On 27/11/25 at 00:13, Andy Smith wrote:
Hi, On Wed, Nov 26, 2025 at 08:39:43PM +0100, Franco Martelli wrote:Is it possible to change the group owner keeping the permissions of the file in its place?I don't think so because it's the kernel that's enforcing this in the system call. On user or group change it's clearing setuid, setgid and all capabilities. Is there a reason why you can't read the setuid/setgid bits before and restore them after?
I've an issue with VirtualBox 7.2, it doesn't start the VMs from the CLI (virtualboxvm command), so I want to try to change the group owner to "vboxusers" of all the files listed in the "/usr/lib/virtualbox" directory recursively.
The number of files to restore after changing the group owner it is not so much:
~$ ls -Rlh /usr/lib/virtualbox/ | grep 'r-s'-r-s--x--x 1 root root 139K 17 ott 13.40 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxHeadless -r-s--x--x 1 root root 31K 17 ott 13.40 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxNetAdpCtl -r-s--x--x 1 root root 139K 17 ott 13.40 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxNetDHCP
-r-s--x--x 1 root root 139K 17 ott 13.40 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxNetNAT-r-s--x--x 1 root root 15K 17 ott 13.40 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VBoxVolInfo -r-s--x--x 1 root root 143K 17 ott 13.40 /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBoxVM
therefore I can restore their permissions manually, I asked because I was thinking that maybe there is an official way to accomplish this. Do you suggest to write a bash shell script?
Cheers, -- Franco Martelli