Shared folder in Linux guest permissions problems

[avamk]

Hello,

I have Virtualbox 6.1.4 on a Windows 10 guest both fully updated. Through that I have a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 virtual machine (with guest additions 6.1.4) with two shared folders with "Access" set to full and auto-mount enabled. I added my virtual machine user to the vboxsf group and I can see and open files in those two shares from the virtual machine.

However, there are two problems:

1. I often can't save my changes to files I edit in those shares. For example, if I use Gnome's text editor to open, edit, and try to save a pure text file in the share, I get a "file busy" error. In Visual Studio Code, the error is simply permission denied. By using the `ls -lh` command in a terminal, I see that the files and folders in the share are owned by root:vboxsf with read and write privileges to the root user and the vboxsf group. Strangely, if I use the `nano` editor from the terminal, I can edit and write to the same file just fine.

2. Sometimes, a seemingly random assortment of files and folders inside the share would show up as belonging to nobody:nobody, and I can access them even with the `sudo` command.

How can I troubleshoot these problems? Thank you.

[scottgus1]

If you set these shared folders via the Virtualbox settings, then they are Guest Additions Shared Folders. GASFs are not real shared folders. They are only for file transfer, not for running, saving, databases, etc.

Make a real shared folder on the host PC OS and use a Virtualbox Bridged or Host-Only network between the guest & host to access the real shared folder, then you will be able to do anything a normal networked shared folder can support.

[avamk]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

They are only for file transfer, not for running, saving, databases, etc.

So are the problems I described expected and normal for a Guest Additions shared folder?

Make a real shared folder on the host PC OS and use a Virtualbox Bridged or Host-Only network between the guest & host to access the real shared folder, then you will be able to do anything a normal networked shared folder can support.

Let me try this and report back.

[scottgus1]

So are the problems I described expected and normal for a Guest Additions shared folder?

GASFs were only designed for passing files between the host & guest, so one didn't have to set up a network. There are a lot of protocols that were not programmed into GASFs.

While it would be rather hard to predict a particular problem, if the operation is not ultimately a simple file copy, then a GASF might have problems with the operation.