Sharing a single VM on multiuser accounts (Ubuntu)

[seb.kempf]

Sorry for the poor english... let's try it :

I'm using Vbox since a few weeks, on ubuntu. I've created 4 accounts on my ubuntu. On the VM, I've winXP PRo installed, with the same 4 accounts. The VM is installed on a shared directory with full acces rwx to the vbox users, outside the /home/user/.VirtualBox...

Problem : I wish I can have full access to the VM with all 4 users of ubuntu, but it's not totally possible... Indeed, there's a file which is created (each time you modify something in the VM config) in the user's directory/home/userA/.virtualBox/VirtualBox.xml When you logout the VM, and the user A session, and login on a userB session & restart the VM, if something has changed on the VM config, an error occurs. I assumed that's why it's impossible to use the snapshot fonction when you have more than 1 user on ubuntu...

To solve the problem, I'm editing the VirtuaBox.xml files, on my 4 account and copy/paste the up-to-date file... But that's pretty boring...

It will be great if we could have only ONE VirtualBox.xml file, in a share place...

possible enhancement 1: Make possible an install on a share directory, outside the /home/user/.virtualbox/ directory, with ALL the necessary files in it... possible enhancement 2: Make possible to use a single .vdi file for 2 different VM... Then, it will be possible to create a different VM for each users of ubuntu, which can access to the same "harddrive".

If you have something to propose, I can beta test it for you...

Hope you understood my poor english...

Seb

[Resturp]

Hi Seb,

Have you thought of starting the XP box in the background and connecting 2 it with for example krdc? You would have to bridge your network or simply forward incoming rdp requests to your vbox.

Result would be that you have a single login (as you can enter credentials in the krdc shortcut) you can run multiple sessions (if you tweak XP enough). And you need only one running VM.

Maybe this helps. I'll go try it myself.