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maigre
Contributor
Contributor

sharing files between ubuntu 7.10 and host

I have a Ubuntu 7.10 installation that I got as a VM that seems to be running fine. A simple question, I think. How do I share files between it and my OS X host?

I'm a Fusion and VM newbie, so please excuse me if the answer should be obvious. I'm a quick learner, though. :smileyblush:

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

First you need to enable Shared Folders in Virtual Machines > Settings > Share Folders. Use the + symbol in the lower-left to add a new folder from the host. In Ubuntu (and most linux distros) the path to get to shared folders is /mnt/hgfs/ sharename

If /mnt/hgfs is empty you'll have to locate your VM's .vmx file make sure this line is changed from:

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "TRUE"

to

isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE"

Changing this setting requires rebooting Ubuntu or restarting the VMware Tools.

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maigre
Contributor
Contributor

First you need to enable Shared Folders in Virtual Machines > Settings > Share Folders. Use the + symbol in the lower-left to add a new folder from the host. In Ubuntu (and most linux distros) the path to get to shared folders is /mnt/hgfs/+ share name +

Done. But then what?

I can get OS X to see the shared folder on the Ubuntu installation, but I can't connect to it. I don't seem to be able to enter a valid password and/or I get an error message about the alias in the Finder being invalid. If you're able to give me some detail about this, that would be great, but if not, is there a doc somewhere? I've been surfing around, but am not finding anything that's giving me the info I need.

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rcardona2k
Immortal
Immortal

Shared Folders is a two-way connection from within the guest, not the host. In Ubuntu, open the folder /mnt/hgfs and the shared folders you setup from the host should appear, for instance this is my Desktop folder in Ubuntu:

rcardona@ubuntu710:/mnt/hgfs/Desktop$ ls -l
total 205
drwxr-xr-x 1 osxuser osxuser    714 2007-10-26 21:11 Fusion
-rw-r--r-- 1 osxuser osxuser    453 2007-10-02 20:57 Passmark.rtf
-rw-r--r-- 1 osxuser osxuser    910 2007-05-10 12:16 vmspec comments.rtf

These files and folders are on my OS X desktop, yet accessible from Ubuntu.

NOTE: VMware doesn't setup anything you can connect from OS X, for this you have to setup Samba or other file sharing in the guest yourself. Shared Folders are writeable from the guest (assuming you don't click read-only) so you can transfer files out of Ubuntu if you copy to /mnt/hgfs/...

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EmmEff
Contributor
Contributor

Perhaps worthy of mention is that it's not possible to enable "Shared Folders" from the VM settings dialog in Fusion 1.1rc1. After checking the checkbox, and clicking "Apply", the setting is reverted to disabled or am I misunderstanding the option "isolation.tools.hgfs.disable" in the .vmx. Does this setting override the GUI settings for the VM?

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maigre
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks, but for some reason, this isn't working for me. I've turned on personal and windows file sharing on OS X and tried to set things up in Ubuntu. I can access the shared dirs from Ubuntu on my Windows box, but not on the Mac that's hosting the Ubuntu VM.

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maigre
Contributor
Contributor

I can access the OS X host via ftp successfully. The host shows up as a networked computer in Network/Workgroups. But nothing's visible within that computer if I double click to enter it.

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