Arch Linux

tummychow

Member

Registered: 2014-08-03

Posts: 10

vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

I upgraded to linux 3.17.3-1 today and rebooted my system, and saw the following error during boot:

Failed to start Load Kernel Modules.

The error pointed me to systemctl status and journalctl -xe. Inspecting the output of journalctl, this is what I see:

systemd-modules-load[106]: Inserted module 'vboxguest'
systemd-modules-load[106]: Failed to insert 'vboxsf': Invalid argument
systemd-modules-load[106]: Inserted module 'vboxvideo'

which suggests the issue is with the virtualbox guest utilities. I do have them set to load on boot, so that's why systemd is trying to load them:

$ cat /etc/modules-load.d/virtualbox-guest.conf
vboxguest
vboxsf
vboxvideo

I checked dmesg to see what was going on with the vboxsf module; this is what I found:

$ dmesg | grep vboxsf
vboxsf: disagrees about version of symbol truncate_inode_pages
vboxsf: Unknown symbol truncate_inode_pages (err -22)

Seems like vboxsf doesn't like this version of the kernel. After seeing the error, I checked to see if there were any updates to virtualbox-guest-utils or virtualbox-guest-modules. As of this post, there aren't any; I didn't see any in testing either. Downgrading to linux 3.17.2-1 fixes the issue.

I also decided to spin up a blank vm to see if I could reproduce the issue in a minimal environment. I installed fresh Arch to an empty virtual machine and then I also installed virtualbox-guest-utils. This is what happens when I try to load the kernel modules:

$ modprobe -a vboxguest vboxsf vboxvideo
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'vboxsf': Invalid argument

Sure enough, dmesg shows the same error on this machine, about a version disagreement on truncate_inode_pages.

What are the next steps to fix the issue if it's on my end? Any other information needed?

Last edited by tummychow (2014-11-17 04:09:42)

weirddan455

Member

Registered: 2012-04-15

Posts: 209

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

File a bug report.  External modules have to be rebuilt upon kernel update if there was a change to the ABI.  Sometimes with minor updates there is no ABI change and a rebuild is not required but this time apparently there was an ABI change and it was overlooked by the package maintainer.  You could also recompile the package yourself from the ABS so it'll run against the new kernel.

PS:  If you ever decide to switch from VirtualBox to KVM you won't have to worry about rebuilding modules because KVM's modules are part of the mainline Linux source.

silverhammermba

Wiki Maintainer

Registered: 2011-04-14

Posts: 156

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

If there was a change to the ABI, wouldn't flagging out of date be appropriate since the upstream source needs to be changed?

bulletmark

Member

From: Brisbane, Australia

Registered: 2013-10-22

Posts: 652

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

I get the same issue.

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

Ok.  Open a bug report to  the devs can trigger a rebuild.

---

CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck  • AUR packages • Zsh and other configs

weirddan455

Member

Registered: 2012-04-15

Posts: 209

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

If there was a change to the ABI, wouldn't flagging out of date be appropriate since the upstream source needs to be changed?

No.  The upstream source doesn't need to be changed.  The package just needs to be recompiled against the new kernel headers.  A bug report is appropriate here so the maintainer knows what the problem is.  Flagging out of date would indicate a new version has been released upstream (which isn't the case here.)

Last edited by weirddan455 (2014-11-18 00:37:58)

tummychow

Member

Registered: 2014-08-03

Posts: 10

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

Bug opened here: https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/42817

fvictorio

Member

Registered: 2014-11-18

Posts: 1

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

If anyone cares, rebuilding the package from the ABS did indeed fix the issue for me.

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

If anyone cares, rebuilding the package from the ABS did indeed fix the issue for me.

As it should.  Ideally, dkms for all modules will be the norm.

---

CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck  • AUR packages • Zsh and other configs

jjtjp

Member

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

So I think this may be my problem. I ran -Syu yesterday and after reboot I was dropped in emergency mode. After a while I figured out that my virtualbox shared folders were causing the issue so I edited the fstab to include noauto so that I could boot. My question is, what's the preferred way to fix this? Roll back the kernel, rebuild with ABS or use virtualbox-guest-dkms? I'm a newb so any advice is welcomed. Thanks.

silverhammermba

Wiki Maintainer

Registered: 2011-04-14

Posts: 156

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

Rolling back the kernel would be the easiest solution until the packages are updated. I tried rebuilding from ABS on my VM, but the build is really huge and ate up all of my hard drive space.

jjtjp

Member

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

Whether this is best or not, I do not know. But I was able to mount my shares by removing virtualbox-guest-modules, installing linux-headers and virtualbox-guest-dkms. I then ran

sudo dkms install vboxguest/4.3.18 -k 3.17.3-1-ARCH/x86_64

The key was to remove virtualbox-guest-modules because doing it all without that didn't fix it.
So what are the consequences of me doing it this way? Do I lose auto updates? Should I do as recommended in the wiki and run:

systemctl enable dkms.service

Thanks!
I am happy to at least be able to access my share folders now.

Last edited by jjtjp (2014-11-20 15:38:17)

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

Why not just rebuild the package against the current kernel?  It is too east with abs.

---

CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck  • AUR packages • Zsh and other configs

utvikl

Member

Registered: 2011-07-07

Posts: 21

Re: vboxsf kernel module breaks on 3.17.3

Why not just rebuild the package against the current kernel?  It is too east with abs.

Which package are your referring to here that needs a rebuild? Is it on host or guest?