Can't install Parrot 3.11 in VirtualBox

Support Installation and Configuration
1

Parrot Security OS 3.11
VirtualBox 5.2.6
Windows 10 Pro x64

I just today have Parrot 3.10 working fine installed as a Guest in a Windows 10 Pro Host with VirtualBox 5.2.6 (newest).

I downloaded earlier tonight the version Parrot 3.11 and started to install into a newly created Guest (exact same settings as the working Parrot 3.10) and it fails with “Installation step failed: Install the system”.

I have tried the installation 3 ways, GTK, (whatever the other one is named), and booted to Live and then click “Install” on that Desktop. All 3 ways fail with same error message.

I normally would just delete the Guest and forget it, but the Parrot 3.10 works and the 3.11 does not, which makes it an interesting case to me.

What further info do I need to provide to anyone who may be interested here?

Thank you for any tips you may provide.

.

2

generate the hashes of the iso in your download folder and post them here

i think your download is corrupted

3

Yes that’s what I thought last night so I checked the MD5 hash of the ISO I have and the MD5 of the file and in fact they matched.

The hash on the site is
71c94474fb474f682da0844d95f0040b Parrot-security-3.11_amd64.iso

And the hash I get with the Windows 10 CLI “CertUtil -hashfile filename md5” is
MD5 hash of Parrot-security-3.11_amd64.iso:
71c94474fb474f682da0844d95f0040b

I have downloaded Parrot Studio 3.11 this morning to try its installation with same exact VirtualBox settings
as mentioned before, the successful settings of my Parrot Security 3.10 Guest and if successful, try the Parrot Security 3.11 once more.

Thank you for your help and I will post more information in a few minutes.

.

4

Ok I’m sorry for the late reply but I had to leave home for a while today.

Here is what has happened so far.

In short, Parrot Studio 3.11 installed no problem and works fine. Parrot Security 3.11 still fails.

I installed Parrot Studio successfully, then made another VirtualBox guest with the exact settings of the one
where I just finished installing Parrot Studio. I attempted to install Security 3.11 and it failed.

Here are the steps I used to successfully install Parrot Studio and then the step where Parrot Security fails.

Open VirtualBox (5.2.6)

Click New

Name: Parrot Studio 3.11
Type: Linux
Version: Debian (64-bit)
Memory size: 2048 MB
Hard disk: Create a virtual hard disk now
Click Create
File location: E:\VirtualBox\Parrot Studio 3.11.vdi
Size: 30.00 GB
Fixed size
Hard disk file type VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image)
Click Create

Wait for virtual disk to be created, about 2 minutes.

Right-click Parrot Studio 3.11 Guest in list on the left column of VirtualBox and select “Settings”

System:

Motherboard tab:
Base Memory: 2048 MB
Boot order:
Uncheck Floppy then move Optical to top and Hard Disk to 2nd
Chipset: PIIX3 (default)
Pointing Device: USB tablet (default)
Extended Features: Enable I/O APIC (default), Hardware Clock in UTC time (default), Enable EFI: unchecked (default)

Processor tab:
Processor(s): 1 (default)
Execution Cap: 100% (default)
Entended Features: Checkmark in Enable PAE/NX

Acceleration tab:
Paravirtualization Interface: Default
Hardware Virtualization:
Enable VT-x/AMD-V (default)
Enable Nested Paging (default)

Display:

Screen tab:
Video Memory: 128 MB
Monitor Count: 1 (default)
Scale Factor: 100% (default)
Acceleration:
uncheck Enable 3D Acceleration (default)
uncheck Enable 2D Video Acceleration (default)
Remote Display tab:
uncheck Enable Server (default)
Video Capture tab:
uncheck Enable Video Capture (default)

Storage:

Controller: IDE (empty) (default)
Attributes:
Name: IDE (default)
Type: PIIX4 (default)
Check Use Host I/O Cache (default)

Controller: SATA (default)
Parrot Studio 3.11.vdi (default)
Attributes:
Name: SATA (default)
Type: AHCI (default)
Port Count: 1 (default)
uncheck Use Host I/O Cache (default)

Audio:
Checkmark in Enable Audio (default)
Host Audio Driver: Windows DirectSound (default)
Audio Controller: ICH AC97
Extended Features: checkmark in Enable Audio Output (default)
uncheck Enable Audio Input (default)

Network:
(1 adapter only)
Adapter 1 tab:
Checkmark in Enable Network Adapter (default)
Attached to: NAT (default)
Name: (greyed out)
No settings changed under Advanced

Serial Ports: (none enabled)

USB:
Checkmark in Enable USB Controller (default)
Checkmark in USB 2.0 (EHCI) Controller (default)
USB Device Filters:
None

Shared Folders:
None

User Interface:
Checkmark in top bar (default)
Mini ToolBar:
Checkmark in Show in Full-screen/Seamless
uncheck Show at Top of Screen
Checkmark in bottom bar (default)

Installation steps:

In “Details” view of VirtualBox app:
Click Controller: IDE
IDE Secondary Master: [Optical Drive] and navigate to
W:\Parrot-studio-3.11_amd64.iso (2.54 GB) and select it.

Click green “Start” button

On the first screen (named Parrot studio - 3.1 amd64) use the keyboard to
select “Install”

Select Standard Installer

Note:
(Error message that /dev/sda can’t be mounted: Invalid argument)
I believe that means that it can’t be mounted at this particular early point.
Despite the message, the installation (Parrrot Studio) finishes fine.

Select English, United States, American English

Enter Root password, confirm

Enter Username, confirm

Enter password, then confirm

Select Central time zone

Partitioning method:
Select Guided - use entire disk

Select disk to partition:
SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 32.2 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK

Partitioning scheme:
Select “Separate /home partition”

SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 32.2 GB ATA VBOX HARDDISK
#1 primary 10.7 GB f ext4 /
#5 logical 2.1 GB f swap swap
#6 logical 19.4 GB f ext4 /home

Select “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk”, confirm

Says "Installing the system…"
Copying data to disk… 83%

Then starts saying “Preparing” and “Installing” instead of “Copying”

Window says:
"Install the GRUB boot loader to the master boot record?"
Yes

“Device for boot loader installation:”
/dev/sda (ata-VBOX_HARDDISK_VB1abbb020-307311fd)
Highlight with keyboard and hit Enter key

“Installing GRUB boot loader”

“[!!] Finish the installation”, select Continue

"Finishing the installation"
Running remove-live-packages… 59% (hard drive light shows activity)

From here, Parrot Studio finished installing successfully.
However, at this point, Parrot Security 3.11 also appeared to be installing but failed
at about 60% with the error message [!!] Install the system - Installation step failed - The
failing step is: Install the system

Reboot

GRUB menu, then auto-starts

Login screen, enter password and hit Enter key

Works fine.

Install VBoxLinuxAdditions.run (VBoxGuestAdditions_5.2.7-120528.iso)

Works:
Shared folders
Copy and Past (clipboard)
Drag-n-Drop does not work but I believe that is a VirtualBox problem, not Parrot.

At this point I have decided that despite the MD5 showing that the ISO file that I downloaded was indeed correct, I’ll delete that file and re-download now (the Parrot-security-3.11_amd64.iso) then check it then
try to install once again.

.

1 Like
5

Hi all,

Ok, after much experimentation I know how to reproduce the failure to install every time.

After changing a lot of settings in the Guest setup, which come to find out has nothing to do with anything, and installing Parrot Security 3.11 (amd64) several different ways, the problem is very simple.

I also suspect it’s the reason there are not more people complaining.

If you set up Parrot Sec 3.11 WITH ALL DEFAULTS it will set up fine. If, however, you select any selection BESIDES default on the screen that says “[!!] Partition disks” under “Partitioning scheme” where the default is “All files in one partition (recommended for new users)”, it will fail.

In other words, here is what the screen says:

[!!] Partition disks

Selected for partitioning:

SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - ATA VBOX HARDDISK: 26.8 GB

The disk can be partitioned using one of several different schemes. If you are unsure, choose the first one.

Partitioning scheme:

All files in one partition (recommended for new users) <-- SUCCESS

Separate /home partition <-- FAIL

Separate /home, /var, and /tmp partitions <-- FAIL

I can reproduce this every time. Different settings in VirtualBox do not affect this outcome. Two identical ISO images are also attempted, though they both have the same MD5 hash (both correct) and size, so it isn’t a problem with the ISO file itself.

The file is: (I have 2 of them)
Parrot-security-3.11_amd64.iso
Size: (as reported in Windows 10 file explorer)
3,699,872 KB
MD5 Hash:
71c94474fb474f682da0844d95f0040b (which is correct according to Parrot Download page)

I said before though, on an earlier post, that Parrot Studio 3.11 installed fine although I selected “Separate /home partition” so I have no idea why there is a difference between Security 3.11 and Studio 3.11. It’s my understanding that it’s only a difference of installed packages. They should be identical otherwise. Am I correct about this? But try as I may, Studio wil install with separate partitions and Security will not.

A person could just choose to use one partition (the default) during install and then change the partitions later, but to the best of my knowledge the filesystem has to be unmounted to do that. Which is easily accomplished though, by shutting down the Guest, inserting (attaching) the Parrot Security ISO (that was used for installing), Start (boot) and select “Live Mode”

However, I can’t get into the instructions all about Gparted, etc. and how to make and mount new partitions, etc. It’s fairly easy. That will require a little reading on the user’s part.

In conclusion, I have the problem I named above and I can reproduce it every single time I try it. So does anyone know what the problem is? Why asking the installer to use separate partitions causes the install to fail when using a single partition will succeed?

Again, thank you for any tips

.

6

Did you try having separate file systems in different partitions while at same time having LVM ? Because it cause lot of problems, the debian installer is bad. i had the same errors as you when trying to do that before, however you can just do with one partition for everything, especially since you’re using Parrot in VM. It says recommended for new users, but whatever it’s good for everybody.

7

No, when I tried to install with separate partitions, there were no partitions that already existed and I didn’t have LVM at all.

8

why not get the latest 4.1 iso and try with that ?

9

It is a bit old topic :smiley: