toolbox cmd/create: keep host supplementary groups with --group-add keep-groups

Toolbx currently fails to create or start containers on hosts where the user has group-only access to device nodes under /dev, for example when VirtualBox creates /dev/vboxusb/* owned by root:vboxusers with 0750 permissions. In this situation a rootless Toolbx container inherits /dev from the host, the /dev/vboxusb directory is visible, but the container process has no group membership for vboxusers. When the OCI runtime walks /dev it eventually tries to open or create device nodes under /dev/vboxusb and fails with an OCI permission denied error, so toolbox enter aborts with "failed to start container".

This behaviour is described in #1348, which generalizes the problem to any directory under /dev with 0750 permissions where the user only has access via a supplementary group (eg. dialout, vboxusers, docker). It is also the root cause behind reports like #1297 and the older #247, and matches similar issues seen with rootless Podman and VirtualBox in other projects (distrobox, crun, Debian bug reports).

Rootless Podman already has a mechanism to address this class of problems: passing --group-add keep-groups to podman create or podman run tells Podman to keep the caller's supplementary groups instead of dropping them during container setup. The Podman documentation explicitly recommends this flag for cases where device access is granted only via group membership and notes that otherwise accessing such devices from rootless containers will fail with permission errors.

This patch wires that mechanism into Toolbx by adding --group-add keep-groups to the podman create invocation used by the toolbox create command when running as a non-root user and when the Podman version is >= 3.2.0, which is when the flag became available. The call is gated through the existing podman.CheckVersion helper, so older Podman versions are not affected and keep the previous behaviour.

With this change, the OCI runtime sees the same supplementary groups as the host process, so a user who is a member of vboxusers (or dialout, docker, etc.) can access devices that are only group readable from inside a rootless Toolbx container. On systems with VirtualBox installed this fixes errors of the form:

crun: creating /dev/vboxusb/00x/00y: openat2 dev/vboxusb: Permission denied: OCI permission denied

when entering a freshly created Toolbx container.

This patch intentionally does not change how /dev is mounted into the container and does not implement the more invasive /dev filtering approach discussed in #1348. It is a minimal, backwards compatible improvement that fixes the common VirtualBox and other group-only device cases by leveraging Podman's existing --group-add keep-groups support.

Tests:

On Fedora 42 with VirtualBox installed and the user in the vboxusers group, verified that toolbox create logs the podman create command including --group-add keep-groups.
Confirmed that toolbox enter succeeds for a new container where it previously failed with an OCI permission denied on /dev/vboxusb.
Verified that behaviour is unchanged on a system without VirtualBox and that the flag is not added when running as root.

Fixes: #1348 Related: #1297, #247

Dec 10 '25 17:12 Knogle

Summary of Changes

Hello @Knogle, I'm Gemini Code Assist[^1]! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!

This pull request introduces a crucial enhancement to Toolbx's container creation process, specifically targeting rootless environments. It resolves persistent permission denied errors encountered when containers attempt to access device nodes under /dev that are only accessible via a host user's supplementary groups (like vboxusers or dialout). By conditionally adding the --group-add keep-groups flag to podman create for non-root users with compatible Podman versions (3.2.0+), Toolbx containers will now correctly inherit these essential group memberships, thereby enabling seamless access to devices such as VirtualBox USB devices. This change provides a minimal yet effective fix for a long-standing issue, improving the reliability of rootless Toolbx containers.

Highlights

Device Access in Rootless Containers: Addresses issues where rootless Toolbx containers fail to access group-only device nodes (e.g., /dev/vboxusb) due to missing supplementary group memberships, resolving problems described in #1348, #1297, and #247.
Podman Integration: Integrates Podman's --group-add keep-groups flag into toolbox create for non-root users, allowing containers to inherit the host user's supplementary groups.
Conditional Application: The --group-add keep-groups flag is only applied when running as a non-root user and when the detected Podman version is 3.2.0 or newer, ensuring backward compatibility.
Minimal and Effective Fix: Provides a targeted, backward-compatible solution by leveraging existing Podman functionality, avoiding more invasive changes to /dev mounting.

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Dec 10 '25 17:12 gemini-code-assist[bot]

Build failed. https://softwarefactory-project.io/zuul/t/local/buildset/a01c755f791b433ea1dbb175754aff33

Dec 10 '25 19:12 softwarefactory-project-zuul[bot]

recheck

Feb 02 '26 23:02 debarshiray

Build failed. https://softwarefactory-project.io/zuul/t/local/buildset/a65365bf06fd44c591c349ce0b2af143

Feb 03 '26 00:02 softwarefactory-project-zuul[bot]