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VirtualBox: Install Guest Additions in Linux VM

As mentioned in my previous post, I found VirtualBox pretty easy to install and make work. My only real difficulty was figuring out how to install the "Guest Additions" on Linux, as this is poorly documented. The "Guest Additions" are the VirtualBox equivalent of the "*-tools" of the commercial VM's and provide closer integration between the VM and host environment, so you usually want to install them.

Here are the steps I used to install the "Guest Additions" on Debian 8 & 9 with VirtualBox 6.1.*:

Step 1: Prepare for building a kernel module

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential module-assistant
$ sudo m-a prepare

Step 2: Run the Guest Additions install

  • Click the VirtualBox Devices menu on the VM.
  • Click "Insert Guest Additions CD image..."
  • Run the installer:
$ mount /media/cdrom
$ sudo sh /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
$ sudo reboot

Step 3: Fix permissions issue with shared folders

Unfortunately when you share a host folder with the VM, VirtualBox uses a group that normal users don't have (vboxsf), so I also added my user to that group:

$ sudo adduser <your user> vboxsf

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