ERROR: could not insert 'vboxguest': No such device

Question

I have a problem to run vboxguest on Arch linux,

I retrieve this error when type modprobe -av vboxguest:

[root@mic3ael mic3ael]# modprobe -av vboxguest
insmod /lib/modules/4.3.3-2-ARCH/extramodules/vboxguest.ko.gz
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'vboxguest': No such device

then I found that vguest exist on the system:

[root@mic3ael mic3ael]# find /lib/modules/ -iname "vbox*"
/lib/modules/extramodules-4.3-ARCH/vboxnetflt.ko.gz
/lib/modules/extramodules-4.3-ARCH/vboxguest.ko.gz
/lib/modules/extramodules-4.3-ARCH/vboxpci.ko.gz
/lib/modules/extramodules-4.3-ARCH/vboxnetadp.ko.gz
/lib/modules/extramodules-4.3-ARCH/vboxsf.ko.gz
/lib/modules/extramodules-4.3-ARCH/vboxvideo.ko.gz
/lib/modules/extramodules-4.3-ARCH/vboxdrv.ko.gz

The question is how to run vboxguest on arch linux?

Answer 1

The Arch Linux Forum post: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1613118#p1613118 quickly lead to an answer. For me, Arch Linux is the host, so I should not have installed virtualbox-guest-utils which also installed virtualbox-guest-dkms as a dependency.

I removed both of those with sudo pacman -Rsn virtualbox-guest-utils.

If Arch Linux is your host, you need to install virtualbox-guest-iso in the host Arch Linux. Inside the guest OS, it will show up as a CD (or manually point/mount the virtual CD to the host OS path /usr/lib/virtualbox/additions/VBoxGuestAdditions.iso) and you can install from there to get vboxguest working.

If Arch Linux is your guest, then you apparently need to install virtualbox-guest-utils inside your Arch Linux guest OS.

Whether host or guest, virtualbox with Arch Linux now also needs linux-headers (or any of the following to match the type of kernel you are using: linux-lts-headers linux-zen-headers linux-grsec-headers).

Since the overall installation is kind of complicated, I refer you to the Arch Wiki.

Arch Linux Host: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Installation_steps_for_Arch_Linux_hosts

Arch Linux Guest: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VirtualBox#Installation_steps_for_Arch_Linux_guests