Failed to load VMMR0.r0

[Duttweiler]

Just after installing the new 4.0.4 version of Vbox, I opened Vbox and intented to start the VM. The Vbox window opened ang shut immediatly, showing the failure notification:

unknown error creating VM (VERR_SUPLIB_WORLD_WRITABLE) with following details: code d'erreur: NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005) composant: console interface: IConsole {515e8e8d-f932-4d8e-9f32-79a52aead882}

Can you please help me to understand what can have occured, and how to fix it Thaks a lot

[Duttweiler]

Vbox.log

[Frank Mehnert]

The permissions of the file which is mentioned in the log file (unfortunately you did not attach the log file itself but only a screenshot) are wrong for some reason. You have to make sure that the file is writable only for root.

[Celia Leber]

Hi - I submitted a bug ticket yesterday with the same problem and you replied: This is a duplicate of #8410. Please check the permissions of the /Applications directory -- post the output of /bin/ls -ld /Applications into #8410.

Sorry - I do not know how to do this. Would it be possible for you to give me instructions? I did repair permissions for my hard drive yesterday but that did not solve the problem.

[Michael Thayer]

E-Mail address removed, as the development team have access to the bug tracker database which contains the addresses used for registration.

[Frank Mehnert]

Please open some kind of console. AFAIK the application on OSX is named Terminal.app. In that window type the command I posted above and post the resulting output here.

[Duttweiler]

result of the command in terminal.app

[Duttweiler]

Replying to frank:

Please open some kind of console. AFAIK the application on OSX is named Terminal.app. In that window type the command I posted above and post the resulting output here.

I guess the command you posted above was written by Celia. I intented to attach the resulting file, but I don't know if it really works, so I paste the content of the Terminal's screen:

Last login: Thu Mar 3 12:26:55 on ttys000
DDWR:~ DDWR$ /bin/ls -ld /Applications
drwxrwxrwx 80 root admin 2720 27 fév 23:24 /Applications
DDWR:~ DDWR$

[Frank Mehnert]

Right, I wrote that in another related ticket. The permissions of the /Applications directory are wrong, it is writiable by really every user of the system. Please fix the permissions with

chmod o-w /Applications

You must do this as root, it depends on your installation how to do that. Perhaps do this with sudo.

[Duttweiler]

Replying to frank:

Right, I wrote that in another related ticket. The permissions of the /Applications directory are wrong, it is writiable by really every user of the system. Please fix the permissions with

chmod o-w /Applications

You must do this as root, it depends on your installation how to do that. Perhaps do this with sudo.

Thanks, I did that, see enclose the Terminal's answer, and the Applications folder properties (screenshot) after this action: this folder is now 'read only' for everyone.

Do you think it was the only (or principal) reason for the defect ? ... because I now hesitate to re-install the version 4.0.4 [[BR]] Actually after the failure, I have noticed that the Vbox folder had moved from the /library dir to my user's folder, and I guessed the new version didn't found the original path.
So I uninstalled Vbox, and re-installed the older version 3.2.12, which works very well. Perharps the /applications'permissions didn't matter for that version ? I hope I won't have to re-install Windows on my VM [[BR]] Thanks for your comments

[Duttweiler]

Replying to frank:

The permissions of the file which is mentioned in the log file (unfortunately you did not attach the log file itself but only a screenshot) are wrong for some reason. You have to make sure that the file is writable only for root.

I'm sorry, intenting to answer your post, I didn't succeed emailing you, and created a new (wrong) ticket #10050 with the file Vbox.log enclosed
Perharps it's quite late now, but I send it to you !

[Frank Mehnert]

Sorry, I don't understand the french screenshot. Please could you just make sure that the /Applications directory is not writable by others?

[Duttweiler]

translated screenshot

[Duttweiler]

Replying to frank:

Sorry, I don't understand the french screenshot. Please could you just make sure that the /Applications directory is not writable by others?

Normally it's done as you can see on the translated screenshot enclosed

[Frank Mehnert]

Yes, but the screenshot shows the permission of the '/' directory, not the '/Applications' directory, right?

[Celia Leber]

Replying to frank:

Please open some kind of console. AFAIK the application on OSX is named Terminal.app. In that window type the command I posted above and post the resulting output here.

Thanks for the explanation. Here's what I got: drwxrwxrwx+ 62 root admin 2108 Mar 2 16:36 /Applications

I assume this is wrong, based on your reply to ddwr, but I don't know how to change it. Can you explain please? Thanks!

[Frank Mehnert]

Please could you read the comments above? I really don't write to repeat myself.

[Duttweiler]

Replying to frank:

Please could you read the comments above? I really don't write to repeat myself.

Yes I've red all, and done again what Celia repeated, and now I got:
drwxrwxr-x 81 root admin 2754 3 mar 14:52 /Applications
and I think that the last xr-x instead of former xrwx means that now the '/Applications' is not writable by others.
This is confirmed by the my screenshot in which the permissions of the '/Applications' directory were showned ("Où: /" means "where: /", i.e. the path)

[Celia Leber]

Replying to frank:

Please open some kind of console. AFAIK the application on OSX is named Terminal.app. In that window type the command I posted above and post the resulting output here.

I read about sudo commands in the missing manual for mac OS and figured out how to change the permission as you suggested. Now I am all set. Thanks!!!!

[Erik]

This problem also exists on Linux with VirtualBox installed in /opt My /opt is world writable - I can temporarily use chmod o-w /opt whenever I need to run a VM and chmod o+w /opt when I'm done, but it's going to get annoying pretty fast.

[Erik]

Log file for VBox in world writable /opt

[Frank Mehnert]

Again, this is a security issue. If you allow /opt to be writable for everyone then everyone can overwrite the VBoxVMM.r0 library and can penetrate the system. Therefore this check.

[Erik]

VBoxVMM.r0 is not in /opt, it's in /opt/VirtualBox, which has 755 permissions. Afaik that should be enough to prevent unauthorised access.

[Frank Mehnert]

Because /opt is writable for every user, a malicious user could rename /opt/VirtualBox to /opt/VirtualBox.old, copy /opt/VirtualBox.old to /opt/VirtualBox and then modify the content of /opt/VirtualBox. Sorry, we better play safe here.

[Erik]

Okay, hadn't thought of that. I'll look into changing my habits to not require an o+w /opt :-)