"shared folder" does not work

[Byroniac]

Oops. I forgot. I am on Kali Linux and I am using the built-in virtualbox-guest-utils and virtualbox-guest-x11 apt packages. I would suggest doing a "sudo dmesg | less" and "journalctl -xb" or similar to go through your system logs.

[Byroniac]

OK, assuming you have installed from the Guest Additions virtual cdrom, what does
sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd status-kernel
and
sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd status-user
and
sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd-service status
say?

However, I probably do not know enough to help you troubleshoot these very far.

[Plagrö]

Thank you.

Should I run these commands in my guest system or in the host?
-> I have run them in my guest below.

Please note: I use SysVinit.
Result of the commands in my guest system:

Code: Select all

Plagrö@mx:~
$ sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd status-kernel
[sudo] Password für Plagrö: 
Usage: /sbin/rcvboxadd {start|stop|restart|status|setup|quicksetup|cleanup} [quiet]
Plagrö@mx:~
$ udo /sbin/rcvboxadd status-user
bash: udo: Command not found
Plagrö@mx:~
$ sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd-service status
Checking for VBoxService ...not running
Plagrö@mx:~
$ 

[scottgus1]

Try that second command again?

$ udo /sbin/rcvboxadd status-user

[Plagrö]

same message again.

[scottgus1]

You tried "sudo" instead of "udo"? Please post the command and the output.

[Plagrö]

Oh sorry.

Code: Select all

Plagrö@mx:~
$ sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd status-kernel
[sudo] Passwort für Plagrö: 
Usage: /sbin/rcvboxadd {start|stop|restart|status|setup|quicksetup|cleanup} [quiet]
Plagrö@mx:~
$ sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd status-user
Usage: /sbin/rcvboxadd {start|stop|restart|status|setup|quicksetup|cleanup} [quiet]
Plagrö@mx:~
$ sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd-service status
Checking for VBoxService ...not running
Plagrö@mx:~
$ 

[scottgus1]

Thanks. I don't know how to fix this, but Byroniac now has a full list of the outputs.

[Byroniac]

Thanks. I don't know how to fix this, but Byroniac now has a full list of the outputs.

Oops, my bad. I skipped the part where he said VirtualBox 6.1 and I am on VirtualBox 7.0.12 (so apparently no "status-kernel" or "status-user" option exists, for VirtualBox 6.1). Also, I am not very familiar with SysVInit at all. I used Linux back when that was dominant, but I didn't delve too deeply into the operating system internals at the time. I was primarily a casual user and amateur hobbyist (and still am, though I managed to learn some things). So instead of "status-kernel" and "status-user" how about just "sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd status" and see what that tells you?

I forgot: have you tried the following already?
/sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup all

Possible things to try in SysVInit (probably need to be logged in as root? Not sure if you have the journalctl command or if you can do a "sudo nano -v /var/log/syslog" like I did in Ubuntu?):

service --status-all
service vboxadd status
service vboxadd-service status
journalctl -u vboxadd.service

[Byroniac]

I was looking at one of the files on my system with "less /etc/X11/Xsession.d/98vboxadd-xclient" and inside the file there are comments that if there are any unwriteable pid files in the format of .vboxclient-*.pid that the X11 client will fail to start, but that doesn't answer your mounting problem, which I think is handled as part of the udev rules. Maybe, that is, as this is quickly going above my pay grade. I have been clearing these out of my $HOME folder just because they seem to accumulate.

There are two more things you can do to gather information.
1. Either find files with vbox in the name, case-insensitively, for you to look at:
sudo find /etc -iname '*vbox*'

e.g.:

Code: Select all

/etc/X11/Xsession.d/98vboxadd-xclient
/etc/xdg/autostart/vboxclient.desktop
/etc/udev/rules.d/60-vboxadd.rules
/etc/depmod.d/vboxvideo-upstream.conf
/etc/kernel/prerm.d/vboxadd
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/vboxadd
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/vboxadd-service.service
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/vboxadd.service

2. File content search, case-insensitive (which is how I found the X11 file above):
sudo grep -ir "vbox" /etc
(I've chosen not to share my personal results here)

It's the part that you cannot find the mount that particularly concerns me, because if it exists, it should show up somewhere. Can you try the command below?

sudo cat /etc/mtab
e.g.

Code: Select all

...
C_DRIVE /mnt/c vboxsf rw,nodev,relatime,iocharset=utf8,uid=0,gid=986,dmode=0770,fmode=0770,tag=VBoxAutomounter 0 0
...

[Plagrö]

Thank you again:

Code: Select all

Plagrö@mx:~
$ sudo /sbin/rcvboxadd status
[sudo] Passwort für Plagrö: 
The VirtualBox Additions are currently running.
Plagrö@mx:~
$ /sbin/rcvboxadd quicksetup all
VirtualBox Guest Additions: Building the modules for kernel 4.19.0-17-amd64.
^C 

#After 10min I made Ctrl+C

Code: Select all

Plagrö@mx:~
$ service --status-all
 [ + ]  acpi-fakekey
 [ + ]  acpid
 [ ? ]  alsa-utils
 [ - ]  anacron
 [ + ]  avahi-daemon
 [ - ]  bluetooth
 [ - ]  bootlogd
 [ - ]  bootlogs
 [ - ]  bootmisc.sh
 [ - ]  brightness
 [ + ]  cgmanager
 [ - ]  cgproxy
 [ - ]  checkfs.sh
 [ - ]  checkroot-bootclean.sh
 [ - ]  checkroot.sh
 [ - ]  console-setup
 [ - ]  console-setup.dpkg-new
 [ - ]  console-setup.sh
 [ ? ]  cpufrequtils
 [ + ]  cron
 [ ? ]  cryptdisks
 [ ? ]  cryptdisks-early
 [ + ]  cups
 [ + ]  cups-browsed
 [ + ]  dbus
 [ - ]  efimount
 [ - ]  gpm
 [ - ]  gpm.dpkg-new
 [ + ]  haveged
 [ - ]  hddtemp
 [ - ]  hostname.sh
 [ ? ]  hwclock.sh
 [ - ]  keyboard-setup
 [ - ]  keyboard-setup.dpkg-new
 [ - ]  keyboard-setup.sh
 [ - ]  killprocs
 [ ? ]  kmod
 [ + ]  lightdm
 [ - ]  lm-sensors
 [ - ]  lm-sensors.dpkg-new
 [ ? ]  loadcpufreq
 [ - ]  lpd
 [ - ]  mountall-bootclean.sh
 [ - ]  mountall.sh
 [ - ]  mountdevsubfs.sh
 [ - ]  mountkernfs.sh
 [ - ]  mountnfs-bootclean.sh
 [ - ]  mountnfs.sh
 [ - ]  mpd
 [ + ]  network-manager
 [ ? ]  networking
 [ + ]  nfs-common
 [ - ]  nfs-kernel-server
 [ + ]  nmbd
 [ - ]  ntp
 [ - ]  oobe
 [ + ]  opensnitch
 [ - ]  openvpn
 [ ? ]  plymouth
 [ ? ]  plymouth-log
 [ ? ]  pppd-dns
 [ - ]  procps
 [ - ]  rc.local
 [ + ]  resolvconf
 [ - ]  rmnologin
 [ + ]  rpcbind
 [ - ]  rsync
 [ + ]  rsyslog
 [ - ]  samba-ad-dc
service vboxadd status
 [ - ]  saned
 [ - ]  sendsigs
 [ - ]  smartmontools
 [ + ]  smbd
 [ - ]  spice-vdagent
 [ - ]  stop-bootlogd
 [ - ]  stop-bootlogd-single
 [ - ]  sudo
 [ + ]  tlp
 [ + ]  udev
 [ + ]  udev.dpkg-distrib
 [ - ]  ufw
 [ - ]  umountfs
 [ ? ]  umountnfs-alternative.sh
 [ - ]  umountnfs.sh
 [ - ]  umountroot
 [ - ]  unattended-upgrades
 [ - ]  urandom
 [ + ]  vboxadd
 [ + ]  vboxadd-service
 [ - ]  virtualbox
 [ - ]  virtualbox-guest-utils
 [ - ]  virtualbox-guest-utils-VB_MOD-202003162306.dpkg-distrib
 [ - ]  virtualbox-guest-utils-VB_MOD-202007093518.dpkg-distrib
 [ - ]  virtualbox-guest-utils.dpkg-distrib
 [ + ]  winbind
 [ - ]  x11-common
Plagrö@mx:~
$ service vboxadd-service status
Checking for VBoxService ...not running
Plagrö@mx:~
$ journalctl -u vboxadd.service
No journal files were found.
-- No entries --
Plagrö@mx:~
$ 

/var/log/syslog:

syslog.txt.zip

(924 Bytes) Downloaded 129 times

Code: Select all

Plagrö@mx:~
$ find /etc -iname '*vbox*'
/etc/init.d/vboxadd
/etc/init.d/vboxadd-service
find: ‘/etc/cups/ssl’: Keine Berechtigung
/etc/udev/rules.d/60-vboxadd.rules
find: ‘/etc/ssl/private’: Keine Berechtigung
find: ‘/etc/polkit-1/localauthority’: Keine Berechtigung
/etc/xdg/autostart/vboxclient.desktop
/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/vboxweb.service
/etc/opensnitchd/rules/allow-always-list-usr-lib-virtualbox-vboxheadless-1000.json
/etc/X11/Xsession.d/98vboxadd-xclient
/etc/X11/Xsession.d/98vboxadd-xclient.dpkg-dist
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/98vboxadd-xclient.sh
find: ‘/etc/vpnc’: No rights
/etc/kernel/prerm.d/vboxadd
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/vboxadd
/etc/depmod.d/vboxvideo-upstream.conf

Code: Select all

Plagrö@mx:~
$ cat /etc/mtab
sysfs /sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
udev /dev devtmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,size=1685296k,nr_inodes=421324,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000 0 0
tmpfs /run tmpfs rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=343188k,mode=755 0 0
/dev/sda1 / ext4 rw,noatime 0 0
tmpfs /run/lock tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=5120k 0 0
pstore /sys/fs/pstore pstore rw,relatime 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1734940k 0 0
rpc_pipefs /run/rpc_pipefs rpc_pipefs rw,relatime 0 0
cgroup /sys/fs/cgroup tmpfs rw,relatime,size=12k,mode=755 0 0
none /sys/kernel/debug debugfs rw,relatime 0 0
systemd /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd cgroup rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,release_agent=/run/cgmanager/agents/cgm-release-agent.systemd,name=systemd 0 0
tmpfs /run/user/1000 tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=343184k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
gvfsd-fuse /run/user/1000/gvfs fuse.gvfsd-fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=1000 0 0
gvfsd-fuse /run/user/0/gvfs fuse.gvfsd-fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0 0 0
/dev/fuse /run/user/0/doc fuse rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0 0 0
Plagrö@mx:~
$

[Byroniac]

Hmmm.... the rcvboxadd should not stall out like that as far as I know.
The "-" by the virtualbox services indicate that they are not running.
But those (e.g., "virtualbox-guest-utils") look like ones that come with your distribution, not from the Guest Additions ISO. That could be why the process is stalling out. I'm pretty sure either both are installed (one of them at least partially) or some other misconfiguration due to the Guest Additions has occurred. Incidentally, why are you not on a later VirtualBox and Linux kernel?

I'd remove one of those at least. On Ubuntu/Debian/Kali I might do the following to remove the distro version:

sudo apt purge virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11

Then reinstall from the CD and don't forget to make sure that you are still in the vboxsf group after all this. For example, using my username byron:

sudo usermod -aG vboxsf byron

Or you can remove the Guest Additions ISO version by doing this (if it exists):

sudo /usr/bin/vbox-uninstall-guest-additions

[scottgus1]

One thing I would suggest is to post a vbox.log so we can see if the Guest Additions actually got installed correctly. This can be a bit tricky on a Linux VM.

Please start the VM from full normal shutdown, not save-state. Run until you see the problem happen, then shut down the VM from within the VM's OS if possible. If not possible, close the Virtualbox window for the VM with the Power Off option set.

Right-click the VM in the main Virtualbox window's VM list, choose Show in Explorer/Finder/File Manager. In the "Logs" subfolder, zip the VM's "vbox.log", and post the zip file, using the forum's Attachments tab. (Configure your host OS to show all extensions so you can find the "vbox.log", not "vbox.log.1", etc.)

When the log is posted, we'll look for lines with these texts:
Guest Additions information report:
and
Guest Log: ... VBoxService ( < this one for Windows GAs)
or
Guest Log: ... VBoxClient ( < this one for Linux GAs)
where the version numbers mentioned on each line are all the same as the host Virtualbox version.

[Byroniac]

Good idea. I wish I had thought to suggest that. I did look at the attached syslog but found nothing I could see to comment upon.

[Byroniac]

VirtualBox 6.1:

My host is MX-Linux 19.4. (Xfce)
My guest is also MX-Linux 19.4 (Xfce)

Just for reference, he is using a Linux host, not Windows, and I don't remember where those logs are. But looking at the VBox log is a good idea: I bet that the extensions aren't loading or only loading partially. Especially curious is the fact that the self-reinstall stalls out, which tells me something is wrong with the installation.