is it possible to run virtualbox inside a docker container

Question

I tried running the container in privileged mode, but still the vboxdrv cannot be loaded.

I get

WARNING: The vboxdrv kernel module is not loaded. Eit         


        

Answer 1

Yes, you can. You'll need to make sure you have the kernel module on your host system. I'm running Ubuntu, but I'm sure it'd be similar on other distros:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic virtualbox-dkms

And make sure the kernel module is loaded:

sudo /etc/init.d/virtualbox status
VirtualBox kernel modules are loaded.

Now, run the docker container, and mount /dev/vboxdrv as a volume:

docker run -it -v /dev/vboxdrv:/dev/vboxdrv your/container-image

Answer 2

Edited at 2016-03-27 12:54 UTC

I have the exact same issue and I can successfully dockerize the latest version of VirtualBox with the Extension Pack and phpvirtualbox on CentOS 7.

You have to install tons of dependencies such as kernel-devel, make, gcc and dkms. After finishing the docker build, you MUST run the docker image with these flags --privileged=true -v /dev/:/dev/. you need the flag --privileged=true to run the image with the docker version of 1.10.3

For the details, please see my Dockerfile and run.sh

For the details, please have a look my repository especially Makefile, virtualbox.Dockerfile, vboxwebsrv.Dockerfile and phpvirtualbox.Dockerfile

Answer 3

2019:

• Virtualbox version: 6.0
• Docker version: 18.09.6
• Ubuntu 18.04

The key is to use a docker image that has systemd running. I chose jrei/systemd-ubuntu see here.

    docker run -d --privileged \
    --name systemd-ubuntu --network=host \
    --device /dev/vboxdrv:/dev/vboxdrv \
    -v /sys/fs/cgroup:/sys/fs/cgroup:ro \
    -v /tmp:/tmp -it jrei/systemd-ubuntu

Inside the container I ran:

    apt update
    apt -y install wget
    apt -y install gnupg2
    apt -y install systemd
    apt -y install software-properties-common
    wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox_2016.asc -O- | apt-key add -
    wget -q https://www.virtualbox.org/download/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | apt-key add -
    add-apt-repository "deb https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian bionic contrib"
    apt update
    apt -y install virtualbox-6.0

Enjoy :-)