Exporting appliances to SMB shares

[Abrugal]

Why does Oracle believe that the users must be prevented from exporting the appliances to the SMB shares?

[socratis]

1. I changed the title of your post; "Why?" doesn't mean anything of significance and the answers would have been of the same (non-)quality.
2. You'll have to explain your problem with a little bit more of details. Actually with a lot more of details. I don't quite understand the problem. At all. This isn't Twitter where you're limited in 140 characters. You can expand your explanation freely.

[michaln]

Why does Oracle believe that the users must be prevented from exporting the appliances to the SMB shares?

Why do you believe that is the case?

[mpack]

Abrugal's previous post history doesn't inspire confidence that this topic will serve any useful purpose. In any case he declared some time ago that he had abandoned VirtualBox in favor of VMWare, so perhaps he's confused about which software he's using - since he doesn't say.

[Abrugal]

Abrugal has declared that his employer decided to discontinue the use of VB in favor of VmWare and that is being phased in, but he still has to support the remaining few users. That has not changed as they lost confidence in VB completely. And when those few users are backing up their remaining few VB VMs onto an SMB share, VB is throwing an error message stating that is not allowed:

Title: Remote files not accepted
Message: You can only select local files

[socratis]

when those few users are backing up their remaining few VB VMs onto an SMB share, VB is throwing an error message stating that is not allowed:
Title: Remote files not accepted
Message: You can only select local files

This does NOT sound like a VirtualBox message. Are you absolutely sure? Could you a) describe in detail what the users are doing and b) post a screenshot with the error?

[Abrugal]

I did a test: opened Kwrite and pointed at the smb://ip/share/1.txt and saved as without issues.
Then I exported appliance from VB and got that error when choosing the same shared path.
So it sounds like VB error to me

[Martin]

Did you try mounting the smb share and then export to that mount point?

[socratis]

VirtualBox has no problem whatsoever exporting to a \\Server\Share or a mapped share. I just tried it. With two hosts (WinXP, Win7), two network shares. No problem.

@Abrugal
As I said, that is not a VirtualBox error message. I asked for a screenshot, never got one. But, even from the title of the error (Remote files not accepted), something tells me it is not VirtualBox that is the problem. Check your OS, permissions, policies and anything else, except VirtualBox.

Also, search for "Remote files not accepted You can only select local files". Plenty of results to help you...

[z hopa]

Did you try mounting the smb share and then export to that mount point?

The user would have to be a root to do that, and you cannot expect every user of a GUI program to be a root.

VirtualBox has no problem whatsoever exporting to a \\Server\Share or a mapped share. I just tried it. With two hosts (WinXP, Win7), two network shares. No problem.

@Abrugal
As I said, that is not a VirtualBox error message. I asked for a screenshot, never got one. But, even from the title of the error (Remote files not accepted), something tells me it is not VirtualBox that is the problem. Check your OS, permissions, policies and anything else, except VirtualBox.

Also, search for "Remote files not accepted You can only select local files". Plenty of results to help you...

You've tested under Windows, but we are in the Linux hosts forum.

[Abrugal]

VirtualBox has no problem whatsoever exporting to a \\Server\Share or a mapped share. I just tried it. With two hosts (WinXP, Win7), two network shares. No problem.

@Abrugal
As I said, that is not a VirtualBox error message. I asked for a screenshot, never got one. But, even from the title of the error (Remote files not accepted), something tells me it is not VirtualBox that is the problem. Check your OS, permissions, policies and anything else, except VirtualBox.

Also, search for "Remote files not accepted You can only select local files". Plenty of results to help you...

Patience! It's coming. The icon on the error dialog is the same as VB icon. Are you sure it's nothing to do with VB?

[socratis]

@z hopa

The user would have to be a root to do that, and you cannot expect every user of a GUI program to be a root.

Seriously? Really? That's a first! You've never seen/heard of users having their home directories in network shares? Shares that are mounted at boot time? Via the system account/scripts? Frankly, that's completely and utterly incorrect (to say the least, I wanna keep it rated PG-13). Please check the manual again. Or see below for a picture that's worth a thousand words. But, please do not go on spreading half-knowledge, sometimes it's worst than blatant lies.

You've tested under Windows, but we are in the Linux hosts forum.

And please explain to me like I'm a six-year old, why, oh why, would THAT make a difference, on this side of the Kuiper belt. VirtualBox does not have its own filesystem/mountpoint manager, nor does it care particularly. It relies on the host OS to do it. But, since there are many doubting Thomases among us, please, take a look at the picture below.

@Abrugal

Patience! It's coming. The icon on the error dialog is the same as VB icon. Are you sure it's nothing to do with VB?

Yes, 100%. Abso-freaking-lutely sure! That is coming from your OS! And the fact that the share you're trying to save the OVA is read-only, or you have some other permissions issue. Get your shtuff together. If you want to blame someone, blame lack of knowledge/understanding. But that's hard to do, it's always easier to blame someone else, isn't it?


So, here you go. Proof. This is a screenshot of a VirtualBox installation in a Linux Mint (@zhopa does that qualify as a Linux host?) exporting an OVA in a Windows Samba share (@Abrugal I think that the percent indicator shows a successful save). The user is a 'Standard' user that has mapped on-the-fly, not from a boot script, a Samba network share (@zhopa I think this definitely qualifies as a user-mounted share, not an exported one, but I got bored of proving common knowledge).

I have to apologize for some Greek captions in the picture, but you get the point. I'm just afraid it's not just the picture that is Greek to you:

ExportingOVAtoSMB.png (140.12 KiB) Viewed 2783 times

And this is what it looks like after the export. This is a view from the Mint host, looking at the Samba share (being there actually):

Stokos@VB-Mint /run/user/1001/gvfs/smb-share:server=vb-win7,share=c/Users/Socratis/TestForReallySmartPeople $ pwd
/run/user/1001/gvfs/smb-share:server=vb-win7,share=c/Users/Socratis/TestForReallySmartPeople
Stokos@VB-Mint /run/user/1001/gvfs/smb-share:server=vb-win7,share=c/Users/Socratis/TestForReallySmartPeople $ ls -al
total 32195
drwx------ 1 Stokos Stokos        0 Οκτ  25 03:13 .
drwx------ 1 Stokos Stokos     8192 Οκτ  25 03:09 ..
-rwx------ 1 Stokos Stokos 32959488 Οκτ  25 03:13 ThereYouGo.ova
Stokos@VB-Mint /run/user/1001/gvfs/smb-share:server=vb-win7,share=c/Users/Socratis/TestForReallySmartPeople $

And, Abrugal, please don't give me the same poem again and again that you're going to switch to VMWare. You already have. I have only sympathy for their support team. I'm just a volunteer after all. I don't have to do this ad infinitum. And not with everyone; I get to pick who I reply to...

Have a goodnight gentlemen...


PS. To be honest I'm hanging in here by a thread (no pun intended), losing time persuading a user that they're wrong, when they've clearly stated that they're abandoning VirtualBox. I just don't want to leave misconceptions hanging unanswered. This thread has been filled with half-explanations and unfounded problems. Even from the original title! If it goes any further, there's only one future for this thread...