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
