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I have a bunch of virtual Windows machines in VirtualBox If I make a shared folder of the Ubuntu root folder, I will get access to both USB drives, as well as the user folder, etc from the VM's. I also want to have write access from the VM's. But is this dangerous? Or a little bit risky? I usually don't bother to install any antivirus or anything on the VM's. Could a virus on the VM potentially start messing with my Ubuntu system files?

Is it maybe better to have seperate shared folders? One of the user folder, one of media, etc?

I'm on Ubuntu 14.04.

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    Sure: if your VM is compromised it could lead to the same situation with your host machine Mar 30, 2016 at 6:49
  • check this, looks similar situation askubuntu.com/questions/25596/how-to-set-up-usb-for-virtualbox
    – OmPS
    Mar 30, 2016 at 6:54
  • @OmPS I know how to share USB volumes. And this question is not about sharing other USB devices. I'm not asking how to do anything, I'm asking about the risks or danger of doing something.
    – Fiksdal
    Mar 30, 2016 at 6:57
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    @fiksdal In that case, yes its a potential risk. if your VM is not even compromised, there are chances that it may write to the root FS or if you as user may perform any operation on to VM, which can lead to issues on Host. lilke having the filesystem getting full, corruption of system files.
    – OmPS
    Mar 30, 2016 at 8:06

1 Answer 1

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Usually the purpose of a VM is to isolate a system from the host. If you're sharing the entire file system, I see not much profit in using a VM any more.
If guest and host OS are the same, just use the host. If they're different, probably a dual-boot setup would be better.

From the security aspect: as soon as you make the host disks or file systems accessible to the guest, malware on the guest can access and infect or destroy it as well.

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  • The host is Ubuntu, the guest is Windows. The purpose of the guest is to run certain Windows applications alongside Ubuntu. Ones that don't work in Wine.
    – Fiksdal
    Mar 30, 2016 at 7:17
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    And does this really need full access to all files of your Ubuntu host, including system files? Better just share a folder and copy or link the stuff you want to share in that one.
    – Byte Commander
    Mar 30, 2016 at 7:34
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    It would be very odd if the guest had write access to system files, since the VirtualBox process does not run with root privileges.
    – fkraiem
    Mar 30, 2016 at 7:42
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    Well, there is still the possibility of damage to files in your home directory and other areas writable by you... This can also happen from the host, of course, but you're more likely to get malware on Windows.
    – fkraiem
    Mar 30, 2016 at 7:46
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    And, by the way, for personal systems the home directory is usually the most valuable. System files can be reinstalled; pictures of your family cannot (unless you have a good backup system).
    – fkraiem
    Mar 30, 2016 at 7:51

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