Mounting a VirtualBox drive image (vdi) without specifying a loop device
 

Hi

I'm running VirtualBox on Debian. I use vdfuse to mount my VDI files, running the following commands (showing the sequence for mounting a Windows Server 2008 guest image):

sudo vdfuse -w -g -f <my_image> /mnt/virtualbox/vdfuse

sudo mount -o uid=frikdt,gid=frikdt /mnt/virtualbox/vdfuse/Partition1 /mnt/virtualbox/vdi

I've been using these for a long time now without any problems. However, every discussion/tutorial I've seen so far includes the loop option; so the second command would become:

sudo mount -o loop,uid=frikdt,gid=frikdt /mnt/virtualbox/vdfuse/Partition1 /mnt/virtualbox/vdi

The output of the mount command is the same in both cases (and does not mention any loop device):

/mnt/virtualbox/vdfuse/Partition1 on /mnt/virtualbox/vdi type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096,default_permissions)

Is there any risk in not specifying the loop option?

I think it is just an issue between a fuse filesystem and a discrete loop mount point.

Fuse has been proven to be pretty good. If you use it and are happy then don't change.

In a way they are both loops but it is how the image is added to the system is my guess.

Thanks for your reply, jefro.