Virtualbox Linux vboxnetflt driver cannot be built with 5.11 kernel

[cloudsw]

Failed to rebuild drivers after installing 5.11 kernel:

$sudo vboxconfig vboxdrv.sh: Stopping VirtualBox services. vboxdrv.sh: Starting VirtualBox services. vboxdrv.sh: Building VirtualBox kernel modules. vboxdrv.sh: failed: Look at /var/log/vbox-setup.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. If your system is using EFI Secure Boot you may need to sign the kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt, vboxnetadp, vboxpci) before you can load them. Please see your Linux system's documentation for more information.

vbox-setup.log is attached

/tmp/vbox.0/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.c: In function ‘vboxNetFltNeedsLinkState’:
/tmp/vbox.0/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.c:1761:47: error: dereferencing pointer to incomplete type ‘const struct ethtool_ops’
 1761 |     if (pDev->ethtool_ops && pDev->ethtool_ops->get_drvinfo)
      |                                               ^~
/tmp/vbox.0/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.c:1763:32: error: storage size of ‘Info’ isn’t known
 1763 |         struct ethtool_drvinfo Info;
      |                                ^~~~
/tmp/vbox.0/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.c:1766:20: error: ‘ETHTOOL_GDRVINFO’ undeclared (first use in this function)
 1766 |         Info.cmd = ETHTOOL_GDRVINFO;
      |                    ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/tmp/vbox.0/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.c:1766:20: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function it appears in
/tmp/vbox.0/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.c:1763:32: warning: unused variable ‘Info’ [-Wunused-variable]
 1763 |         struct ethtool_drvinfo Info;
      |                                ^~~~
make[2]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:279: /tmp/vbox.0/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1800: /tmp/vbox.0] Error 2
make: *** [/tmp/vbox.0/Makefile-footer.gmk:117: vboxnetflt] Error 2

[cloudsw]

Adding the following line in /usr/share/virtualbox/src/vboxhost/vboxnetflt/linux/VBoxNetFlt-linux.c fixed the problem.

#include <linux/ethtool.h>

[paulson]

This has been addressed in revision r142841 of the development branch of VirtualBox and the fix has also been backported to the 6.1 branch of VirtualBox as of revision r142842. Any Testbuilds containing these revisions will include the fix. As mentioned here, a quick workaround in the interim is to edit VBoxNetFlt-linux.c to include <linux/ethtool.h>. The fix will also be part of the next maintenance release of VirtualBox 6.1.x.

[David C Rankin]

Linux 5.11 Kernel Module Fail to Build (make.log)

[David C Rankin]

I can confirm this bug on Archlinux with 6.1.18 and Linux 5.11. make.log attached.

[paulson]

The VirtualBox 6.1.x Testbuilds contain the fix for this issue now so apart from editing VBoxNetFlt-linux.c as an interim fix you can download the updated VirtualBox package from here until the next maintenance release of VirtualBox is available.