How to install VirtualBox on Fedora 17 (64 bit)

VirtualBox is a cross-platform virtualizing environment.

References

• Install VirtualBox 4.1.16 on Fedora 17/16, CentOS/Red Hat (RHEL) 6.2/5.8
• Install VirtualBox Guest Additions on Fedora 17/16, CentOS/RHEL 6.2/5.8
• Virtualbox : Makefile:23: *** Error: unable to find the sources of your current Linux kernel | Solved | FAQ

Procedure

• Install wget using the Add/Remove Software system tool

• Change to root user

> su -

• Install kernel sources and set KERN_DIR (adjust path for KERN_DIR based on kernel version installed)

# yum install gcc kernel-devel kernel-headers
# KERN_DIR=/usr/src/kernels/3.4.0-1.fc17.x86_64
# export KERN_DIR

• Install Fedora Repo Files (if necessary, "# yum install wget" to install wget)

# cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
# wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo

• Update latest packages and check your kernel version

# yum update

The version numbers output by the following commands will match if you are running the latest installed kernel

# rpm -qa kernel |sort |tail -n 1
# uname -r

If a newer kernel has been installed, then reboot

# reboot

• Install VirtualBox Latest Version 4.1.x

# yum install VirtualBox-4.1

This includes creating a vboxusers group and adds the VirtualBox user to the vboxusers group.

• Rebuild VirtualBox kernel modules

# /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

• Add the VirtualBox user or users to the vboxusers group (replace user_name with a user name)

# usermod -a -G vboxusers user_name

• Start VirtualBox either using the menu launcher, or from the command line:

> VirtualBox