on Windows host/Linux guest symbolic link is generated with backslashes

[tokiloki]

I use simple Vagrantfile

Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|
  config.vm.box = "ubuntu/trusty64"
end

Running

vagrant up
vagrant ssh
cd /vagrant
ln -s /vag/log
ls -l

I see

lrwxrwxrwx 1 vagrant vagrant   0 Jul 22 22:56 log -> \var\log\

Backslashes is a problem here as I understand. This symbolic link is not usable.

VirtualBox 5.0.0
Vagrant 1.7.4

[sseidelmann]

Please fix this asap.

Have you a workaround for this? We need this to develop our software

Thanks a lot

VirtualBox 4.8.x
Vagrant 1.7.2

[toser]

Same here. This is a very critical issue!

[Flowman]

If you downgrade to VirtualBox 4.3.30 symlinks works again. I noticed the weird backslashes in version 5.0.0

Windows 10
VitrtualBox 4.3.30
Vagrant 1.7.4

[toser]

Thanks for pointing this out. Can someone confirm this? For me only version 5 of VirtualBox works on on Windows 10, but with weird backslashes..

[sseidelmann]

We will test this

[Flowman]

Host-only nic and symlinks are broken in Virtualbox 5.0.0.

VirtualBox 4.3.30 installs fine on Windows 10, have not had any issues yet.

[charly37]

Hi guys,

Same error here.

How to reproduce:

Install software
-windows 7 Entreprise SP1 64bits
-VirtualBox : 5.0.0 r101573
-Vagrant 1.7.4

Start software
-using windows cmd :

c:\DEV_CODE>mkdir test
c:\DEV_CODE>cd test
c:\DEV_CODE\test>vagrant init hashicorp/precise64
c:\DEV_CODE\test>vagrant up

-logged in the VM :

vagrant@precise64:~$ ln -s /tmp/ toto
vagrant@precise64:~$ ll toto
lrwxrwxrwx 1 vagrant vagrant 5 Aug  5 18:40 toto -> /tmp//

vagrant@precise64:/vagrant$ ln -s /tmp/ toto
vagrant@precise64:/vagrant$ ll toto
lrwxrwxrwx 1 vagrant vagrant 0 Aug  5 18:40 toto -> \tmp\

Issue
The symlink creation no longer works inside shared folder (vagrant is shared by default)

I also find the Filesystem type to be strange in df output

vagrant@precise64:/vagrant$ df
Filesystem                 1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/precise64-root  82711212  2256852  76312076   3% /
udev                          178072        4    178068   1% /dev
tmpfs                          74852      280     74572   1% /run
none                            5120        0      5120   0% /run/lock
none                          187128        0    187128   0% /run/shm
/dev/sda1                     233191    24966    195784  12% /boot
vagrant                    104857596 78982132  25875464  76% /vagrant

Maybe it is link...

I will try to downgrade to VB < 5 and update the ticket when I have some time.

Thx.

[charly37]

I confirmed it is OK after downgrade to VB 4.3.30

[sseidelmann]

We have a developer with older version 4.3.26. It will work fine too.

[simonknittel]

Don't know if it's related to this problem, but I think it fits.

I'm using Vagrant 1.7.4 with ubuntu/trusty64 as guest on a Windows 10 host with Virtualbox 5.0.2r102096.

It got the /var/www directory on Ubuntu synced with my host.

I'm doing the following:

cd /var/www/application/htdocs
ln -s ../typo3_src-7.4.0 typo3_src

(the typo3_src-7.4.0 directory, which is my target, is in /var/www/application).

Now I check the content of the directory:

ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx 1 vagrant vagrant 0 Aug 16 13:54 typo3_src -> ..\typo3_src-7.4.0

(which is colored in red).

When I check the symlink directly:

readlink -f typo3_src
/var/www/application/htdocs/..\typo3_src-7.4.0

[486]

I am also on Win 10 and downgraded to VB 4.3.30 now.

Creating symlinks does not work for me at all ("protocol error") unless I run the command line "as Administrator" and then vagrant up, basically as described here http://www.ahtik.com/blog/fixing-your-virtualbox-shared-folder-symlink-error/

Is that normal behavior or is there a way to do this without admin rights? Should I create a separate issue?

[wassimsalib]

Virtualbox just released a fix for this issue and it is working now, you need to download and install this test build https://www.virtualbox.org/download/testcase/VirtualBox-5.0.3-102224-Win.exe
Here is the link to the issue: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/14335

[simonknittel]

Running now VB build 102322.

Works yes and no (or I'm making a mistake).

Creating a symlink with relative path

ln -s ../typo3_src-7.4.0 typo3_src

does not work. It produces a protocol error.

Creating a symlink with absolute path

ln -s /var/www/application/typo3_src-7.4.0 typo3_src

does work.

[vomlehn]

I see the same thing. It was an upgrade from 5.0.2 (pretty sure but not positive) to 5.0.4 where things broke. This is a pretty big issue for me; I have a huge chunk of software that doesn't build because of this. It's way too much software to try and go in and tweak this.

[sej7278]

seeing @simonknittel's problem too - with 5.0.4 on linux host and guest relative paths are broken, absolute paths work fine, nothing to do with backslashes as far as i can see though, gives protocol error not permission denied.

its not a vagrant problem though is it, its a virtualbox one.

[emirotin]

It seems to be fixed with VBox 5.0.6

[vomlehn]

I've had problems building Tango on
  VBox 5.0. The issue is also related to symbolic links, on a Linux
  host. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. I think they work
  only if the link is in the same directory, but haven't done
  extensive testing. I had to back off to version 4.3.30, which
  seems to work. This is a problem that Oracle seems to know about
  but which is proving a challenge to fix fully.

  On 10/05/2015 04:28 AM, Eugene Mirotin wrote:


  It seems to be fixed with VBox 5.0.6
  —
    Reply to this email directly or view
      it on GitHub.










-- 

David VL

[mitchellh]

This is a bug with VirtualBox and not Vagrant. Please read other comments to note working VirtualBox versions!

[lmayorga1980]

It seems that it still fails on VirtualBox 5.0.10 as well. I guess I will need to rebuild the vagrant box with Packer

[Perni1984]

for me symbolic link work flawlessly inside synced folders with the following windows host setup:

Host OS: Windows 10 1511
VirtualBox: 5.0.10
Vagrant: 1.7.4

Guest OS: ubuntu/vivid64 (make sure you use a guest linux with kernel version > 3.18!)
VBGuestAdditions: 5.0.10

They key was to use smb for mounting the synced folder, enforcing SMB 3.02 and enabling mfsymlinks:

config.vm.synced_folder "/projectfolder/www", "/var/www", type: "smb", mount_options: ["vers=3.02","mfsymlinks"]

Additionally we should get better speeds with enforcing SMB 3.02 over SMB1 (which is used as default), but I have not made detailed measurements yet. Node.js now works flawlessly and fast inside my boxes.

[c094728]

I found a solution to allow creating symbolic links on a shared folder in linux client when host is windows.
It fixed my yum install issues.
https://blog.puphpet.com/blog/2015/06/25/windows-symlinks/

[g105b]

To fix this issue:

• Open Local Security Policy
• Navigate to: Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment
• Open "Create Symbolic Links"
• Add your username (or a group you are assigned to)
• Restart PC

No need to add freeware rinkydink software to your build process.

[tonypino]

Thank you @g105b - this resolved the issue completely for me.

[Sadegh-Ameri]

If you don't want to change Local Security Policy, you can follow these step to create the symbolic links.

1. As your current user, run vagrant halt
2. Open a console with administrator privileges (Right-Click->Run as Administrator) and use this console to run the following commands
3. vagrant up
4. vagrant ssh
5. Now you can create your symbolic links, ;)

[loipl]

Thanks @Sadegh-Ameri, this works for me.

[marxangels]

Run VirtualBox as an administrator every time?

[ghost]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days ⏳. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues.

If you have found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue and complete the issue template so we can capture all the details necessary to investigate further.