SOLVED Jail/VM Permissions Issue

[HNLRoscoe]

Hello,

So I want to use Filebot to organize media on my on my FreeNAS 9.3 server. There isn't a BSD port of it yet, so I made a Virtual Box Jail and installed Linux Mint 17.1 in it. I have no problem sharing files and folders from FreeNAS to the jail, and from the jail to the VM. I can go into the terminal and manipulate files no problem.

However, when I try to manipulate files using Filebot, it errors out and says it's a read-only filesystem. I've already asked for help on the Filebot forum, and the creator doesn't know what the problem could be. So I figured I'd ask here to see if anybody has encountered a similar problem with file access from VM Jails, or be, is also using Filebot on their system, or is perhaps just savvy with how the sharing system works in general and has any ideas.

 

[dlavigne]

Were you able to figure this out?

 

[HNLRoscoe]

No, not yet. After some experimentation, it turns out that I can copy and rename files with no issues, but I still can't make symlinks/hardlinks which is what I really want to do. If I had to guess, I'd say it has something to do with Filebot not playing nice with FreeBSD, but I'm no expert.

UPDATE: After some more Googling, I stumbled across a thread on Github that I'd somehow missed before. Apparently the issue is with VirtualBox and how it treats shared folders. Some users have reported that there ways to finagle VirtualBox into cooperating. I'll give them a shot and report back if I find anything that works.

 

[HNLRoscoe]

Ok,

After some more searching, I've managed to figure out the problem and it turns out (like most times) that somebody here on the forums has already solved this one:


VirtualBox doesn't allow symlinks in shared folders by default because of the possible security risk. You can change this setting and allow creation of symlinks using the VBoxManage command, but there are a couple of extra steps that may need to be taken beforehand:

1. While you're in the jail as root, VBoxManage may not work properly. Your VM list may be empty and any settings you edit with VBoxManage will be deleted when the jail is reset. To get around this use

Code:

su vbox

2. While you're vbox use the command [

Code:

VBoxManage list vms

to get the name of the VM whose settings you want to edit. Alternatively, you could check the name using the GUI.

3. Enter

Code:

VBoxManage setextradata YOUR_VM_NAME VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/YOUR_SHARE_NAME 1

NOTE: Use the name of the share as it appears in the GUI. Not with the "sf_" prefix that VirtualBox tacks onto the folders on your guest system.

4. This should work as long as you don't get an error message, but to verify that it worked you enter

Code:

VBoxManage getextradata YOUR_VM_NAME enumerate

and you should see the setting you entered with setextradata

5. Reset the jail.

Sources are these two threads:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...k-support-vboxmanage-doesnt-see-my-vms.28978/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/vboxmanage-not-working-in-virtualbox-jail.22996/

Thanks everybody.