How do I resolve 'The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist' error in Ubuntu 18.04 [closed]

Question

I have installed virtual box in my device using sudo apt install virtualbox-qt command.

But when I run virtualbox command or virtualbox --version command it gives me this error:

WARNING: The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist. Please install the virtualbox-dkms package and the appropriate headers, most likely linux-headers-generic.

You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.

I searched a solution from the internet but it didn't work for me. How should I solve this?

update

when I run sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms U receive this error:

Answer 1

It clearly states that you need to install the virtualbox-dkms packages. You can follow these steps to solve the problem.

• Install the virtualbox-dkms

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms

• Once you install those packages you also need to do the reconfiguration:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms 
sudo dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox

• If your problem is still not fixed try installing the headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

You can refer to this Virtualbox Wiki if any of the above won't work. Also, you may want to check this similar problem on Ubuntu 14.04

Answer 2

The only thing that helped in my case was disabling the Ubuntu Secure Boot

I will quote an answer from Askubuntu:"You might have a kernel version greater than 4.4.0-20 which enforces that unsigned kernel modules are not to be allowed to run with Secure Boot enabled in BIOS"

Link to the Answer: https://askubuntu.com/questions/777308/virtualbox-problem-kernel-module-is-not-loaded"

Link how to disable Secure Boot: http://itadminguide.com/disable-secure-boot-in-ubuntu/

After this you will most likely have another error but with Minikube, and to fix you'll have to Enable enable Virtualization in Bios

link: https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/issues/5456

Answer 3

Try this:

apt install --reinstall linux-headers-$(uname -r) virtualbox-dkms dkms