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I installed VirtualBox when I was running Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 with GNOME 3.18 from the official repository (details are given on the official site), however when I upgraded to Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 with GNOME 3.20 I found that the new kernel did not allow unsigned kernel modules and as Oracle doesn't sign them (or at least didn't back then, I don't know about now) they can't be run. So I purged it using apt-get (or maybe I used remove, but I don't remember).

But now I am concerned that it has left something behind for when I run the networkctl this is the output:

IDX LINK             TYPE               OPERATIONAL SETUP     
  1 lo               loopback           n/a         n/a       
  2 enp3s0           ether              n/a         n/a       
  3 wlp2s0b1         wlan               n/a         n/a       
  4 virbr0           ether              n/a         n/a       
  5 virbr0-nic       ether              n/a         n/a       

5 links listed.

And here is part of the output from ifconfig:

virbr0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00  
          inet addr:192.168.122.1  Bcast:192.168.122.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

It seems to be named similar to the VirtualBox standard, so is this something left behind from VirtualBox or something else? If it is from VirtualBox then can I safely and cleanly remove it and will there be anything else left in my system? Also, could it cause me any harm if it just stays there as it is?

  • That's a virtual network bridge interface, devices like that also get created by other virtualization tools. If you don't need the network interface (because you have no hypervisors and VMs using it), you can safely remove it. – Byte Commander Aug 14 '16 at 13:36
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    @ByteCommander: Sorry for my ignorance, but how exactly do I remove it? –  Aug 14 '16 at 13:41
  • @ParanoidPanda - Wait so VBox doesn't work on 16.04+? **O_O** – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Aug 14 '16 at 13:55
  • @AndroidDev: I don't know, didn't last time I used it... There's even a question on the matter here. Why, do you know if it works now because maybe they fixed it? –  Aug 14 '16 at 13:57
  • @ParanoidPanda - I'm still running 14.04, I only have 16.04 in a VM. So no, I don't know. I'm just very surprised they broke VBox. – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Aug 14 '16 at 14:03
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    To remove a virtual network bridge interface, please see this question: http://askubuntu.com/q/246343/367990 – Byte Commander Aug 14 '16 at 14:06

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