BackTrack 5 R2 – VirtualBox Guest Additions + USB Issues Fixes
Download and Install
- BackTrack: http://www.backtrack-linux.org/downloads/
- VirtualBox + Oracle VM Extension Pack: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
If you want support for USB 2.0 devices you must download and install Oracle VM Extension Pack for VirtualBox!
I will not describe the steps to install BackTrack on VirtualBox. A lot of tutorials can be found on the Internet to upgrade to BackTrack 5 R2 or to makea fresh install. But here are some screenshots about the VirtualBox configuration for my MacBook Air i7 1.8Ghz.
Issue #1 (solved): USB device descriptor error
usb 1-1: Device descriptor read/8, error -110
usb 1-1: Device descriptor read/64, error -110
Solution
Number of Processor for the Guest OS must be set to 1 or eventually 2…
For example, my MacBook Air has a Core i7 inside, multithreading displays 4 virtual cores. So I have to set a maximum of 2 cores to BackTrack VM Guest to fix this issue. (Even if the recommended number of cores VirtualBox displays is 4).
Issue #2 (solved): VirtualBox Guest Additions
When you try to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions, these two kinds of errors can occur and lead to a vboxguest kernel extension impossible to load.
The headers for the current running kernel were not found. If the following module compilation fails then this could be the reason.
and
Building the main Guest Additions module ...fail!
(Look at /var/log/vboxadd-install.log to find out what went wrong)
Both issues result to:
Starting the VirtualBox Guest Additions ...fail!
(modprobe vboxguest failed)
Solution
apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) linux-headers xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core file-roller # file-roller is not needed, but recommended
cd /usr/src/
tar jxf linux-source-3.2.6.tar.bz2
cd /usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.6/include/
rm asm
ln -s /usr/src/linux-source-3.2.6/arch/x86/include/asm asm
cd /lib/modules/3.2.6/
ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-3.2.6 build
Ready to install VBOXADDITIONS :-)
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 4.1.10 Guest Additions for Linux..........
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
Removing installed version 4.1.10 of VirtualBox Guest Additions...
tar: Record size = 8 blocks
Removing existing VirtualBox DKMS kernel modules ...done.
Removing existing VirtualBox non-DKMS kernel modules ...done.
Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules
Building the main Guest Additions module ...done.
Building the shared folder support module ...done.
Building the OpenGL support module ...done.
Doing non-kernel setup of the Guest Additions ...done.
You should restart your guest to make sure the new modules are actually used
Installing the Window System drivers
Installing X.Org Server 1.7 modules ...done.
Setting up the Window System to use the Guest Additions ...done.
You may need to restart the hal service and the Window System (or just restart
the guest system) to enable the Guest Additions.
Installing graphics libraries and desktop services components ...done.
Press Return to close this window...
Good job, reboot and enjoy adaptative screen resolution, smooth mouse moves, folder sharing, copy/paste from Host to Guest and vis versa, etc.
About the Author
Thireus Security Engineer/Consultant, Intern at Thales Communications & Security.
IT Security and Telecommunication Engineering Student at ENSEIRB-MATMECA & Master 2 CSI University of Bordeaux 1 (Bordeaux, France). Founder and co-administrator of DareYourMind.net. Author of various security and privacy related articles on blog.thireus.com. Active member in the HackinTosh and JailBreak communities.
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