Debian – Shared clipboard in Virtualbox with command line only Debian guest

OK, just experimented with Debian Wheezy guest on a Windows XP host (VirtualBox 4.3.8).

Prerequisites:

• Host:

  • Create a shared folder (using the UI or the vboxmanage command).

  • Notice that it has both the pathname and the "shortname".

    For instance, I might share the folder C:\Documents and settings\User making it available under the name user.

• Debian guest:

  • Have virtualbox-guest-dkms installed, compiled for the current kernel (done automatically; if not, install the matching linux-headers package and run dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-guest-dkms).
  • Have virtualbox-guest-utils to make mount.vboxsf available.

Now on your guest you can do

# mkdir /tmp/foo
# mount.vboxsf user /tmp/foo

or, alternatively, the last step can be spelled as

# mount -t vboxsf user /tmp/foo

Notice the usage of the short name for the "device" argument in the call to mount.

The answer is based on this comment in the thread dealing with the similar issue elsewhere on SO.

you need to do one step more, when you start your window 7, you will see menus at top.

click on Devices -> shared Clipboard -> Bidirectional

now you can copy and paste from host to guest or gues to host