Changing the gid and perms on a device

JD jd1008 at gmail.com
Tue May 3 21:42:45 UTC 2011


On 05/03/11 14:21, Richard Shaw wrote:
> On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 4:15 PM, JD<jd1008 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> I have a flash disk which is detected as /dev/sdc
>>
>> I need to use it as a virtualbox device.
>> So I created a vmdk for the disk and registered it.
>> Furthermore, virtualbox requires that in order to use
>> the device, the device must belong to the group
>> vboxusers.
>> So I chmod'ed it to vboxusers.
> I'm recalling this from memory so I hope it's accurate, but...
>
> Why don't you use it as a USB device instead?
>
> Also, I'm not completely sure that the disk has to be owned by
> vboxusers. If you run virtualbox as yourself, and you're in the disks
> group, I think that is sufficient.
>

I tried that!
It did not work.
As you can see, I am also in the disks group:
$ id jd
uid=1008(jd) gid=1008(jd) 
groups=0(root),6(disk),12(mail),11(cdrom),19(floppy),1009(vboxusers),1008(jd)



>> But somehow magically, it reverts back to being
>> owned by the group disks.
> Do you mean when you unplug and re-plug the flash drive? This is due
> to udev so nothing really to do with selinux.
No!
It just magically reverts back to having gid of 6 (disks).

>
>> I have disabled selinux. So I have no idea what/who
>> is changing it back. This is the reason why I am asking
>> this list. The virtualbox list does not seem to have
>> an answer.
> Easy way: access it as a usb device
> Harder way: add yourself to disk(s?) group and use it as a raw disk vmdk.
> Hardest way: modify the udev rules to make vboxusers the owner.
>
> Richard
I tried. When I click on the + icon on the right,
it says no devices available.



More information about the users mailing list