The mode option mentioned in the user manual is missing from vboxsf

[Paul Siu]

At the end of section 4.4, the manual states "The generic mount options (documented in the mount manual page) apply also.Especially useful are the options uid, gid and mode, as they allow access by normal users (in read/write mode, depending on the settings) even if root has mounted the filesystem." However, when you attempt to mount using the "mode" option, it tells you that "mode" is not a valid option.

Side effects Without the ability to change mode, a shared directory is always mounted with the permission of rwxr-xr-x. Basically, the owner can read, write and execute, while group and others can only read and execute.

When you mount a vboxsf volume, mount will mounted it as a owner of root and a group of root by default. As a result, no one except root will have write access. On distros like Ubuntu, you are normally not allowed to be root, so no one can write to the drive.

To get around the issue, you can mount it using the uid option so you are the owner of the shared folder, but that means any share folder will only have access by one person.

In addition, the gid option in mount is essentially useless since you cannot change mode. Your group will always only have read-execute access to the shared folder.

I propose that mode be an option of vboxsf as stated in the user manual.

[Frank Mehnert]

This option was added with version 1.6.6, closing.