virtualbox.org

Hi,

I would like to share a .ova file with my users team.
To do this, I imported ova with a root account in a shared folder (755) and made a copy/paste of the VirtualBox.xml to all users. The shared VM needs to be identical to all users.
But this doesn't work, the VirtualBox needs write permission to works.

I tried to make a snapshot and a clone for each user account when the session begins (With VBoxManage), but same result, it does not work.

I use VirtualBox 5.0 with Ubuntu 12.04

Its possible to do that ?

GeorgeAbitbol wrote:I would like to share a .ova file with my users team... VirtualBox needs write permission to work

If you want them to have read-only access, then maybe you should share a youtube video with your team

VMs cannot operate like a live CD (unless you know how to). Typically they need write access to work. There are two ways that you can do this: linked clones (Ch. 1.13 and mainly 8.9) or immutable discs (Ch. 5.4, section 4). Read about their specifics in the user manual (there is a french edition as well) and if you have specific questions about either of these modes, feel free to ask.

GeorgeAbitbol wrote: I tried to make a snapshot and a clone for each user account when the session begins (With VBoxManage), but same result, it does not work.

I'm not sure I quite understand this part. Can you explain it in a little bit more detail please? What exactly did you do? Step-by-step, including any commands that you used.

socratis wrote:

GeorgeAbitbol wrote:I tried to make a snapshot and a clone for each user account when the session begins (With VBoxManage), but same result, it does not work.

I'm not sure I quite understand this part. Can you explain it in a little bit more detail please? What exactly did you do? Step-by-step, including any commands that you used.

I suspect he may be trying to reproduce the functionality of linked clones, using snapshots and OVA. Won't work, as OVA export will merge the snapshots.

Frankly, the decision to use OVA as an intermediate format in this process may be complicating everything. It isn't clear to me why this decision was made, as everyone involved seems to be using VirtualBox and hence we don't need a portable VM format.