VirtualBox Share Host Folder Ubuntu Guest

17 Sep 2016 • linux • virtualbox

VM VirtualBox is one of free popular hypervisor for x86 computer from Oracle. I use it as part of my development environment, since occasionally I need several different Operating Systems for development and software testing or deployment testing. When we work with VirtualBox we often need to share folder between host and guest operating system.

Before sharing folder, ensure we have installed Guest Addition that shipped with VirtualBox. To do that :

  1. Go to Device menu > Insert Guest CD Addition Images.
  2. If it automatically mounting and has popup dialog, just hit run otherwise we may have to manually mounting it.

I usually restart my OS guest after installing this VirtualBox Guest Addition.

The steps are :

  • Go to Devices menu > Shared Folders > Shared Folder Settings
  • Select folder path of Host to be shared to Guest OS

  • Checked Make Permanent option if we want to make it permanent

    On my sample, I shared folder from OS X Host /Volumes/MacintoshHDData/share

    Till this step is enough for Windows guest. On Ubuntu guest, it need additional steps to make the shared folder accessible in guest.

  • When we shared a Host’s folder on Ubuntu guest, VirtualBox should create a folder on /Media just like the shared folder name with sf_ prefix. In my case /Media/sf_share. If the folder does not exist, open terminal, create directory /Media/sf_share and give folder name

    mkdir /Media/sf_share

  • VirtualBox with Ubuntu operating system guest, it added a group called vboxsf. Before we can access the shared folder we have to be a member of the group.

    sudo add user [username] vboxsf

    To verify what groups are username belongs to,

    id [username]

  • Mount the shared folder

    sudo mount -t vboxsf share /media/sf_share

Now we should be able to the shared folder via Nautilus (File Manager). To make it automatic mounting, ensure we checked option automatic mounting on shared folder setting dialog.

References

  1. http://askubuntu.com/questions/456400/why-cant-i-access-a-shared-folder-from-within-my-virtualbox-machine
  2. http://www.howtogeek.com/187703/how-to-access-folders-on-your-host-machine-from-an-ubuntu-virtual-machine-in-virtualbox/

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