vboxsf module loads but mount gives "No such device" error

[jws]

I am attempting to mount a shared folder using vboxsf, but the command fails:

Code: Select all

alpine-mini:~$ sudo mount -t vboxfs -o uid=`id -u vagrant`,gid=`id -g vagrant` /vagrant /vagrant
mount: mounting /vagrant on /vagrant failed: No such device

I have installed the Virtual Box Guest Additions in an alpine-mini-2.6.3-x86 host.

This required manually running adduser commands, because the installer expected useradd instead, and installing the appropriate linux headers and development system.

The vboxsf module appears to load fine:

Code: Select all

alpine-mini:~$ sudo lsmod | grep vbox
vboxsf                 30591  0 
vboxguest             172288  1 vboxsf

And dmesg agrees:

Code: Select all

alpine-mini:~$ dmesg | tail
[    1.660323] hid-generic 0003:80EE:0021.0001: input,hidraw0: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [VirtualBox USB Tablet] on usb-0000:00:06.0-1/input0
[    1.729796] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[    1.753215] NET: Registered protocol family 17
[    1.764896] grsec: time set by /bin/busybox[hwclock:795] uid/euid:0/0 gid/egid:0/0, parent /lib/rc/sh/runscript.sh[runscript.sh:785] uid/euid:0/0 gid/egid:0/0
[    1.784376] EXT4-fs (sda3): re-mounted. Opts: data=ordered
[    1.801186] input: ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input6
[    1.843033] EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: data=ordered
[    1.914219] pcnet32 0000:00:03.0 eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex
[    3.051085] NET: Registered protocol family 10
[  590.686543] vboxsf: Successfully loaded version 4.2.16 (interface 0x00010004)

I seem to recall /proc/filesystems not including vboxsf before, but it does now. And yet the mount command still fails.

Vbox-related devices are:

Code: Select all

alpine-mini:~$ ls -l /dev/vbox*
crw-rw----    1 root     root       10,  59 Aug 22 17:51 /dev/vboxguest
crw-rw----    1 root     root       10,  58 Aug 22 17:51 /dev/vboxuser

Oddly, I am unable to manually execute mount.vboxsf:

Code: Select all

alpine-mini:~$ ls -l /sbin/mount.vboxsf 
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root            40 Aug 22 17:28 /sbin/mount.vboxsf -> /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf
alpine-mini:~$ sudo /sbin/mount.vboxsf 
sudo: unable to execute /sbin/mount.vboxsf: No such file or directory
alpine-mini:~$ sudo /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf 
sudo: unable to execute /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf: No such file or directory
alpine-mini:~$ ls -l /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf 
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root         11568 Jul  4 14:15 /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf

Any help would be appreciated.

Code: Select all

% vboxmanage --version
4.2.16r8699
host% uname -a
Darwin Hermes.local 13.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 13.0.0: Tue Jul 30 20:52:22 PDT 2013; root:xnu-2422.1.53~3/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
host% sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.9
BuildVersion:   13A538g
alpine-mini:~$ uname -a
Linux alpine-mini 3.10.5-1-grsec #2-Alpine SMP Wed Aug 7 09:25:20 UTC 2013 i686 Linux

[Perryg]

You will need to ask the vagrant folks.

[jws]

You will need to ask the vagrant folks.

Could you please elaborate on why you feel this is a Vagrant issue? As far as I can tell, the issue has nothing to do with Vagrant except that lacking shared folder prevents it from being a fully-functioning Vagrant box.

I built the VM myself in VirtualBox. I rigged up user accounts, passwords, and passwordless sudo to suit Vagrant per

'.'.join("www","skoblenick","com")+"/vagrant/creating-a-custom-box-from-scratch/"

(unable to post an actual link due to account newness), but in the end, Vagrant is just my smoke test for, "Does this thing work?"

[Perryg]

Vagrant sets up its own sandbox and runs VirtualBox via scripts that only they know or control. If you would actually care to run VirtualBox as it is intended then the mount statements would be controlled by the OS and not vagrant. Also symlinks and the like will not be needed and can confuse the instructions anyone here would provide you.

The mount statement would not need a user statement either, but the uid & gid with a side of rw thrown in for good measure is always suggested.

[jws]

OK, fair enough. I've spent enough time on this. Time to bail for a better-supported distro if I need shared folders.

Thanks for pointing out that running under Vagrant is not so transparent as I thought.

[Perryg]

Really thousands of people use VirtualBox everyday and it works as well as and sometimes better than any of the competitors. Mounting a share is actually easy and straight forward if you install and use VirtualBox as it is intended to be run.

Note: I am not in anyway suggesting that vagrant is poor. It is just we don't need/use it here and can not advise on how it works or what you need to do, thus the suggestion to ask them.

[usver]

I registered only to say that. You know what. Virtualbox is sh.. . I can't decide problems for 3 days. And my problems connected with virtualbox, not Vagrant.
First problem is the same like in this topic. The second it that virtualbox can't create host-only network adapter.
Tried to do everything that is possible. Not via Vagrant CLI, not via GUI o virtual box.
Link clip2net [dot] com [slash] s [slash] 6ZGIPm
I have the latest version of virtualbox.

[marius-nyxpoint]

Not sure if this is going to help, but I was having the (approx) same problem as you and after hours of frustration I finally found a solution... I downgraded to version 4.3.8 and everything started to work again.

Funny thing, the download page for virtualbox warns about a regression. Could there be more?
Anyway, the stability for vboxsf is not so great (to say the least). With every virtualbox update my hair gets greyer.

Kind regards,
Marius

[LarryMcQ]

I'm thoroughly relieved to know that I'm not the only one having this problem today. I'm downgrading to 4.3.8 until they get this fixed. I like VirtualBox in general, but the user experience with Guest Additions has always been very disappointing. Frequently they fail to install properly, or require multiple reboots/attempts. Junk.

[LarryMcQ]

...With every virtualbox update my hair gets greyer...

Mine too, Marius. It was already a bit gray to begin with, but I'm sure it'll be completely white in only a few more VirtualBox releases

[Perryg]

I use shared folders everyday without issues. I have a media server ( guest with ps3media server ) that pulls the media via shared folders from 3 different storage units and streams it to from 1 to 5 clients and it works flawlessly. These rates are usually 15MB streams so it impresses me. As you know, or should know, streams are fragile. Any flaw and the stream fails. There is no catching up.

Of course this might be because I use Linux as host but the guests are mixed and include hand held devices that the media server guest must trans-code to serve it to the device.

Next I transfer huge files via shared folders and usually maintain at least a 50MB sustained rate. This can very a little depending on the type of file, but is comparable to any network share.

If you want to test that then use Bridged mode or Host-only and set up a direct network share and see if it works better for you. It might or should I say it should be slightly faster because of the overhead of additional code using shared folders but not near as convenient. IMHO.

[pmenso57]

I use shared folders everyday without issues.

I have a Debian guest on a Windows 7 host that has the same issue. Suddenly with this update, I cannot mount shared folders from the host OS. E.g.

Code: Select all

pmenso57@debian: ~
$ sudo mount -t vboxsf shared ~/shared
[sudo] password for pmenso57: 
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /home/pmenso57/shared,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

Something definitely broke with this update.

[loukingjr]

First I would make sure you are running 4.3.10 r93012. The first build had some issues apparently. It may be an issue with VirtualBox for Windows but on my Mac host, shared folders work as they always have, I've tested five different guests.

edit: make that six guests. I just tried my Debian 7.4 install.

[pmenso57]

First I would make sure you are running 4.3.10 r93012. The first build had some issues apparently. It may be an issue with VirtualBox for Windows but on my Mac host, shared folders work as they always have, I've tested five different guests.

edit: make that six guests. I just tried my Debian 7.4 install.

It is the "fixed" one that I have installed r93012. However, I have installed previous release in the mean time and it works again.

[Perryg]

@pmenso57,

You may have an issue that was first noticed yesterday. Look in /sbin for mount.vboxsf and see where the symlink points to.
Then see if the file exists there ( /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions ) or does the file exist at ( /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions )