Guest Additions: Shared Folders Auto-Mount fails on RHEL4 => Fixed in SVN

[Technologov]

Host: Windows 7, x64, VBox 4.0.4 (and 4.0.0)

Guest: Linux - RHEL 4 (32+64bit)

When using new VBox 4.0 feature, called "Shared Folders Auto-Mount", it fails to Auto-mount on RHEL 4 guests, probably due to old kernel.

dmesg output:

vboxsf: no version for "RTSemFastMutexCreate" found: kernel tainted.

Manual mounting works fine. Auto-Mount works on other Linux guests.

-Technologov, 27.3.2011.

[Technologov]

VBox Log

[Michael Thayer]

Do you still get that message if you disable auto-mount? And in this case does manual mounting still work first time?

[Technologov]

Do you still get that message if you disable auto-mount?

Yes.

And in this case does manual mounting still work first time?

Yes.

-Technologov

[Technologov]

Any idea on this one?

[Frank Mehnert]

No idea. This works fine here with my CentOS 4 guest.

[Technologov]

Update: this only happens if I create non-permanent (transient) shared folders.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Start RHEL 4 VM (and pause it)

2. Configure transient shared folders with auto mount.

3. resume booting VM

Actual Result: VM will boot, but shared folder will not be auto-mounted.

-Technologov

[Technologov]

Does it help ?

[Michael Thayer]

If I understand comment 5 correctly, you are creating the folders to be mounted during the VMs boot. As far as I know the mounting is done at boot time - are you sure you aren't just adding them after the auto-mounting has already taken place?

[Technologov]

I start VM and pause it at bootloader stage. This happens before GuestOS loads.

I am sure, because the same works with other Linuxes. Only RHEL4 fails.

[Michael Thayer]

And do the folders auto-mount if you add them before starting the VM? For that matter, do they auto-mount on the next boot if you add them while the machine is paused like you described?

[Technologov]

And do the folders auto-mount if you add them before starting the VM?

Before you start VM you cannot add transient shared folders. Only permanent. Those work.

For that matter, do they auto-mount on the next boot if you add them while the machine is paused like you described?

No.

[Michael Thayer]

I don't think that auto-mounting of transient folders is supposed to work, although it seems that it does by chance in some guests. You say though that auto-mounting permanent folders does work, which is what is supposed to happen.

[Technologov]

Auto-mount of transient folders works on *all* guests, except RHEL 4.

[Michael Thayer]

Nonetheless it is not a supported feature. I will take a look at it if I have to set up a RHEL/CentOS 4 guest for something else, but I'm afraid it isn't really the highest priority just now.

[Frank Mehnert]

Actually the reason was a crash in VBoxService on old systems where libdbus is not installed. This will be fixed in the next maintenance release.