Making a virtual hard drive immutable

[20110101]

I obviously don't understand something very basic here.

After many hours of configuration, I finally have the guest os image exactly the way I want it.

So I want to make it immutable.

I did:

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VBoxManage modifyhd /FULL/path/to/disk/image.vdi settype immutable

Now I get a message:

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The selected virtual machine in inaccessible. Please inspect the error message shown below and press the [bold]Refresh[/bold] button if you want to repeat the accessibility check:

Immutable hard disk '/FULL/path/to/disk/image.vdi' with UUID {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx} cannot be directly attached to the virtual machine 'virtual' ('/home/user/.VirtualBox/Machines/virtual/virtual.xml').
Result Code: 
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: 
Machine
Interface: 
IMachine {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}

Please enlighten me as to how to create and use an immutable disk image.

[mpack]

Which VirtualBox version number?

[20110101]

Which VirtualBox version number?

I originally created the virtual machine (and ran into the problem) on 3.2.12. I have since upgraded to 4.0.0 (hoping, but not really expecting, that it would help).

Somebody moved this to post "VirtualBox on Windows Hosts." As seems obvious (at least to me) from the machine path, this issue involves virtualbox running on a linux host.

[raistlin majere]

Have you tried using the uuid instead of the full path to the vdi file?
I used:

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VBoxManage modifyhd <uuid> --type immutable

Works fine for me :)

Just make sure that the uuid in use is the one of the hard disk, not the machine uuid. You can use:

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VBoxManage showvminfo <VM name>

and under "IDE Controller" you have the uuid for the hard disk in use. Also, in version 4, in your home dir you have a dir "VirtualBox VMs". Check the *.vbox file to see the configuration of your VM and to see the uuid for the hard disk.

Hope this hepls!

PS If I'm wrong, someone please tell me :))

[20110101]

Have you tried using the uuid instead of the full path to the vdi file?
I used:

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VBoxManage modifyhd <uuid> --type immutable

Works fine for me

Now I feel more lost than ever.

When I ran VBoxManage, it appeared to work correctly (making the disk image immutable).

The problem is that I can't seem to attach the disk image back to the virtual machine (why?).

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VBoxManage showvminfo <VM name>

Certainly a useful command to know, but it doesn't do anything to help with this problem.

and under "IDE Controller" you have the uuid for the hard disk in use.

It's under the sata controller, which was the default when I set up the machine.

Also, in version 4, in your home dir you have a dir "VirtualBox VMs". Check the *.vbox file to see the configuration of your VM and to see the uuid for the hard disk.

Sorry, I don't see anything like that. Would that exist for machines originally created with virtualbox 3?

Hope this hepls!

Sorry, it didn't.