Ubuntu – Got error during installation of Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack

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I have Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1.38 installed for long time:

$ apt-cache policy virtualbox-5.1 
virtualbox-5.1:
  Installed: 5.1.38-122592~Ubuntu~xenial
  Candidate: 5.1.38-122592~Ubuntu~xenial
  Version table:
 *** 5.1.38-122592~Ubuntu~xenial 500
        500 http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian xenial/contrib amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I have not ran kernel updates, or something DKMS-related today.

The problem started with "Implementation of the USB 2.0 controller not found!" as in this Q&A.

So I downloaded corresponding version of Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack and tried to install it by clicking on the file in ~/Downloads folder.

Then VirtualBox opened, suggested me to install extpack:

VirtualBox question

I clicked Install and accepted license.

Then the following error window was shown:

VirtualBox - Error

The installer failed with exit code 127: Error creating textual authentication agent: Error opening current controlling terminal for the process (`/dev/tty'): No such device or address.

Same with console way of installation:

$ VBoxManage extpack install ~/Downloads/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.38.vbox-extpack 
VirtualBox Extension Pack Personal Use and Evaluation License (PUEL)
...
Do you agree to these license terms and conditions (y/n)? y

License accepted. For batch installaltion add
--accept-license=b674970f720eb020ad18926a9268607089cc1703908696d24a04aa870f34c8e8
to the VBoxManage command line.

0%...
Progress state: NS_ERROR_FAILURE
VBoxManage: error: Failed to install "/home/norbert/Downloads/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.1.38.vbox-extpack"
VBoxManage: error: The installer failed with exit code 127: Error creating textual authentication agent: Error opening current controlling terminal for the process (`/dev/tty'): No such device or address
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component ExtPackManagerWrap, interface IExtPackManager
VBoxManage: error: Context: "RTEXITCODE handleExtPack(HandlerArg*)" at line 1201 of file VBoxManageMisc.cpp

My user is a member of vboxusers group.

What to do with this?

Best Answer

Virtualbox Extension Pack needs to be installed using root powers according to these bug reports:

Stack Exchange has the latest installation instructions

LatestVirtualBoxVersion=$(wget -qO - http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/LATEST.TXT) && wget "http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/${LatestVirtualBoxVersion}/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-${LatestVirtualBoxVersion}.vbox-extpack"
https://www.virtualbox.org/download/hashes/${LatestVirtualBoxVersion}/SHA256SUMS
sudo VBoxManage extpack install --replace Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-${LatestVirtualBoxVersion}.vbox-extpack
VBoxManage list extpacks