Ubuntu – How to share files from Host to Guest in VirtualBox? Host-Ubuntu, Guest-Ubuntu

12.04shared-foldersvirtualbox

I have an Ubuntu 12.04 machine on which I have installed VirtualBox with Ubuntu 12.04 as the guest OS.

How can I share files between the host and guest?

I have installed the guest additions also but still it’s not able to mount the sf_shared folders if even it’s mounted. This means I'm unable to retrieve the file from the host.

Best Answer

I do not believe its possible to share files between the host and the guest without installing the extension pack first though I could be wrong on this.

You can find that here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Check that the version of Virtualbox you have. Mine is 4.2.18 and double click the link

You should see something like this

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Click OK and let it install.

Next step create a folder on your host machine as as share area

I've created one called VboxShare in my home directory.

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First, make sure that your virtual machine is powered off.

machine-state-powered-off-image

Then, go into settings for your virtual machine, select shared folders then the plus icon to create a shared folder and fill in the details set it to auto mount.

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Click OK then start your guest.

Job Done the shared folder appears on you guest machine as

/media/sf_Vboxshare

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There is only one more step add any user in your guest system that needs access to the folder to the group vboxsf:

sudo adduser $USER vboxsf

Log out and back in, everything should work fine now.

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