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When running Ubuntu as a VirtualBox, where is the automount of the shared folders?

It's not in /etc/fstab so where else could it be?

3 Answers 3

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Ubuntu and other Linux Guests automounts shared folders under the folder /media with the format /media/sf_share-name.

Windows Guests automounts its shared folders as a drive letter in File-Manager

The Virtual Machine guest itself needs to have VirtualBox Guest Additions installed.

To use automounting, ensure that your user has the vboxsf user group which is also called Use VirtualBox virtualisation solution in the latest versions of VirtualBox.

Edit the Settings of the Virtual Machine itself and add the folder that is to be shared with the Virtual Guest as follows: enter image description here

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  • 1
    Note, after installing updates through the update manager I had to re-install guest additions. Somehow the updates broke the shared folder auto-mount functionality (Ubuntu 12.04).
    – ccook
    Dec 4, 2012 at 16:54
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From the host box you can list shared folders from command line via:

VBoxManage showvminfo {vm name here}

There is a "Shared folders:" section.

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  • My VirtualBox guest doesn't have VBoxManage only VBoxClient, VBoxControl and VBoxService May 25, 2017 at 21:04
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    @MarkMikofski You run VBoxManage from the host not guest. Host is the outer OS, guest is the inner OS. Jun 7, 2017 at 8:12
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this is covered here and here. they both work...

Copy and paste from the help.ubuntu.com page I referenced:

Linux

If the client is Linux, you have to mount and connect it to a directory.

The following bash commands (in the client) would setup a correct mount (and creates a link from your desktop) Note: you should not use spaces in the share name.

sharename="whatever.you.want.to.call.it"; 
sudo mkdir /mnt/$sharename \
sudo chmod 777 /mnt/$sharename \ 
sudo mount -t vboxsf -o uid=1000,gid=1000 $sharename /mnt/$sharename \
ln -s /mnt/$sharename $HOME/Desktop/$sharename

For the above command if you get error as

mount: unknown filesystem type 'vboxsf'

Then just change the vboxsf to vboxfs

If you want to have it mount automatically upon each boot, put the mount command in /etc/rc.local Debian distros (e.g. Ubuntu 10.04 and later)
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  • I think the question is not "how to use shared folder". Anyway, don't provide just external links, whose content can change out of our control, report the relevant information in the answer, instead.
    – enzotib
    May 28, 2011 at 6:45
  • @enzotib - I understand that...automount configuration is in there. One of the is the help.ubuntu.com wiki. I don't see that one going away. May 28, 2011 at 15:00

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