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Thread: Trouble creating new users

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
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    32

    Trouble creating new users

    I have a VM (Virtualbox) running 18.04 with LTSP. I want the users home directories to be on the bare metal not in the VM so I created /homes on bare metal and used vboxsf to mount it into the VM (created a shared folder in VB). When I tried to create a new user I get an error about Protocol Error. /homes on bare metal and in VM is owned by root with same perms as /home on both. What am I missing? or doing wrong?

    Code:
    sudo adduser -home /homes/test3 test3
    Adding user `test3' ...
    Adding new group `test3' (1003) ...
    Adding new user `test3' (1003) with group `test3' ...
    Creating home directory `/homes/test3' ...
    Stopped: Couldn't create home directory `/homes/test3': Protocol error.
    
    
    Removing directory `/homes/test3' ...
    Removing user `test3' ...
    Removing group `test3' ...
    groupdel: group 'test3' does not exist
    adduser: `groupdel test3' returned error code 6. Exiting.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    58,282

    Re: Trouble creating new users

    Thread moved to the "Virtualisation" forum.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Boston MetroWest
    Beans
    16,326

    Re: Trouble creating new users

    I believe the shared folders feature in VB relies on CIFS to mount directories from the host machine. (Using CIFS enables this feature to work across platforms.) The mounted directories may not have the full panoply of *nix primitives required. That could be what "protocol error" means in this context.
    If you ask for help, do not abandon your request. Please have the courtesy to check for responses and thank the people who helped you.

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  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
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    Boston MetroWest
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    16,326

    Re: Trouble creating new users

    Here's a solution that might work using NFS.

    https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/serve...le-system.html

    Install nfs-kernel-server on the host, then edit /etc/exports to share directories on the host via NFS. Use the bridged-adapter method to set up networking for the virtual machine. Now both the VM and the host will have IP addresses within the same subnet.

    In the virtual machine, install nfs-common to enable NFS client services. Now you should be able to issue a mount command in the VM like this:

    Code:
    sudo mount ip.addr.of.host:/home /home
    to mount the directory /home on the host as /home in the virtual machine. For safety sake, use

    Code:
    sudo mv /home /home.old
    sudo mkdir /home
    sudo mount ip.addr.of.host:/home /home
    to preserve whatever is in /home already.

    I have a machine set up as a server in my home office. I store everything there and export /home with NFS. Makes it easy to mount any shared directory on either Linux VM hosts or VM guests. (I run both NFS and Samba so I can mount /home on Linux or Windows.)
    If you ask for help, do not abandon your request. Please have the courtesy to check for responses and thank the people who helped you.

    Blog · Linode System Administration Guides · Android Apps for Ubuntu Users

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    PA
    Beans
    140
    Distro
    Ubuntu Studio 11.04 Natty Narwhal

    Re: Trouble creating new users

    Thanks SeijiSensei. I will experiment with that. I was coming to the idea that vbox VMs can't create symlinks on vbox shared folders. There is no problem doing it inside the VM, but to try to do it on a file system outside the VM (a shared folder) couldn't work. What's more, after all my experimenting I broke my VM and so had to restore a snapshot. Not a problem, but I didn't have any other ideas until I saw your post.

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