Difficulty Installing Guest Additions in Mountain Lion VM on 2019 5K iMac Running Sonoma 14.2.1

[WordWeaver]

Hello. Actually, I am having two problems.

After a hiatus of quite a few years, I decided to reinstall VirtualBox so that I could try to set up and run my old Hermes II BBS software under Mac Classic using SheepShaver, as I did many years ago during the late 80s and early 90s.

Earlier today I successfully downloaded and installed VirtualBox 7.0.14 (161095) on my 2019 5K iMac running Sonoma 14.2.1.

After that, I created an ISO image from the Mountain Lion installer app, and I successfully created a Mountain Lion VM in VirtualBox.

Then I ran into two problems. No matter what I do, I have been unable to get shared folders to work, which I need in order to install SheepShaver, my BBS software and related dependencies.

I thought perhaps it was because I was missing something. So, next, I downloaded "Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-7.0.14.vbox-extpack" and installed that. However, that didn't resolve my problem either.

Then I suspected that maybe the extension pack did not include the guest additions, so I looked around on the Oracle website and discovered a package called "VBoxGuestAdditions_7.0.15-161959.iso".

That is when I ran into my second problem. Despite trying multiple times to install the "VBoxDarwinAdditions.pkg" package that is contained in the ISO file, the guest additions installation fails. It says that it is running the scripts, writing the packages and then it fails while validating the packages, and says to contact the developer.

So what is the problem, and how do I overcome it?

I am assuming that if I can get the guest additions installed, then I will also be able to get shared folders working properly.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[WordWeaver]

OKay, I have made some progress, but I am still stuck and can't get my shared folders working properly.

After writing the above message, I downloaded the latest build of VB for macOS, which is VirtualBox 7.0.15 (161959).

After that, I discovered that according to the VB documentation, the guest additions are not enabled by default. It was at that point that I discovered the "Insert Guest Additions CD Image" option under my VM's "Devices" menu. So, I did that, and I was able to successfully install the latest version of the guest additions in my Mountain Lion VM.

However, despite doing that, I am apparently still doing something wrong. I really wish the user manual provided more specific instructions for macOS. It seems to be rather lacking compared to the other OSes that are discussed there.

At any rate, in the "Shared Folders" settings, I hit the button to add a shared folder, and then I chose "Other" in the menu, and then I navigated to a subfolder in my "Downloads" folder on my host machine's side where I am running macOS Sonoma. So basically, the path to that folder looks like this:

/Users/MyUserName/Downloads/MyVirtualBoxShareFolderName

As I said, that is on my macOS Sonoma side. Is that path correct, or am I doing something wrong?

When I enter the above path, in the "Folder Name" field in my VM/s "Shared Folders" settings, it automatically adds the name of my shared folder. In other words, "MyVirtualBoxSharedFolderName", for example. Is that also correct?

As far as the "Mount point" is concerned, being as I want the shared folder to mount in my VM's desktop under my user name, I assume I should put "Users/MyUserName/Desktop". Is this also correct, or do I need to put a forward slash before "Users" or after "Desktop"?

Below that, I have both "Auto-Mount" and "Make Permanent" enabled.

So is all of that set up correctly?

If I understand this correctly, in addition to the above, on the macOS Sonoma side, I also have to go into my "Sharing" settings, enable "File Sharing", and then set up that same "MyVirtualBoxSharedFolderName" folder so that my user in my VM has permission to read and write to that folder, correct?

Also, in the "Advanced" settings under the "General" tab for my VM, I have both "Shared Clipboard" and "Drag 'n' Drop" set to "Bidirectional". Yet, despite these settings, I am unable to drag and drop in either direction. I get an error message on my screen. Neither is the clipboard working between my host machine and my VM.

So, other than actually updating to the latest versioni of VB, and successfully installing the guest additions, I haven't accomplished much else. So again, if any Macintosh users can assist me with this, I would be most appreciative. Thank you.

[granada29]

The Guest Additions for macOS have never been well supported.

You should be able to share files from your VM using native file sharing. In the Guest VM enable File Sharing and Screen Sharing in the System Preferences.

You should then minimise the VirtualBox VM window.
You will then be able to use native Screen Sharing to open the Guest desktop. This will give Drag and Drop between host and guest.
You will also be able to mount the guest disk on your host desktop, and move files back and forward between the guest and host.

[WordWeaver]

Hello Granada29. Thank you for your response. I really appreciate. You know, when I first set this up back in 2015, I don't recall having this much trouble with setting up file sharing. Back then, I successfully installed VirtualBox, successfully installed Mountain Lion on it, successfully installed Sheepshaver in Mountain Lion, successfully installed Mac OS 9.0.4 in Sheepshaver, and then successfully installed Pascal 4.0.2 and Hermes II BBS software version 3.5.11b2 in SheepShaver ..... and my BBS was running fine.

It seems like everything has gone backwards since then.

So, my main concern is that I need to copy stuff from my macOS Sonoma side, to my Mountain Lion VM, and not the other way around as you mentioned. So do I also need to enable Screen Sharing on the Sonoma side as well. The VB documentation mentions nothing about enabling Screen Sharing in order to get file sharing to work. It just briefly mentions File Sharing.

I hope that the folks at Oracle will take my problems here as a sign that they really need to take some time to improve the documentation for the macOS side of things, because it is so lacking. It seems that we macOS users are often getting the short end of the stick when it comes to documentation and support.

Anyway, I am going to try your method in a minute, but can you tell me if all of my settings mentioned above are correct, or is that a moot point if I am going to enable Screen Sharing?

Thanks again for the assist. I will let you know shortly how it goes.

[WordWeaver]

Granada29, man, it is STILL not working! I have both File Sharing and Screen Sharing enabled in both my Mountain Lion VM, as well as in Sonoma. VirtualBox says that I should now see my VM listed in Sonoma's sidebar, but I don't. Neither is their an icon of either one mounted on my desktop on the Mountain Lion side, or on the Sonoma side. Even restarting both my VM and VirtualBox itself has not helped.

A related question: Is my hard drive in my Mountain Lion VM supposed to be called "Mac OS X Base System"? That is just the system itself, right? Shouldn't there be another icon called Macintosh HD, or something similar?

If I click the Finder icon in Mountain Lion's dock, and then click on "Desktop" in the left side of the Finder window, the path at the bottom of the window shows the name I assigned to the VM -- not Mac OS X Base System" -- followed by "Users/MyUserName/Desktop". Should there be a second icon on my Desktop with my VM's name?

Anyway, apparently I am still doing something wrong.

[granada29]

You don't need to enable Sharing on the host side unless you actually want to share the contents of your host on your LAN.

macOS native file sharing is not related to VirtualBox shared folders and does not require Guest Additions to be installed in your VM.

On the guest side, enable both File Sharing and Screen Sharing.
Use bridged networking on the ethernet adaptor for your guest. Unfortunately, if you only have WiFi networking then this will not work. Not a bug - bridging WiFi is not intended to work by design. Lots of earlier posts here about that.

In the left side of your host Finder window, you may need to click the Network icon to see your VM and its shared disks. I have never figured out Apple's rules for displaying the network hosts directly in the left pane.

"Mac OS X Base System" sounds like a partition on the Installer ISO - you should eject that CD image after installation is complete.

Check your Finder Preferences in the guest VM to see where its displays its disk volumes. Not sure what the defaults were for Mountain Lion but there are options in the Preferences to control both the left display panel and the desktop icons.

I presume the Guest Additions/Documentation etc for macOS are poorly supported by Oracle because there are not enough paying customers that use macOS. You can always raise an issue in BugReporter but no guarantees that it will be acted on.

[WordWeaver]

Okay, thank you for that info. It has helped me to make a lot of progress. As I said earlier, I thought there was something wrong with having that base system icon on my desktop. Whereas before I was unable to eject it -- because the cursor was not lining up properly over it -- just now I was able to eject it.

After that, I did adjust the Finder preferences, so that I now do see my VM's virtual hard drive icon in the top right corner of my screen where I expected it to be.

I also now see the hard drive icon for my actual iMac in the left sidebar of the Finder window as well. However, whenever I click on it, it says that the connection has failed. Or if I click on the "Network" option under my VM's "Go" menu, it will open a network window on my VM's desktop. But then when I click on the disclosure icon next to the icon for my iMacs hard drive, nothing is revealed. It is just empty.

In my Mountain Lion VM's "Network" settings, I did as you said and switched Adapter 1 -- the only one not grayed out -- from "NAT" to "Bridge Adapter". The name is set to "en0 Ethernet". Do I need to change that to "bridge0" or "bridge100"?

There is more good news. I don't know exactly how I got it working, but now, when I look at the network settings for my Mountain Lion VM in the System Preferences app, it is showing that my VM is now on my same LAN with an internal IP address, just like my iMac. Before it wasn't doing that.

Also, on the Sonoma side, if I choose "Network" under the "Go" Menu, it immediately connects to my VM's hard drive, and I can go anywhere on my Mountain Lion VM, and I can drag files and folders both TO and FROM my VM's virtual hard drive. So, it is bi-directional.

So, I am almost there, but not quite yet.

I still need to install SheepShaver, Mac OS 9.0.4, THINK Pascal 4.0.2, and then the really big challenge, see if I am still able to compile the Hermes II BBS software, and install it in Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver, as I did back in 2015.

I am wondering if enough improvements have been made to VirtualBox to where I will no longer have to install MultiBeast 5.5.5 and TunTap, as I had to do when I first set this up back in 2015. As I recall, I need those so that my BBS, once set up, can connect to the outside Internet. Right now, I can connect to the Internet from within my Mountain Lion VM, but that may no be the case with my BBS running within SheepShaver and Mac OS 9.0.4. I guess I will find out soon enough, if I make it that far.

Any additional comments and answers would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.

[granada29]

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In my Mountain Lion VM's "Network" settings, I did as you said and switched Adapter 1 -- the only one not grayed out -- from "NAT" to "Bridge Adapter". The name is set to "en0 Ethernet". Do I need to change that to "bridge0" or "bridge100"?
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I still need to install SheepShaver, Mac OS 9.0.4, THINK Pascal 4.0.2, and then the really big challenge, see if I am still able to compile the Hermes II BBS software, and install it in Mac OS 9.0.4 in SheepShaver, as I did back in 2015.

No need to change the adapter name - VirtualBox is handling it fine with your new settings.

I assume SheepShaver is a PowerPC emulator. I have no idea how that will work in a VM running on intel hardware. Good luck.