Shared folders linux guest virtualbox
User Manual for Release 6.0
- Preface
- First Steps
- Why is Virtualization Useful?
- Some Terminology
- Features Overview
- Supported Host Operating Systems
- Host CPU Requirements
- Starting a New VM for the First Time
- Capturing and Releasing Keyboard and Mouse
- Typing Special Characters
- Changing Removable Media
- Resizing the Machine’s Window
- Saving the State of the Machine
- Taking, Restoring, and Deleting Snapshots
- Snapshot Contents
- About the OVF Format
- Importing an Appliance in OVF Format
- Exporting an Appliance in OVF Format
- Exporting an Appliance to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- Importing an Instance from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- The Cloud Profile Manager
- Using the Soft Keyboard
- Creating a Custom Keyboard Layout
- Installing on Windows Hosts
- Prerequisites
- Performing the Installation
- Uninstallation
- Unattended Installation
- Public Properties
- Performing the Installation
- Uninstallation
- Unattended Installation
- Prerequisites
- The Oracle VM VirtualBox Kernel Modules
- Kernel Modules and UEFI Secure Boot
- Installing Oracle VM VirtualBox from a Debian or Ubuntu Package
- Using the Alternative Generic Installer (VirtualBox.run)
- Performing a Manual Installation
- Updating and Uninstalling Oracle VM VirtualBox
- Automatic Installation of Debian Packages
- Automatic Installation of RPM Packages
- Automatic Installation Options
- Performing the Installation
- The vboxuser Group
- Starting Oracle VM VirtualBox on Oracle Solaris
- Uninstallation
- Unattended Installation
- Configuring a Zone for Running Oracle VM VirtualBox
- Supported Guest Operating Systems
- Mac OS X Guests
- 64-bit Guests
- An Example of Unattended Guest Installation
- Basic Tab
- Advanced Tab
- Description Tab
- Disk Encryption Tab
- Motherboard Tab
- Processor Tab
- Acceleration Tab
- Screen Tab
- Remote Display Tab
- Recording Tab
- USB Settings
- Implementation Notes for Windows and Linux Hosts
- Video Modes in EFI
- Specifying Boot Arguments
- Introduction to Guest Additions
- Installing and Maintaining Guest Additions
- Guest Additions for Windows
- Installing the Windows Guest Additions
- Updating the Windows Guest Additions
- Unattended Installation
- Manual File Extraction
- Installing the Linux Guest Additions
- Graphics and Mouse Integration
- Updating the Linux Guest Additions
- Uninstalling the Linux Guest Additions
- Installing the Oracle Solaris Guest Additions
- Uninstalling the Oracle Solaris Guest Additions
- Updating the Oracle Solaris Guest Additions
- Manual Mounting
- Automatic Mounting
- Supported Formats
- Known Limitations
- Hardware 3D Acceleration (OpenGL and Direct3D 8/9)
- Hardware 2D Video Acceleration for Windows Guests
- Using Guest Properties to Wait on VM Events
- Using the Guest Control File Manager
- Memory Ballooning
- Page Fusion
- Hard Disk Controllers
- Disk Image Files (VDI, VMDK, VHD, HDD)
- The Virtual Media Manager
- Special Image Write Modes
- Differencing Images
- Cloning Disk Images
- Host Input/Output Caching
- Limiting Bandwidth for Disk Images
- CD/DVD Support
- iSCSI Servers
- vboximg-mount: A Utility for FUSE Mounting a Virtual Disk Image
- Viewing Detailed Information About a Virtual Disk Image
- Mounting a Virtual Disk Image
- Virtual Networking Hardware
- Introduction to Networking Modes
- Network Address Translation (NAT)
- Configuring Port Forwarding with NAT
- PXE Booting with NAT
- NAT Limitations
- Introduction
- Commands Overview
- General Options
- VBoxManage list
- VBoxManage showvminfo
- VBoxManage registervm/unregistervm
- VBoxManage createvm
- VBoxManage modifyvm
- General Settings
- Networking Settings
- NAT Networking Settings
- Import from OVF
- Import from Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- Export to OVF
- Export to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
- Synopsis
- Description
- unattended detect
- unattended install
- Synopsis
- Description
- General Command Operand
- Take a Snapshot of a Virtual Machine
- Delete a Snapshot
- Restore a Snapshot
- Restore the Current Snapshot
- Change the Name or Description of an Existing Snapshot
- List the Snapshots
- Show Information About a Snapshot’s Settings
- Synopsis
- Description
- Command Operand and Options
- Examples
- See Also
- Synopsis
- Description
- extpack install
- extpack uninstall
- extpack cleanup
- Synopsis
- Description
- Common options
- dhcpserver add
- dhcpserver modify
- dhcpserver remove
- dhcpserver restart
- dhcpserver findlease
- Common DHCP Options:
- Synopsis
- Description
- Common options
- debugvm dumpvmcore
- debugvm info
- debugvm injectnmi
- debugvm log
- debugvm logdest
- debugvm logflags
- debugvm osdetect
- debugvm osinfo
- debugvm osdmesg
- debugvm getregisters
- debugvm setregisters
- debugvm show
- debugvm stack
- debugvm statistics
- Synopsis
- Description
- Common options
- cloudprofile add
- cloudprofile show
- cloudprofile update
- cloudprofile delete
- Synopsis
- Description
- Common options
- cloud list instances
- cloud list images
- Synopsis
- Description
- Common options
- cloud instance create
- cloud instance info
- cloud instance termination
- cloud instance start
- cloud instance pause
- Synopsis
- Description
- Common options
- cloud image create
- cloud image info
- cloud image delete
- cloud image import
- cloud image export
4.3. Shared Folders
With the shared folders feature of Oracle VM VirtualBox, you can access files of your host system from within the guest system. This is similar to how you would use network shares in Windows networks, except that shared folders do not require networking, only the Guest Additions. Shared folders are supported with Windows 2000 or later, Linux, and Oracle Solaris guests. Oracle VM VirtualBox includes experimental support for Mac OS X and OS/2 guests.
Shared folders physically reside on the host and are then shared with the guest, which uses a special file system driver in the Guest Additions to talk to the host. For Windows guests, shared folders are implemented as a pseudo-network redirector. For Linux and Oracle Solaris guests, the Guest Additions provide a virtual file system.
To share a host folder with a virtual machine in Oracle VM VirtualBox, you must specify the path of the folder and choose a share name that the guest can use to access the shared folder. This happens on the host. In the guest you can then use the share name to connect to it and access files.
There are several ways in which shared folders can be set up for a virtual machine:
- In the window of a running VM, you select Shared Folders from the Devices menu, or click on the folder icon on the status bar in the bottom right corner.
- If a VM is not currently running, you can configure shared folders in the virtual machine’s Settings dialog.
- From the command line, you can create shared folders using VBoxManage , as follows:
VBoxManage sharedfolder add "VM name" --name "sharename" --hostpath "C:\test"
There are two types of shares:
- Permanent shares, that are saved with the VM settings.
- Transient shares, that are added at runtime and disappear when the VM is powered off. These can be created using a checkbox in the VirtualBox Manager, or by using the —transient option of the VBoxManage sharedfolder add command.
Shared folders can either be read-write or read-only. This means that the guest is either allowed to both read and write, or just read files on the host. By default, shared folders are read-write. Read-only folders can be created using a checkbox in the VirtualBox Manager, or with the —readonly option of the VBoxManage sharedfolder add command.
Oracle VM VirtualBox shared folders also support symbolic links, also called symlinks , under the following conditions:
- The host operating system must support symlinks. For example, a Mac OS X, Linux, or Oracle Solaris host is required.
- Currently only Linux and Oracle Solaris Guest Additions support symlinks.
- For security reasons the guest OS is not allowed to create symlinks by default. If you trust the guest OS to not abuse the functionality, you can enable creation of symlinks for a shared folder as follows:
VBoxManage setextradata "VM name" VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/
sharename14.3.1. Manual Mounting
You can mount the shared folder from inside a VM, in the same way as you would mount an ordinary network share:
- In a Windows guest, shared folders are browseable and therefore visible in Windows Explorer. To attach the host’s shared folder to your Windows guest, open Windows Explorer and look for the folder in My Networking Place s, Entire Network , Oracle VM VirtualBox Shared Folders . By right-clicking on a shared folder and selecting Map Network Drive from the menu that pops up, you can assign a drive letter to that shared folder. Alternatively, on the Windows command line, use the following command:
net use x: \\vboxsvr\sharename
mount -t vboxsf [-o OPTIONS] sharename mountpoint
sharename mountpoint vboxsf defaults 0 0
mount -F vboxfs [-o OPTIONS] sharename mountpoint
Replace sharename , use a lowercase string, with the share name specified with VBoxManage or the VirtualBox Manager. Replace mountpoint with the path where you want the share to be mounted on the guest, such as /mnt/share . The usual mount rules apply. For example, create this directory first if it does not exist yet. Here is an example of mounting the shared folder for the user jack on Oracle Solaris:
$ id uid=5000(jack) gid=1(other) $ mkdir /export/home/jack/mount $ pfexec mount -F vboxfs -o uid=5000,gid=1 jackshare /export/home/jack/mount $ cd ~/mount $ ls sharedfile1.mp3 sharedfile2.txt $
Beyond the standard options supplied by the mount command, the following are available:
This option sets the character set used for I/O operations. Note that on Linux guests, if the iocharset option is not specified, then the Guest Additions driver will attempt to use the character set specified by the CONFIG_NLS_DEFAULT kernel option. If this option is not set either, then UTF-8 is used.
VBoxControl sharedfolder use D: MyShareName VBoxControl sharedfolder unuse D: VBoxControl sharedfolder list
4.3.2. Automatic Mounting
Oracle VM VirtualBox provides the option to mount shared folders automatically. When automatic mounting is enabled for a shared folder, the Guest Additions service will mount it for you automatically. For Windows or OS/2, a preferred drive letter can also be specified. For Linux or Oracle Solaris, a mount point directory can also be specified.
If a drive letter or mount point is not specified, or is in use already, an alternative location is found by the Guest Additions service. The service searches for an alternative location depending on the guest OS, as follows:
- Windows and OS/2 guests. Search for a free drive letter, starting at Z: . If all drive letters are assigned, the folder is not mounted.
- Linux and Oracle Solaris guests. Folders are mounted under the /media directory. The folder name is normalized (no spaces, slashes or colons) and is prefixed with sf_ . For example, if you have a shared folder called myfiles , it will appear as /media/sf_myfiles in the guest. The guest properties /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/SharedFolders/MountDir and the more generic /VirtualBox/GuestAdd/SharedFolders/MountPrefix can be used to override the automatic mount directory and prefix. See Section 4.7, “Guest Properties”.
Access to an automatically mounted shared folder is granted to everyone in a Windows guest, including the guest user. For Linux and Oracle Solaris guests, access is restricted to members of the group vboxsf and the root user.
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- Guest Additions for Windows