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I'm trying to install VirtualBox (the host, not the client) on a clean install of Alpine 3.8.0 Standard. I'm using VirtualBox-5.2.12-122591-Linux_amd64.run, downloaded from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/server-storage/virtualbox/downloads/index.html under Linux Platforms > All distributions > 64-bit.

The installer has reported various errors, which so far I've resolved by installing the following packages.

  • coreutils (to get readlink with the -e flag available)
  • make
  • gcc
  • perl
  • linux-headers (this was probably not needed)
  • linux-vanilla-dev

The installer also reported:

/opt/VirtualBox/vboxdrv.sh line 501: can't create /etc/udev/rules.d/60-vboxdrv.rules: \
nonexistent directory.

Which I resolved by simply running:

mkdir -p /etc/udev/rules.d

Each time the installer fails, it says to run /sbin/vboxconfig to restart the setup process. Currently, when I do so, it outputs:

* service vboxdrv added to runlevel default
* service vboxballoonctrl-service added to runlevel default
* service vboxautostart-service added to runlevel default
* service vboxweb-service added to runlevel default
vboxdrv.sh: Stopping VirtualBox services.
vboxdrv.sh: Building VirtualBox kernel modules.
vboxdrv.sh: failed: Look at /var/log/vbox-install.log to find out what went wrong.
There were problems setting up VirtualBox.  To re-start the set-up process, run \
/sbin/vboxconfig as root.

/var/log/vbox-install.log contains:

make V=1 CONFIG_MODULE_SIG= -C /lib/modules/4.14.52-0-vanilla/build SUBDIRS=/tmp/vbox.0 \
SRCROOT=/tmp/vbox.0 -j1 modules
getconf: LFS_CFLAGS: unknown variable
getconf: LFS_LDFLAGS: unknown variable
getconf: LFS_LIBS: unknown variable
Makefile:948: *** "Cannot generate ORC metadata for CONFIG_UNWINDER_ORC=y, please install \
libelf-dev, libelf-devel or elfutils-libelf-devel."  Stop.
make: *** [/tmp/vbox.0/Makefile.include.footer:101: vboxdrv] Error 2

I am not able to resolve the problem even by installing libelf-dev. Per https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages, there is no libelf-devel or elfutils-libelf-devel package.

Separately, I can't seem to have elfutils-dev and libelf-dev installed at the same time. If I install one and then the other, apk outputs:

ERROR: elfutils-dev-0.168-r1: trying to overwrite usr/lib/libelf.so owned by \
libelf-dev-0.8.13-r3.
ERROR: elfutils-dev-0.168-r1: trying to overwrite usr/lib/libelf.a owned by \
libelf-dev-0.8.13-r3.
ERROR: elfutils-dev-0.168-r1: trying to overwrite usr/include/libelf.h owned by \
libelf-dev-0.8.13-r3.
ERROR: elfutils-dev-0.168-r1: trying to overwrite usr/include/gelf.h owned by \
libelf-dev-0.8.13-r3.
ERROR: elfutils-dev-0.168-r1: trying to overwrite usr/include/nlist.h owned by \
libelf-dev-0.8.13-r3.

That's an issue because elfutils-dev is required by linux-vanilla-dev, which in turn seems to be required by /sbin/vboxconfig. If I run /sbin/vboxconfig without linux-vanilla-dev installed, it outputs:

...
vboxdrv.sh: Building VirtualBox kernel modules.
This system is currently not set up to build kernel modules.
Please install the Linux kernel "header" files matching the current kernel for adding new \
hardware support to the system.

To try to resolve this, I:

  1. Uninstalled linux-vanilla-dev.
  2. Installed libelf-dev.
  3. Reinstalled linux-vanilla-dev.

linux-vanilla-dev and all its dependencies installed successfully, except for elfutils-dev, as expected. I'm not aware of any issues caused by not having elfutils-dev installed, and I assume having libelf-dev installed is more important, since that's the package referred to in the error message in /var/log/vbox-install.log.

Nonetheless, when I run /sbin/vboxconfig, vboxdrv.sh still fails with "Cannot generate ORC metadata for CONFIG_UNWINDER_ORC=y, please install libelf-dev, libelf-devel or elfutils-libelf-devel." This despite that I have libelf-dev installed (or so I believe).

Running:

apk info | grep 'libelf-dev'

Outputs:

libelf-dev

Running apk fix causes apk to try to reinstall elfutils-dev, which fails (for reasons described previously), but reports no other problems.

I downloaded VirtualBox-5.2.12-122591-Linux_amd64.run to a Windows box and opened it up with 7-Zip and extracted postinst-common.sh (which I believe is the same file as /sbin/vboxconfig) and vboxdrv.sh. I don't see a way to attach them, but I can append their contents (about 600 lines total) if anyone feels it would be helpful.

Please let me know if I can provide any additional information. I'm still working on this so if I learn more I'll add it. My current next steps are:

  1. Investigate vboxdrv.sh to see if I can find what it does to trigger that error.
  2. Try using strace.

Thank you!

Edit:

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  • "If you want to run glibc programs in Alpine Linux, there are a few ways of doing so. You could install glibc as additional to uclibc (you would have to do this manually), or you could do it the easy way and use a chroot." – Rui F Ribeiro Jul 12 '18 at 7:27
  • @RuiFRibeiro Thank you for your reply. If I understand correctly, you're saying I need glibc instead of the built-in musl libc. I installed a glibc package by following the instructions at: github.com/sgerrand/alpine-pkg-glibc. However I'm still getting the same result when I try to install VirtualBox. It could be that I need to tell Alpine to use glibc, or it could be something else. I'll keep investigating. – FSharpN00b Jul 13 '18 at 5:51
  • At the end of the day, when installing all the dependencies, you might ended with something similar ton size to Ubuntu or Debian with much more work. Why Alpine? – Rui F Ribeiro Jul 13 '18 at 11:16
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    Thank you, I've been playing with antix and void. Having good luck with void so far. Tried a couple of different glibc packages for Alpine but no change in behavior with either. – FSharpN00b Jul 18 '18 at 7:19
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    Have you tried apk add musl-dev? – ngreen Sep 27 '18 at 19:54
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try to install : apk add g++

its install next pakages:

(1/3) Installing musl-dev (1.1.20-r0) (2/3) Installing libc-dev (0.7.1-r0) (3/3) Installing g++ (6.4.0-r8)

after install pakages,try run VirtualBox installation script again

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  • This actually worked for me when compiling a module, whereas before I was getting Cannot generate ORC metadata for CONFIG_UNWINDER_ORC=y when compiling a kernel module. I think apk add libc-dev is sufficient. – ngreen Sep 13 '18 at 15:55
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TLDR; you need to install musl-dev.

I was building a kernel module and got the same error message (Cannot generate ORC metadata for CONFIG_UNWINDER_ORC=y). All I needed to do was run apk add musl-dev to get it to compile. The suggested fix (whether by make or gcc I do not know) is wrong and wasted your time and mine. The proper elf dependencies are already specified by the kernel -dev packages (e.g. linux-virt-dev or linux-vanilla-dev).

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