VBoxManage: error: Failed to create the host-only adapter

Question

I've installed virtualbox version 5.1.20 and vagrant version 1.9.4 and then when I ran vagrant up, I got the following error

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: VBoxNetAdpCtl: ioctl failed for /dev/vboxnetctl: Inappropriate ioctl for devic
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component HostNetworkInterfaceWrap, interface IHostNetworkInterface
VBoxManage: error: Context: "RTEXITCODE handleCreate(HandlerArg*)" at line 94 of file VBoxManageHostonly.cpp

I fount this answer here Could not load 'vboxdrv' after upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 (and I want to keep secure boot) but when I get to the third step sudo mokutil --import MOK.der, I got the following error

EFI variables are not supported on this system

I'm running Ubuntu 16.04.

score 8 · Answer 1 · edited May 05 '17 at 18:14

8

I have spent hours and hours, trying various combinations of virtualbox and vagrant, no luck.

Remove virtual box or any old versions of it.

sudo apt remove virtualbox virtualbox-5.0 virtualbox-4.*

Then try using one of ubuntu repositories to install

sudo apt-get install virtualbox

Worked for me.

edited May 05 '17 at 18:14

answered May 05 '17 at 17:19

tomhre

81

1

This is weird, but working like charm. – sobi3ch Jun 27 '17 at 07:04

score 6 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 14 '17 at 15:04

6

Restarting network manager should help:

sudo modprobe vboxnetadp

edited Nov 14 '17 at 15:04

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Nov 14 '17 at 14:33

masitko

171

That indeed helped so thanks. But out of curiosity: what could be the source problem so that this helped? :) – Tomasz Kapłoński Mar 28 '19 at 11:12
1

Also, that works in case you just updated the virtualbox and cannot launch your vm via vagrant up because that VBoxManage fails to setup a host-only network as well. – Dimitrios Desyllas Jan 21 '20 at 08:50
Boom! Worked for me with vbox 6.1, Ubuntu 18.04.6 – Glenn Jan 30 '23 at 21:04

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 19 '17 at 02:15

I had the same problem and the apt remove install answer did not work for my (Ubuntu 16.04) I did get it to work by using sudo apt remove virtualbox virtualbox-5.0 virtualbox-4.* and then installing the 5.1 .deb file from virtualbox VirtualBox 5.1 downloads

VBoxManage: error: Failed to create the host-only adapter

3 Answers3