VirtualBox 6.0.4 Released

Oracle VM VirtualBox 6.0.4 has been released.  This release supports the Linux 5.0 kernel, and includes several other improvements and bug fixes.

You can download VirtualBox here, and the Changelog is here.

I've installed the new release on a Windows 10 host, and everything looks good so far.  I upgraded the Guest Additions on a couple of Oracle Linux 7.6 guests without any issues.  After upgrading the Guest Additions on a Fedora 29 guest, the VM hung during the first reboot, but resetting the VM fixed the issue.  (I've seen this before with Fedora guests, and it doesn't seem to be a serious problem.)

Enjoy!

Git for Windows 2.20.0 Released

Git for Windows version 2.20.0 was released earlier today.  This release includes both new features and bug fixes.  You can download it from https://gitforwindows.org.  The changelog is on GitHub.  There are 64- and 32-bit downloads, as well as portable versions.

Installing Git for Windows is by far the easiest way to get Git running on Windows computers.  (You can build it yourself, but it's a fair amount of work.)

I've installed the new version on my own machine, and so far, so good.

Enjoy!

Vagrant 2.2.2 Released

Vagrant 2.2.2 has been released.  The download page is at https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html.

The new release fixes a nasty problem with the NIC type for new Vagrant boxes running under VirtualBox.  The previous version (2.2.1) was forcing a NIC type of "virtio", unless a NIC type was specified in the Vagrantfile.  Forcing the NIC type to default to "virtio" was done to avoid a zero-day in VirtualBox versions up to 5.2.20.  However, this caused problems for Windows virtual machines, because Windows doesn't have virtio network adapter drivers built in.

Enjoy!

WinMerge 2.16.0 Released

WinMerge 2.16.0 has been released. WinMerge is my favorite open source differencing/merging tool for Windows. This release has been a long time coming–the previous stable release, 2.14.0, came out in February 2013. The download page is at http://winmerge.org/downloads/.

The new release has some nice enhancements, including 3-way file comparison and a 64-bit version. I encourage you to give it a try. (I’m not associated in any way with the WinMerge project, but I find it to be an indispensible tool.)

Enjoy!

Oracle Linux 7.6 (UEK5) / VirtualBox Shared Folder Issue

It appears that there’s an incompatibility between the latest UEK Release 5 kernel releases for Oracle Linux 7 and version 5.2.20 of the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel module.  This issue prevents VirtualBox shared folders from working.  If you have an Oracle Linux 7.6 VM that’s affected by this problem, one workaround is to downgrade the kernel.

There are many things that can cause VirtualBox shared folders to stop working.  To see whether your VM might be affected by this specific issue, check 3 things:

1. From a terminal or ssh session, run cat /etc/oracle-release.  If the output says “Oracle Linux Server release 7.6”, your VM might be affected.
    
2. Next, run uname -r.  This will show the version of the kernel that's running.  If the running kernel is one of the following, your VM might be affected:
   
   

   Kernel version
   4.14.35-1818.4.5.el7uek.x86_64
   4.14.35-1818.4.6.el7uek.x86_64
   4.14.35-1818.4.7.el7uek.x86_64
   4.14.35-1818.5.4.el7uek.x86_64

    
3. Finally, run yum list installed *vbox*.  If the version of the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel module is “kmod-vboxguest-uek5.x86_64 5.2.20-1.el7”, your VM might be affected.

If ALL 3 of these conditions are true, you may be able to restore shared folder functionality by downgrading the kernel.  To do that, run sudo yum -y install kernel-uek-4.14.35-1818.3.3.el7uek.x86_64, then reboot the VM.  Version 4.14.35-1818.3.3.el7uek.x86_64 of the UEK Release 5 kernel seems to be the latest version that works properly with version 5.2.20 of the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel module.

I’m sure this issue will be resolved soon by updates to the Guest Additions kernel module and/or the kernel itself.  It’s helpful to have a workaround in the meantime, though.

[Updated on December 11, 2018 to add 4.14.35-1818.5.4.el7uek.x86_64 to list of affected kernel versions.]