Linux - An error has occurred while trying to create a virtualbox host-only network interface – Genymotion

Note

From Genymotion Desktop 3.3.0 onward, it is possible to use QEMU instead of VirtualBox hypervisor. QEMU utilizes kvm which is generally installed by default on most popular Linux distributions. Though it is still experimental, tests have shown that using QEMU instead of VirtualBox on Linux gives better compatibility and better performance.

This error can have several different causes. Here are the main known cause and possible solutions:

You are trying to run Genymotion Desktop in a virtual machine, a server or a Cloud instance (AWS, GCP, Azure, ...)

Genymotion Desktop has been designed to run in a physical environment, not in a virtual machine or a server. For this reason, Genymotion Desktop will not work if run in Linux VMs, Linux servers and Linux Cloud instances.

For more details, please refer to the following articles:

You are using a VPN and/or a restrictive firewall

VPN clients and restrictive firewalls may interfere with VirtualBox and Genymotion Desktop.

For more details, please refer to the following articles:

You are using VirtualBox 7

Genymotion Desktop is not compatible with VirtualBox 7 yet.

VirtualBox has been freshly installed

If you have just installed VirtualBox, it is recommended to reboot your PC.

`vboxdrv` kernel module is not installed

Important

We highly recommend installing VirtualBox package from your distribution repository. If you install VirtualBox manually (from .deb, .rpm or source), the vboxdrv kernel module may not compile and Genymotion will not work.

Make sure that the dkms package is installed and that it compiles VirtualBox kernel modules each time a new kernel update is available. To do so, run:
```
modinfo vboxdrv
```
If the vboxdrv kernel module is loaded, it should return (version numbers may differ):
```
filename: /lib/modules/5.11.0-40-generic/updates/dkms/vboxdrv.ko
version: 6.1.26_Ubuntu r145957 (0x00300000)
license: GPL
description: Oracle VM VirtualBox Support Driver
author: Oracle Corporation
```
If not, try to reload vboxdrv kernel module manually:
```
sudo modprobe vboxdrv
```
If this doesn’t work, rebuild VirtualBox kernel modules:

Ubuntu/Debian
```
sudo apt-get --reinstall install virtualbox-dkms
```
Fedora
```
sudo /sbin/vboxconfig
```
Reboot your system

For more information, please refer to VirtualBox documentation. If this doesn't help, try to remove VirtualBox altogether and re-install it.

UEFI Secure Boot

If you have a Linux system with UEFI secure boot enabled, during the VirtualBox installation, the system will ask you to set a password (If not already set during the OS installation or MOK is not enrolled after the OS installation) and that can be used at the time of enrolling Machine-Owner key (MOK) in your system’s firmware.

Click OK on configuring secure boot wizard.

Set a password for secure boot:

Enter the password again to confirm the password:

Reboot your system:

sudo reboot

Upon system reboot, you will need to perform MOK management.

Choose Enroll MOK » Continue » Yes » Enter Password (you have set earlier) » Reboot.

Wait for the system to come up after a reboot and then start VirtualBox.

No host-only interface is accessible

This happens in some rare cases, for example when VirtualBox has been updated from a version 6.0.X or 5.X.X.

To fix this:

Open VirtualBox
Go to File > Host Network Manager...
Remove all the host-only interface (vboxnet0, vboxnet1, etc.):
Close VirtualBox
Launch Genymotion Desktop