symbolic links on shared folder: Ubuntu Host and Guest

[chnaideur]

Ah, I had hoped 4.1.14 would solve this issue, but no luck on my side

[vestigal]

My problem ended up being an issue on my machine, not VirtualBox.

[tpearsall]

Jumping on the Me Too bandwagon with 4.1.8 and Ubuntu guest.

[studgeek]

The ongoing ticket on links seems to be ticket 818 (I am new forum user so I can't post the actual path for the ticket), but there is no recent traffic on it about the regression in 4.1.8.

FYI, I am seeing the same problem in 4.1.4 in Ubuntu 12.04 guest on Windows XP host.

d

[Perryg]

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/10085#comment:12

[siukeung]

I got a solution in Win7.
Go to Virtualbox.exe to set properties, select "Run this program as an administrator".
now, it can create symbolic links.

[scott.deagan]

@siukeung: I tried running VirtualBox.exe as administrator, but this does not solve the problem for me on Windows 7 host with Ubuntu Server 13.04 guest (VirtualBox version 4.2.12).

[tcox13]

Run as Administrator did not work for me. As a matter of fact, VirtualBox failed to start at all, with the error message "Failed to create the VirtualBox COM object".

I tracked the "Read-only file system" error to the fact that I was trying to copy files that were Linux links. Since Windows does not support Linux style links, the copy was not allowed. But the "Read-only file system" error message was misleading. Tracking the link to the file I REALLY wanted on the Ubuntu virtual file system, and copying THAT file to the target Windows folder worked without errors.

[Vacilando]

Same problem on Win8 host and Ubuntu 12.04 guest

[Perryg]

Everyone wants to complain but no one reads the link.

[peci1]

If your user is of the Administrator type (rather than a Standard account), there's no way to run VB with symlinks working without the UAC prompt.

If you have a Standard user account (or if you are willing to switch your account to Standard and create a separate Admin account), the solution exists. You will, however, need admin privileges to accomplish several of the steps (not necesarrily for your user account).

• Run the Local Security Policy (Win+R, type "secpol.msc", confirm UAC). Then navigate to "Local Policies->User Rights Assignment".
• Find the permission called "Create symbolic links" and double-click it. Add your user to the list of objects having this permission. Or you can add the "Users" group. Log off and log on. You can check the success by running in console:

  Code: Select all

   whoami /priv

  . If you see the privilege SeCreateSymbolicLinkPrivilege enabled, you've done well.
• Make sure your user has proper access to the shared folder on host system.
• Execute

  Code: Select all

  VBoxManage setextradata VM_NAME VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/SHARE_NAME 1

  in a console from the C:\Program Files\VirtualBox folder. Don't forget to substitute VM_NAME with the name of your VM and SHARE_NAME with the name of the shared folder (as it appears in the VM settings).
• You're done.

If you happen to own one of the "lesser" version of windows (e.g. 7 Home), you don't have the "secpol.msc" utility. Search StackOverflow for "How do I grant SeCreateSymbolicLink on Windows Vista Home edition" to get help.