VMs do not load if VBox installed into /opt directory, symlinked from a directory, not owned by root

[ajeh]

Partition is mounted into /files owned by a non-root account. Created /files/opt owned by root and symlinked as /opt owned by root. Installed 4.2.18 in sudo. None of the VMs load with the error:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine vmGuest.
Failed to load VMMR0.r0 (VERR_SUPLIB_OWNER_NOT_ROOT).

Details:
Result Code: 
NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005)
Component: 
Console
Interface: 
IConsole {db7ab4ca-2a3f-4183-9243-c1208da92392}

The error message is misleading too, as VMMR0.r0 (and VMMGC.gc) are owned by root.

$ ls -l VMM*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 490368 Sep  6 09:39 VMMGC.gc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 726560 Sep  6 09:39 VMMR0.r0

We cannot 'chown root' /files as it has to be accessible to multiple users.

[ajeh]

Sorry to bother, you can close this one, we found an error in the script and scenario above is actually working now.