Shared folder- permission denied with drwxrwxrwx permissions

KVM
1

I have a shared folder using virtio-9p, when I attempt to launch workstation I get the following error:

Error starting domain: internal error: QEMU unexpectedly closed the monitor (vm=‘Whonix-Workstation’): 2025-11-06T00:56:15.934639Z qemu-system-x86_64: -device {“driver”:“virtio-9p-pci”,“id”:“fs0”,“fsdev”:“fsdev-fs0”,“mount_tag”:“shared”,“bus”:“pci.6”,“addr”:“0x0”}: cannot initialize fsdev ‘fsdev-fs0’: failed to open ‘/home/user/shared’: Permission denied

Traceback (most recent call last):File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/asyncjob.py”, line 67, in cb_wrappercallback(asyncjob, *args, **kwargs)~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/asyncjob.py”, line 101, in tmpcbcallback(*args, **kwargs)~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/libvirtobject.py”, line 57, in newfnret = fn(self, *args, **kwargs)File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/domain.py”, line 1446, in startupself._backend.create()~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^File “/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/libvirt.py”, line 1390, in createraise libvirtError(‘virDomainCreate() failed’)libvirt.libvirtError: internal error: QEMU unexpectedly closed the monitor (vm=‘Whonix-Workstation’): 2025-11-06T00:56:15.934639Z qemu-system-x86_64: -device {“driver”:“virtio-9p-pci”,“id”:“fs0”,“fsdev”:“fsdev-fs0”,“mount_tag”:“shared”,“bus”:“pci.6”,“addr”:“0x0”}: cannot initialize fsdev ‘fsdev-fs0’: failed to open ‘/home/user/shared’: Permission denied

If I switch to virtiofs and enable shared memory (sidenote, could shared memory pose a potential de-anonymization risk if some malicious program that can analyze memory pages is installed?) then workstation launches, although it doesn’t actually mount the folder to /mnt/shared. The permissions are configured correctly as drwxrwxrwx, I have also tried drwsrwsrwx, as well as running virt-manager as su, and the issue persists.

2

What host OS are you using?

My initial guess is that either SELinux or AppArmor is preventing libvirt and QEMU from accessing the folder. How to diagnose and fix that will differ depending on the host OS.

1 Like
3

I’m on arch, I’ve never enabled either SELinux or AppArmor, just to make sure I double checked using sestatus and aa-status and both returned not found.

4

I solved my problem, I missed this in the wiki. I needed to make my ~/ directory executable. It was under the MAC section on the wiki page so I overlooked it, to any forum moderators please close this thread since I can’t figure out how, and to any wiki contributors maybe move that line up a bit.

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