Setting permissions when mounting the host's shared folder

[sdondley]

I got Debian Etch virtualized inside of my new Macbook Pro and running an apache server. Been a great learning experience so far. I was able to get guest additions installed so I can share file folders between the two OSes.

One problem I'm trying to solve is setting the umask when mounting the shared file system with -o UID=XX -o GUID=XX. Without a mask, any file created in the shared folder defaults to the Mac's permissions, rw-------. I'd like these files to be read/writable by any user on the machine. I looked in /etc/passwd and tried using 0 for UID and 99 for GUID but that didn't help. Not sure what else I should try. I'm new to Max OS X.

[Sasquatch]

What if you use '-o umask 777' as mount option for the shared folders. Just take a look at the man page for mount, you will see what options are available and what you need.

[sdondley]

It threw an error saying umask was not an option.

[Sasquatch]

Did you take a look at the man page for mount (man mount or man 8 mount)? It's also possible that it's not an option for the vboxsf file system.

[sdondley]

Looked at it read it, tried some different things, googled, looked at other examples, but no matter what I tried, the created files can only be modified and reaad by the mac's user.

[sdondley]

btw, the manual for virtualbox mentions uid and gid settings and how they can be used to set permission. But that's about all it says.

[sdondley]

Another thing: I cannot even chmod the files with the Linux guest. It simply has no effect.

I have to go to the mac file system, give myself permission to change the permissions by clicking on a little lock icon and then typing in my user password, and only then can the file's permissions be changed. Needless to say, this is not practical.

[Sasquatch]

Could be a MAC issue. I wonder what the devs have to say about this.

[h1d]

Just type in 'mount.vboxsf' alone in the terminal and it will show all the possible options.

But vboxsf does not understand altering acl. I also wish this were possible, but could just change the permissions on the host file system then.

You can use the 'uid=MyLinuxUser', 'gid=MyLinuxGroup' kind of option on the 'mount' command to give ownership to the user on the guest system.

You should use the terminal instead of using GUI to change permissions. Run the terminal, 'cd' into the folder and do the 'sudo chmod 0755 MyFolder AnotherFolder' or some such and type in your password. 'sudo' will remember that you are authorized for a while, so consecutive 'sudo' will not ask you anymore passwords.

Read up on 'man chmod' for detailed instructions on the bits.

[Sasquatch]

The way I have my SF mounted in Ubuntu Server (from Ubuntu Desktop Host) is with this line:

Code: Select all

data  /data  vboxsf  defaults,gid=1000,uid=1000,auto,rw

When I type "ls -l /data", I see my username and group as owner.

[ejtttje]

I also share this problem — it's not an issue of setting the uid and gid — the big problem here is that I can't set the executable bit, and there doesn't seem to be a way to have it set by default for new files.

So in other words, you can't compile or write scripts in a shared folder. Which is unfortunately exactly what I want to do (use the VM as a cross compiler, so I develop on my host OS, keep the source code in a shared folder, and then run the compiler in the VM). But since any generated build tools are non-executable, that screws up the build, and even if I got through that, I wouldn't be able to run/debug the final product because I (and the compiler) can't mark it executable.

This is really screwing up my workflow

[ejtttje]

Ah a bit more searching this has been discussed:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=6691

And there's a ticket here:
http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/1776