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<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="install-linux-alt-installer">
  <title>Using the Alternative Generic Installer (VirtualBox.run)</title>
  
  <body>
    <p>The alternative generic installer performs the following steps: </p>
    <ul>
      <li>
        <p>Unpacks the application files to the target directory <filepath>/opt/VirtualBox/</filepath>, which cannot be
          changed. </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Builds and installs the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> kernel modules:
            <userinput>vboxdrv</userinput>, <userinput>vboxnetflt</userinput>, and <userinput>vboxnetadp</userinput>. </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Creates <filepath>/sbin/rcvboxdrv</filepath>, an init script to start the <ph
            conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> kernel module. </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Creates a new system group called <codeph>vboxusers</codeph>. </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Creates symbolic links in <filepath>/usr/bin</filepath> to a shell script
            <filepath>/opt/VirtualBox/VBox</filepath> which does some sanity checks and dispatches to the actual
          executables: <userinput>VirtualBox</userinput>, <userinput>VBoxVRDP</userinput>,
            <userinput>VBoxHeadless</userinput> and <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput>. </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Creates <filepath>/etc/udev/rules.d/60-vboxdrv.rules</filepath>, a description file for udev, if that is
          present, which makes the USB devices accessible to all users in the <codeph>vboxusers</codeph> group. </p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Writes the installation directory to <filepath>/etc/vbox/vbox.cfg</filepath>. </p>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <p>The installer must be executed as root with either <codeph>install</codeph> or <codeph>uninstall</codeph> as the
      first parameter. For example: </p>
    <pre xml:space="preserve">sudo ./VirtualBox.run install</pre>
    <p>Or if you do not have the <userinput>sudo</userinput> command available, run the following as root instead: </p>
    <pre xml:space="preserve">./VirtualBox.run install</pre>
    <p>Add every user who needs to access USB devices from a VirtualBox guests to the group <codeph>vboxusers</codeph>.
      Either use the OS user management tools or run the following command as root: </p>
    <pre xml:space="preserve">sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username</pre>
    <note>
      <p>The <userinput>usermod</userinput> command of some older Linux distributions does not support the
          <codeph>-a</codeph> option, which adds the user to the given group without affecting membership of other
        groups. In this case, find out the current group memberships with the <userinput>groups</userinput> command and
        add all these groups in a comma-separated list to the command line after the <codeph>-G</codeph> option. For
        example: <userinput>usermod -G <varname>group1</varname>,<varname>group2</varname>,vboxusers
            <varname>username</varname></userinput>. </p>
    </note>
  </body>
  
</topic>
