel module (=on guest), not a VirtualBox kernel module (=on host)
The Fedora project does not rebuild already released images, and this issue is package-specific, so you should change the component to virtualbox-guest-additions.