Fixing `VirtualBox Guest Additions: Kernel headers not found for target kernel`

OS system for testing: CentOS7

1. why this error:

The version of kernel-devel does not match the version of your running kernel.

You can check them by running uname -r and rpm -q kernel-devel.

2. update the kernel

follow the link

or do the following:

# yum update -y
# rpm --import https://www.elrepo.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-elrepo.org
# yum install https://www.elrepo.org/elrepo-release-7.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm
# yum --disablerepo="*" --enablerepo="elrepo-kernel" list available

# yum --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel install kernel-ml-devel kernel-ml -y
#or:
# yum –-enablerepo=elrepo-kernel install kernel-lt-devel kernel-lt -y

# reboot

After update the kernel, you can find the not-the-newest version of kernel.

$(uname -r) == $(rpm -q kernel-devel)

make sure to log into the right version of kernel. Note: not the newest one on my centos7.

3. Install the “Development Group Tools”

   # yum groupinstall "Development tools"

4. Install the VirtualBox_Guest_Additions

try to install the VirtualBox_Guest_Additions with:

sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

The final success log:

    # ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
    Verifying archive integrity.
    100%
    MD5 checksums are OK. All good
    Uncompressing VirtualBox 7.0.12 Guest Additions for Linux 100%
    VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
    Removing installed version 7.0.12 of VirtualBox Guest Additions.
    Copying additional installer modules
    Installing additional modules
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: Starting.
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: Setting up modules
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel
    modules. This may take a while.
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: To build modules for other installed kernels, run
    VirtualBox Guest Additions:
    /bin/rcvboxadd quicksetup ‹version>
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: or
    VirtualBox Guest Additions:
    /bin/revboxadd quicksetup all
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the modules for kernel
    3.10.0-1160.102.1.el7.x86 64.
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: reloading kernel modules and services
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: kernel modules and services 7.0.12 r159484 reloaded
    VirtualBox Guest Additions: NOTE: you may still consider to re-login if some
    user session specific services (Shared Clipboard, Drag and Drop, Seamless or
    Guest Screen Resize) were not restarted automatically