Shared folders do not work

[frustrated_user]

I have had it.

I am not doing anything particularly complicated. I have an image of Ubuntu16, and I've added a couple of shared folders. I have installed guest additions, mounted the folders via Devices menu, checked auto-mount and 'make permanent', added my user to vboxsf, and everything works. VM is set up. Except every time I open it back up, I no longer have permissions to get into the folders. I'm still part of vboxsf, it doesn't matter. I remove the user, log out, log in, add user, log out, log in. NO PERMISSIONS. Nothing works. NOTHING. I've removed the folders, added them again. NOTHING. It's actually faster to set up the VM again instead of screwing around with permission settings that don't make a difference.

Screw this piece of crap software.

[scottgus1]

Hope you're feeling better now...

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

Right-click the guest in the main Virtualbox window's guest list, choose Show Log. Save the far left tab's log, zip it, and post the zip file, using the forum's Upload Attachment tab.

[frustrated_user]

ahem, I do feel better, thanks. log is attached. It was just over the forum size limit so I split it into two parts.

[scottgus1]

Zip the log, and it will fit.

[frustrated_user]

Ok, well, here's the whole thing zipped up

[scottgus1]

Thanks for the zipped log. It saves us the trouble of seaming them together again and making a mistake doing so.

Here is what I found about the GASF mounts:

00:00:03.322699 SharedFolders host service: Adding host mapping
00:00:03.322718 Host path 'V:\dpkg_archive', map name 'dpkg_archive', writable, automount=true, automntpnt=, create_symlinks=false, missing=false
00:00:03.407671 SharedFolders host service: Adding host mapping
00:00:03.407698 Host path 'C:\Users\molevnik\workspaces\jats.work\rsfs\ubuntu_share', map name 'ubuntu_share', writable, automount=true, automntpnt=, create_symlinks=false, missing=false
........
00:00:11.552543 VMMDev: Guest Log: 20:51:14.147002 automount vbsvcAutomounterMountIt: Successfully mounted 'dpkg_archive' on '/media/sf_dpkg_archive'
00:00:11.554129 VMMDev: Guest Log: 20:51:14.148580 automount vbsvcAutomounterMountIt: Successfully mounted 'ubuntu_share' on '/media/sf_ubuntu_share'

You also have Virtualbox's Guest Additions loaded, not the Ubuntu fork. That's good:

00:00:10.165093 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 6.1.8 r137981 '6.1.8'

I don't see any failure in this log. Did these folders actually appear and work?

[frustrated_user]

I mean, the folders are there. But an ls or a cd into gives me a permissions error. I can sudo ls and see the contents, so they're there, I just can't access them.

Like I said up there, I've removed the user from the group, added again, I've remounted the folders, it just won't relinquish permissions. And it's not just this particular installation, I've had to set this image up multiple times because of this, as it's been the only way to get permissions back.

[scottgus1]

GASFs are only for file-copying into and out of the guest. You should be able to open the GASF in the file manager and drag files & folders in & out with the mouse. You might be able to copy in & out with the command line. Is mouse-driven copying of files into and out of the GASF in the file manager possible?

If the permissions issue you have during 'access' comes through trying to edit/run a file or a database in the GASF, this problem is expected. GASFs are for quick-and-dirty file copy only. If you need to run or edit in a shared folder, you need a real Windows/Samba shared folder over a Bridged or Host-Only network.

[frustrated_user]

One of those folders is read-only, which is for the most part what I'm trying to do - read config settings from files. There is more involved (things are being compiled in the other folder), but it WORKS as long as the permissions don't go haywire. Simply logging out of a machine shouldn't suddenly change what folders have access to, but here we are.

[scottgus1]

read config settings from files.

is opening a file and stepping through it, which is not copying the file to the guest OS file system, and which is not what GASFs are for.

compiled in the other folder)

This is way beyond what GASFs are for.

Things might "work" but the process may still be beyond the design criteria. It looks like you might have a network to the guest, try a real shared folder if you want to avoid copying into the guest first?