Porteus

I have a customized live-cd of v09, x86.
The live-cd logs a "guest" user in by default. A VMware Workstation 7 module is included. I'm trying to copy a virtual machine into porteus/rootcopy with a directory structure of "/home/guest/vmware/'vmname' ".

I copy the virtual machine directory tree into porteus/rootcopy, and make the ISO via the .sh script. An ISO is produced, and I can attempt a boot from it. Booting seems to work properly, without any errors during the "copying content of rootcopy" or anything else.

The problem occurs when KDE is starting up, an error message is produced that states, "The following installation problem was detected while trying to start KDE: No write access to $HOME directory (/home/guest). KDE is unable to start."

with an "OK" button. Once pressed, another message states:

"Could not start ksmserver. Check your installation." with an "okay" button. After clicked, the cursor changes to the "thinking" two orbiting orbs, and stalls there.

I am copying everything into the porteus/rootcopy folder on an ubuntu system, and I tried changing the permissions of the files I was copying in to no avail.

Thanks in advance.

Ensure you have chown -R guest:guest for the guest folders in ALL modules.

004-kde/home/guest/.kde3/share/config/ksmserverrcroot ... check in there for any root references. This will prevent guest from being able to write too.

brokenman wrote:Ensure you have chown -R guest:guest for the guest folders in ALL modules.

004-kde/home/guest/.kde3/share/config/ksmserverrcroot ... check in there for any root references. This will prevent guest from being able to write too.

Would you please elaborate for me a little?
I only have a few modules, what exactly is it that I have to "chown"?

I have a few modules, but this error only occurs when I put folders to be copied into the porteus/rootcopy folder before building the ISO. Should those folders be "chown"ed?

Yep, if it's in the guest folder, guest must own it.

I see this error whenever a guest folder has incorrect permissions. Unpack each module with a guest folder and make sure they have correct perms, then repack and rebuild. Double check your rootcopy content too.

brokenman wrote:Yep, if it's in the guest folder, guest must own it.

I see this error whenever a guest folder has incorrect permissions. Unpack each module with a guest folder and make sure they have correct perms, then repack and rebuild. Double check your rootcopy content too.

Ok, I think I see what you're saying.

Here's what I'm trying to do. I am working on an Ubuntu 10.04 system, working with some VMs. I now have a specially crafted Porteus live-cd with VMware Workstation 7 installed among other things that I don't have, and don't want on my Ubuntu system.

So, I want to take my VMs from Ubuntu, and set them in my local Porteus live-cd folder "porteus/rootcopy" and build and iso from that (all of this mind you is done in Ubuntu, not inside a running Porteus, so NO "guest" account is present) which I can then use as a live-cd with the VMs present.

How should I go about this when the VM files all belong to my Ubuntu account. Can I add something in the boot logic of the live-cd which "chown -R"s all of the stuff in the guest folder? or is my best bet to creat a "guest" account on Ubuntu, and chown it there?
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EDIT:
I suppose I could copy VMs to a non-default path, such as "not under the guest tree", but I will likely still run into permission issues, right?
It seems like putting a "chown" command somewhere in the boot logic would be a good solution. Is that viable?
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Thanks for your help.

Build your porteus in a USB drive and change the folder name rootcopy to ootcopy. Boot into porteus (you won't have the rootcopy issue now) and chown the files to guest. Rename ootcopy to rootcopy Use the make_iso function in porteus folder to generate an ISO. All done.

I guess you could also create a guest account on ubuntu.

If these VM files come from Ubuntu (which has no guest account) and you are trying to put them into a porteus rootcopy/home/guest folder, then permissions of ubuntu will follow it. Try this and see how it goes.