VirtualBox: Kernel Panic

When running a variation of RedHat in VirtualBox, you might encounter the following error:

Kernel panic – not syncing: Attempted to kill init! exit code=0x00007f00

This is due to the VirtualBox blocking your host’s perfectly capable CPU from being exposed. Here is a workaround by spoofing your CPU profile:

VBoxManage modifyvm "your_vm_name" --cpu-profile "Intel Core i7-6700K"

Here, I chose “Intel Core i7-6700K”, but you can choose any CPU profile from VirtualBox’s list of accepted profiles. To see the list, go to the command prompt and type the following:

VBoxManage list cpu-profiles

If VBoxManage is not in your environment variables, you’ll get the error:

‘VBoxManage’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

In that case, change your directory where VirtualBox is installed. The default directory is:

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox

So you will need to key in the command:

cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox"

Followed by the VBoxManage command.