Shared Folders; Error: Permission Denied

KVM
1

Hello,

after trying to enable shared folders, specifically right after point 10.15.9. I get the following error message:

Error starting domain: internal error: QEMU unexpectedly closed the monitor (vm=‘Whonix-Workstation’): 2025-08-16T18:35:29.108727Z 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 71, in cb_wrapper
callback(asyncjob, *args, **kwargs)
~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/asyncjob.py”, line 107, in tmpcb
callback(*args, **kwargs)
~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/libvirtobject.py”, line 57, in newfn
ret = fn(self, *args, **kwargs)
File “/usr/share/virt-manager/virtManager/object/domain.py”, line 1384, in startup
self._backend.create()
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
File “/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/libvirt.py”, line 1390, in create
raise libvirtError(‘virDomainCreate() failed’)
libvirt.libvirtError: internal error: QEMU unexpectedly closed the monitor (vm=‘Whonix-Workstation’): 2025-08-16T18:35:29.108727Z 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

I’d deeply appreciate a or some pointers.

Otherwise, compared to Virtualbox, KVM / QEMU is so slick.

Also thanks to all who made it happen, contributors, volunteers etc :slight_smile:

1 Like
2

Check/fix permissions of that path and or change the path if you’re not using Linux user account name user.

3

Dear Patrick,

thanks for your answer.

I am using the same Linux user account name, followed every step in the documentation that’s why I find the error strange, since I’ve chmod the directory and yet, I still can’t mount the folder…

4

chmod-calc might help.

(Need to download it if not using Kicksecure as a host operating system.)