Virtual box drive mapping

[bondbill2k2]

We are planning to deploy virtual box to our clients for programming lessons, all programming will take place on virtual box clients running ubuntu without a network connection. I would like to map up students H: drives from the host to the clients automatically on logon.

 

Running

sudo mount -t vboxsf  

works great for that session.

 

In an attempt to perform this automatically I've added vboxvfs and vboxadd into /etc/modules and added

  vboxsf defaults 0 0 

into /etc/fstab

This seemed to work after a restart but since a a shut down + boot the drive no longer auto-maps. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to achieve this auto mapping?

[bondbill2k2]

I can confirm the modules are loading correctly and since updating ubuntu I now have an error notification on boot

 

[jonnykewell1]

Just found this online, not sure if it's of any help

 

in VB Settings / Shared Folders / Edit Share:

Uncheck the "Auto-mount" checkbox

Check the "Make Permanent" checkbox

 

as long as it's looking for the same mapped letter each time it should find it ok.

[bondbill2k2]

Right I made another VM and went over the exact same steps as before and it works, I've tested it with 4 drives at once all mounting fine. As with any solution another problem arises, the folder/mounting point being used in the users home directory has the student user as the owner with full rwx permissions. Soon as I map the drive root becomes the owner and only read permissions are granted to everyone else but I need them to have write permissions too. I've added the uid for the student to take ownership as part of the logon process now but they still only get read permissions, chmod doesn't affect the mapped folder either.

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

[bondbill2k2]

Ended up adding the to rc.local

sudo mount -t vboxsf sharename /home/username/mountpoint -o rw,exec,uid=1000,gid=1000,dev

 

 

Right this appears to work with most accounts however a couple of staff are experiencing a strange issue with permissions. The mapped up folder for saving back to is present on the VM and correctly mapped to the users H but they dont have write permissions, only readhowever if I change their H: drive to another folder e.g. staff$\staffname2, get them to login and run the VM again......it works!

 

Nothing else is different as all permissions are set the exact same on this new H folder, inheritance disabled, user has full control, domain admins full control.

 

Soon as I change their H: back to staff$\staffname I get the same issue from inside the VM... no write permission.

 

 

For reference we also launch VMbox locked down using the following

vbox.bat
"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" registervm "C:\VM\Programming\python.vbox"

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" setextradata "C:\VM\Programming\python.vbox" GUI/SuppressMessages remindAboutAutoCapture,remindAboutMouseIntegrationOn,showRuntimeError.warning.HostAudioNotResponding,remindAboutGoingSeamless,remindAboutInputCapture,remindAboutGoingFullscreen,remindAboutMouseIntegrationOff,confirmGoingSeamless,confirmInputCapture,remindAboutPausedVMInput,confirmVMReset,confirmGoingFullscreen,remindAboutWrongColorDepth

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" setextradata global GUI/RestrictedGlobalSettingsPages General,Input,Update,Language,Display,Network,Extensions,Proxy

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" setextradata "C:\VM\Programming\python.vbox" GUI/RestrictedRuntimeMenus Machine,View,Devices,Help,Debug

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" setextradata "C:\VM\Programming\python.vbox" GUI/RestrictedStatusBarIndicators HardDisks,OpticalDisks,FloppyDisks,Network,USB,SharedFolders,Features,Mouse,Keyboard

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" setextradata "C:\VM\Programming\python.vbox" GUI/RestrictedCloseActions SaveState,PowerOff,Restore

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\vboxmanage.exe" startvm "C:\VM\Programming\python.vbox"

Edited March 18, 2014 by bondbill2k2