Question: I have a working VM with ubuntu under virtual box. Everything works fine, but there's a detail that's getting on my nerves.

Every time i receive a kernel update, i have to re-install virtual box's guest additions. Is there a way to automate this besides skipping the update ([i found information on that approach here](https://askubuntu.com/questions/178324/how-to-skip-kernel-update) ). Is there a way to keep up with kernel updates without reinstalling the guest additions every time?

Thanks,

Answer: 
Quoting the [VirtualBox User Manual](http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#idp11306688):

> 
> Be sure to install DKMS before installing the Linux Guest Additions.
>  If DKMS is not available or not installed, the guest kernel modules
>  will need to be recreated manually whenever the guest kernel is
>  updated using the command
> 
> 
> /etc/init.d/vboxadd setup as root.
> 
> 
> 

[...]

> 
> If it is not installed, use this command for Ubuntu/Debian systems:
> 
> 
> sudo apt-get install dkms
> 
> 
>
If you are using [Vagrant](https://www.vagrantup.com/) to manage your Virtualbox VMs, you can install the [vagrant-vbguest](https://github.com/dotless-de/vagrant-vbguest/blob/master/Readme.md) plugin to automatically detect out-of-date guest additions and update them.