macOS - vagrant up failed, /dev/vboxnetctl: no such file or directory

Can be useful, I found this error. The common solution is reinstall virtualbox but there are a better way.

Solution

sudo /Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox/VirtualBox restart

or

sudo /Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox/VirtualBox start

VirtualBox 4.3+

On recents versions, the file (/Library/StartupItems/VirtualBox/VirtualBox) don't exists, so you need to use the command below:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.startup.plist

Error

Print: http://d.pr/i/1Bvi

There was on error while executing VBoxManage, a CLI used by Vagrant for controlling VirtualBox. The command and stderr is shown below Command: ["hostonlyif", "create"]

Stderr: 0%... Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE VBoxManage: error: Failed to create the host-only adapter VBoxManage: error: VBoxNetAdpCtl: Error while adding new interface: failed to open /dev/vboxnetctl: No such file or directory

VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component HostNetworkInterface, interface IHostNetworkInterface VBoxManage: error: Context: "int handleCreate(HandlerArg*, int, int*)" at line 68 of file VBoxManageHostonly.cpp

Vagrant Git issue about the error: https://github.com/mitchellh/vagrant/issues/1671#issuecomment-22304107

I'm running macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 and VirtualBox 5.2.2.

This worked for me:

1. Grant permission to VirtualBox under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General (this request is new to macOS High Sierra)
2. Open Terminal and run: sudo "/Library/Application Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/VirtualBoxStartup.sh" restart

If your system recently updated the kernel, you many need to rerun the vbox setup again. If this is the case, you will see the following messages when you run virtualbox start command:

$ sudo /path/to/virtualbox start
WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Either there is no module
         available for the current kernel (2.6.32-358.23.2.el6.x86_64) or it failed to
         load. Please recompile the kernel module and install it by

           sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

         You will not be able to start VMs until this problem is fixed.

I had some problems with vbox running on Ubuntu 17.10 when starting a virtual machine with host-only adapted/bridge network. Looking for an answer I found numerous commands that are useful when having that kind of problems. Here they are:

VIRTUAL HOST PROBLEMS

failed to open /dev/vboxnetctl

vboxnet0 - this is the bad guy who is causing all the trouble.

VBoxNetAdpCtl: Error while adding new interface: failed to open /dev/vboxnetctl: No such file or directory.

These commands are not used in particular order. They are just generally useful and problem-solving.

1) sudo modprobe vboxdrv

2) sudo modprobe vboxnetadp - (host only interface)

3) sudo modprobe vboxnetflt - (make vboxnet0 accecible)

IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH SECURE BOOT RUNNING the FIRST COMMAND I RECOMMEND DISABLING SECURE BOOT IN BIOS (or reboot).

modprobe: FATAL: Module vboxnetftl not found in directory /lib/modules/4.13.0-21-generic

(bridge networking)

4) sudo apt-get install virtualbox-dkms (extension) -> go to command 1 after this

5) sudo vboxmanage hostonlyif create

These sometimes might work:

I. service --status-all

II service service_name restart