VirtualBox: access Windows-host shared folders from Ubuntu-guest
April 9th, 2008
This is the scenario that you run Windows as your host operating system and Ubuntu in a VirtualBox, and that you want to access a specific Windows folder from Ubuntu.
First you have to make sure that have install Guest Additions. From the VirtualBox's menu go to Devices → Install Guest Additions... This will mount a virtual CD on your /media/cdrom. Normally this folder's window will show up. As root run the program VBoxLinuxAdditions.run. When the program completes reboot your VirtualBox.
With Guest Additions installed you may now go ahead and define the shared folder(s). From the VirtualBox's menu go to Devices → Shared Folders. A dialog will show up. In this dialog you can specify which folder from your Windows system you want to share with your Ubuntu. Press the button with the + symbol to add a new shared folder in the list. You will have to specify a Folder Name for each folder you add. Make sure you memorize that name because you will need it very soon.
When done with you shared folder(s) specification, you may now go ahead and actually mount these folders from Ubuntu. First you have to create a mounpoint, that is, a directory in your Ubuntu which will reflect the shared folder from Windows:
Of course you may choose an alternative path for your mountpoint. With your mountpoint created you can now mount the shared folder, like this:
Where folder-name will be the name you assigned for this folder when you were adding it in the shared folders list.
You could use the /etc/init.d/rc.local script to execute these commands on startup to have the shared folders automatically mounted every time you start your Ubuntu VirtualBox.
First you have to make sure that have install Guest Additions. From the VirtualBox's menu go to Devices → Install Guest Additions... This will mount a virtual CD on your /media/cdrom. Normally this folder's window will show up. As root run the program VBoxLinuxAdditions.run. When the program completes reboot your VirtualBox.
With Guest Additions installed you may now go ahead and define the shared folder(s). From the VirtualBox's menu go to Devices → Shared Folders. A dialog will show up. In this dialog you can specify which folder from your Windows system you want to share with your Ubuntu. Press the button with the + symbol to add a new shared folder in the list. You will have to specify a Folder Name for each folder you add. Make sure you memorize that name because you will need it very soon.
When done with you shared folder(s) specification, you may now go ahead and actually mount these folders from Ubuntu. First you have to create a mounpoint, that is, a directory in your Ubuntu which will reflect the shared folder from Windows:
# sudo mkdir /media/windows-shareOf course you may choose an alternative path for your mountpoint. With your mountpoint created you can now mount the shared folder, like this:
# sudo mount -t vboxsf folder-name /media/windows-shareWhere folder-name will be the name you assigned for this folder when you were adding it in the shared folders list.
You could use the /etc/init.d/rc.local script to execute these commands on startup to have the shared folders automatically mounted every time you start your Ubuntu VirtualBox.
November 5th, 2008 at 6:48 am Very useful!!!
thanks a lot for this article...
From Chile - Southamerica
pamorale
November 12th, 2008 at 9:46 am thank you so much!!!
November 12th, 2008 at 9:49 am One question though, how do I used the " /etc/init.d/rc.local" ?
January 3rd, 2009 at 1:07 pm but in my machine, i get this message
mount: unknown filesystem type 'vboxsf'
January 6th, 2009 at 1:14 am This is just what I needed! I would add that the shared folder may need to be in the following directory: C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:58 pm Works like a CHARM. THANKS for outlining this.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:00 pm Sorry, I'm pretty new to OS stuff, so my question might be quite low level.
Qn) There are several VBoxLinuxAdditions(sth).run. How do I know which one I should choose?
February 6th, 2009 at 9:29 am Great tip, thanks for sharing this! FYI this is what I added to my Ubuntu VirtualBox guest /etc/rc.local file (top section of rc.local omitted). It now connects to the shared folder automatically on startup, as the blog owner stated. Very cool! (I have _VirtualBoxShared added under Vbox menu Devices > Shared Folders. _VirtualBoxShared is the name of the actual folder on my Windows Vista host box.) The folder ubushare is what I created instead of the tutorials /media/windows-share example.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
mount -t vboxsf _VirtualBoxShared /home/ubuntu/ubushare
exit 0
February 9th, 2009 at 4:49 am Finally, a quick solution that works! Thank you!
February 12th, 2009 at 12:56 am I've followed the guide and I still can't get this to work.
After I set up the folders I keep getting this :
fisher@fisher-laptop:~$ sudo mount -t vboxsf VBShare /home/fisher
[sudo] password for fisher:
/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: Protocol error
Can anyone help me out with this?
February 17th, 2009 at 10:26 pm thanks for sharing this, couldn't be easier !
February 19th, 2009 at 10:39 am thanks for sharing, this definitely was a quick solution to my problem... much appreciated...!!!
February 25th, 2009 at 4:34 am I have a question... Is it possible to unmount the shared folder??? I accidentally put it in the wrong directory...I'm an ubuntu noob...
March 15th, 2009 at 11:43 am thanks ,a lot ....it really workssssssss
March 19th, 2009 at 3:02 pm Thanks a lot!! Very helpful article.
March 19th, 2009 at 3:11 pm Thanks a lot!!
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:48 pm A great solution, thanks!
April 7th, 2009 at 9:54 pm Great site! You really helped me with the shared folders in virtualbox.
Good luck being smoke free!
You made the right decision.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:26 am mount is not working for me!
but I use this command instead:
mount.vboxsf NAME /PATH/TO/FOLDER
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:14 am Thanks for documenting this. I'm used to a few other VM tools where this is all automagic, I couldn't figgure out why it wasn't working.
June 5th, 2009 at 8:39 am Anyone having problems might be helped be this link:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17827#p77284
I was initially getting something along the lines of "filesystem vboxsf unknown" but resolved it by following the steps in that post.
Note: do not run "guest additions" shell script from the window manager -- use the command line. I tried running the script by double clicking on it and it did not work (permission problem, probably).
Works now!
June 15th, 2009 at 1:31 am >>I have a question... Is it possible to unmount the shared folder??? >>I accidentally put it in the wrong directory...I'm an ubuntu noob...
I had the same problem =)
To unmount folder use this:
sudo umount /media/windows-share
where /media/windows-share - your wrong directiory
June 23rd, 2009 at 11:52 pm I've spent about 20 hours trying to find help on this... and found your article, which solved my issue in 2 minutes! Thanks!
July 1st, 2009 at 4:32 am as clear as crystal.
Thanks
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm This was very useful, thanks!
July 24th, 2009 at 2:52 pm @fisher
- Check to make sure that "vboxsf" is the name of your shared folder in "Devices > Shared Folders". That was causing the same error for me.
August 1st, 2009 at 12:09 pm This is a great article. The only suggestion as a Linux newbie is that a detailed explanation of the sybtax would be great to get a complete understanding.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:42 pm Glad I found this article. You saved me many hours of going throuhg the docs. Thanks !
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm Help a newbie
How do i avoid to insert sudo mount -t vboxsf folder-name /media/windows-share
every time a start ubuntu?
And how to make it available at "PLACES"
tks in advance
September 23rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm forgot to add
great post :)
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:28 pm Hi,
Thanks a lot! Worked great!
October 9th, 2009 at 4:05 am I had to:
sudo apt-get install dkms
then reinstall the guest additions, reboot and then:
sudo mount -t vboxsf folder-name /media/windows-share
and it worked.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:12 pm Wonderful! It worked exactly as the article published. Helps me playing with my Linux toy :)
October 25th, 2009 at 12:04 pm thanks a lot. . .It's really an easy solution to the specified problem! ! ! nd ur solution works like a charm! ! ! ! ! !
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:08 am so far that sums up my linux experience. why do i have to do something as fundamental as mounting a drive using the command line?? i don't want to go back to the DOS days, it's 2009 not 1989. could you please describe how to do this using a gui?!!
November 4th, 2009 at 1:56 pm Nice one. I *needed* this info :)
November 7th, 2009 at 1:15 am To have the shared folder show up when you boot Ubuntu, add a line like this in /etc/fstab:
folder-name /media/windows-share vboxsf uid=myusername 0 2
Don't use a startup script to mount a filesystem.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:26 am fisher, I had this problem too
You need to run the command from another dir (e.g. do not run it from the /media dir)
Anyways, great tutorial - Thanks!
November 8th, 2009 at 5:56 pm Thanks... it worked... :)
November 11th, 2009 at 8:18 am Just as an alternative - you can configure your guest network adapter as bridged. This will allow the guest to get an address on the same subnet as your host from the DHCP server. From there, you can use WinSCP to copy files back from a linux installation that has SSH set up on it.
November 11th, 2009 at 4:52 pm Perfect Thank you it works
November 15th, 2009 at 9:12 am had to use mount.vboxsf, mount -t vboxsf wouldn't work for me. thanks!
November 21st, 2009 at 4:07 am Hi, I did the above and it works, but I can't write to it from Ubunto, it say's Permission denied. I tried to sudo chmod, sudo chown. In the virtual box I did set it to mount permanently, but did not check off readonly. In windows I did the same. I can write as root, but just not as the regular user
November 24th, 2009 at 10:35 am Awesome, thank you so much!
January 5th, 2010 at 2:49 am Thanks loads for this! Very easy to follow and helpful.
January 15th, 2010 at 1:30 am Worked like a charm! Thanks!
January 29th, 2010 at 7:10 am Thanks. Now I can share files. Also, thanks donnie for the tips.
Now, to figure how to make the windows-share as a desktop shortcut....
January 29th, 2010 at 7:14 am "Now, to figure how to make the windows-share as a desktop shortcut.... "
Nvm, ctrl+ shift drag did the trick. :)
February 4th, 2010 at 3:55 pm Good tip. Thank you.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:17 pm Excellent, a Big Thanks!!!!
February 20th, 2010 at 9:00 pm Great!
Also works well for USB-Sticks. (I never found a way to reliably accesss them under VirtualBox.) Thanks!
February 24th, 2010 at 10:33 pm thanks for the pointer. i did this and it worked flawlessly.
so i got the brilliant idea to share a fat32 usb disc rather than repartition my ntfs drive (permissions issues with ntfs not fun). so i shared my empty usb disc and mounted it, but i couldn't ls on the disc. said:
"/bin/ls: cannot open directory .: Operation not permitted."
what the? it worked 2 minutes ago!
it seems the disc IS working, but for some reason ls fails on an empty disc. so i created a text file:
vi hi.txt
i edited and saved the file. worked fine. i was then able to ls on the top-level directory.
March 4th, 2010 at 8:41 am Thanks ... It really helped me to mount a windows shared box on Ubuntu