Setting up a virtual machine in Oracle VM VirtualBox is easy, but sharing files with it? Not so much. It is because of how annoying and difficult file sharing between guest and host machines is (especially on Linux) that we’re going to cover it today. We’ll go over how to share files in VirtualBox from a host machine to a guest machine over USB, the Network and straight from the host PC to the Guest PC, but first we’ll need to install the Guest Additions.
Guest Additions
Be sure that you’ve got a Virtual Machine already installed and setup under Linux. Not sure how to do that? Check out our guide all about using VirtualBox on Linux. Once you’ve got a machine up and running, look for the “Device” menu and click on it. Inside the input menu, find “insert guest additions”. This will tell VirtualBox to go out, download and insert the latest version of “guest additions”, something that allows Host machines to more easily interact with Guest machines.
Follow the auto-run prompt dialog, and install the Guest Additions to your Virtual Machine. This is critical because without the Guest Additions, interacting between the host machine and guest machine become very difficult.
When the installation is complete, reboot the virtual machine.
Share Files In VirtualBox
The easiest and fastest way to share files from the PC hosting the VM to the VM itself is to just expose the VM to the file system that it is running from. To do this, first, make sure that the VM is turned off. This isn’t required, but doing so makes it easier to modify settings.
In the main VirtualBox window, right-click on the VM, and select “Settings”. Look at the bottom of the VBox settings window for “Shared Folders” and select it. Under the shared folders window, it is possible to create shared folders for the Guest VM to read. Click the blue folder with the green + icon on it to make a new share.
First, go to “Folder Path” and click the arrow. This exposes a drop-down menu, with “Other”. Select it to bring up a file browser, and use it to navigate to the folder location on your Linux PC you’d like to share.
Check the “Auto-mount” button to have the VM automatically mount the share at boot. Additionally, select the “Read-only” box if you’d like to prevent the Guest VM from changing any files or folders on the share.
To access the shared folder in the file manager, go to /media/sharename
For example, to access Personal, you’d do: /media/Personal, and etc.
Want to access it in the terminal? Use CD and navigate to /media/sharename.
Sharing Files Via USB
In addition to sharing files directly from the Host PC to the Guest virtual PC, it is possible to transfer files via connected USB devices. To enable support for this feature, first go to the VirtualBox official website, and download the extension pack. This pack, when installed, adds support for USB devices, as well as RDP, disk encryption, support for NVMe SSDs, and etc.
On the downloads page, scroll down and look for “Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack”. VirtualBox doesn’t distribute this extension pack specific to an operating-system, so it can be installed on Linux, as well as any other operating system that VirtualBox can run on.
To install the package, open up the file manager and double-click on the file. Doing so will instantly launch an install dialog inside of VirtualBox. Follow the instructions that appear to finish installing the package. When done, right-click on the VM you’d like to add USB devices onto and select the “settings” button.
Under the settings window, select the “USB” icon, to move to the USB controller settings. In the USB settings area, it is possible to give the virtual machine direct access to the USB controller. Select from “USB 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0” depending on the USB hub on your PC, and then move on down to the blue USB icon with the green + sign to manually add a USB device.
Adding Devices On The Fly
Often times, it’s faster to plug in USB devices, then manually add each one of them to the system. It makes it easier to access them right away. However, if you’re constantly hot-swapping USB storage devices with the guest virtual machine, it may be better to add devices another way.
First, start up the guest virtual machine, and boot it up normally. From here, plug in any USB devices you’d like to connect to the system. Simpsons hit and run grid. Then, look to the bottom right of the VM window for a USB icon. Right-click the icon to reveal any connected USB devices. Click on any device that appears in the menu to connect it to the machine.
When the device is directly connected to the Guest machine, everything should be usable. Access files via the file manager (or Explorer window if you’re running a version of Windows).
Is it possible to copy files from Oracle VM desktop to the other local windows?
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2 Answers
Yes it is. You have to go to Settings-->Advanced and set 'Drag'nDrop' to Bidirectional. You may also have to install the VM extensions before doing so(Devices-->Install guest additions mounts a cd and then you may have to go run setup if it does not autorun).
ntgntg
Only way i am able to do it personally is to
Write the files in a CD/DVD disk from the Oracle VM then copy pasting the files to your Desktop from the CD/DVD
Alternatively you can also transfer the files to your desktop via a Pen-drive
According to me the best way to share would be to Share a Folder which then can be shared by the host and guest. But I am not able to share my folder hence cant provide you the steps. Perhaps this section could help you http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch03.html#id2654538
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Subtitles
welcome back to the adventure this is Adam and today we're looking at how to transfer files from guest to host in VirtualBox if you are new to VirtualBox the host is the operating system VirtualBox is installed on in my case that is Windows 7 the guest is the operating system installed inside of VirtualBox for demonstration we can use this virtual machine with windows 95 installed say I want to install a browser like SeaMonkey I wouldn't be able to use Internet Explorer to download it because no website that hosts the installer package will load an Internet Explorer 2 so I will need to transfer the install package from the host to the guest we will first need to download the SeaMonkey install package on the host now we will need to create a disk image that can be mounted in VirtualBox the SeaMonkey installer is larger than a floppy disk can hold so the next best option is a CD image we will need a utility that can create an ISO disk image we have a few options for this let's start by googling best FREE CD burning software Lifehacker has is covered with an article on the topic we can search through here for a suitable program in most cases these free utilities can create ISO images another option would be to Google best free ISO Creator same process read through the article and find a program that sounds good I use power iso for no particular reason the free version allows you to create disk images up to 300 megabytes in size which will be fine for our purposes so I can drag and drop the SeaMonkey install package into power iso then click save as and find a place to save my new ISO once you choose the program you want to use and create the ISO it's off to VirtualBox start the virtual machine and once we are at the desktop we can click on devices in the VirtualBox menu bar then point to optical drive and click Choose disk image locate the disk image then click open the disk image I created doesn't have an autoplay option so we will need to open my computer and browse to the optical drive then launched the SeaMonkey installer follow the card above for other VirtualBox tutorials subscribe for more videos on retro tech and legacy software thanks for stopping by see you next video.
Please I wish to transfer files and folders from Windows (host) to Linux (virtual machine) using WinSCP.Any ideas?
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closed as off topic by EEAA, Zoredache, kce, John Gardeniers, WesleyApr 27 '12 at 3:26
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1 Answer
It's as simple as running SSHD on the Linux VM and using WinSCP to connect to it over an IP network. Nothing special. Just make sure you have a properly functioning virtual network.
A better option to transfer files to a guest would be to use VirtualBox Shared Folders.
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This question already has an answer here:
- Sharing between Host and Guest in Virtualbox 2 answers
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 its not able to mount the sf_shared folders,if even its mounted. This means I'm unable to retrieve the file from the host.can tell me how to do it.
How To Transfer Files From Virtualbox To Pc Windows 7
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marked as duplicate by Eliah Kagan, Eric Carvalho, Yaron, Kevin Bowen, Charles GreenSep 7 '17 at 14:14
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5 Answers
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
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.First, make sure that your virtual machine is powered off.
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.
Click OK then start your guest.
Job Done the shared folder appears on you guest machine as
There is only one more step add any user in your guest system that needs access to the folder to the group vboxsf:
Log out and back in, everything should work fine now.
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On the VM settings in the Shared folders section, remember the name of your shared forlder!
After installing the VBox Guest additions on the guest OS fire up a terminal and type in
After installing the VBox Guest additions on the guest OS fire up a terminal and type in
may wanna check https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15868
Ayman NedjmeddineAyman Nedjmeddine
Go to
Devices
option of your VM and click on the Shared Folders
option and add the required_folder
you want to share.Now in your file system (root) you can see media/sf_required_folder
.But by default the Guest User won't have access to this folder. So to grant access to this folder you need to add Guest user to the group vboxsf
.For this, sudo adduser Guest_user vboxsf
to give access. Now have the access. AJ.AJ.
If you want to share files and folders you can use Vbox extensions as mentioned in other posts.
Alternatively you can use Nitroshare :
- Install Nitroshare (in host and in guest )Fifa 18 crack file. There are four ways to install Nitroshare - reference : here
- Start Nitroshare (in guest and host) from the dash or from a terminal command
nitroshare
You will see the tray icon on top right corner : - By default the destination folder is
~/Desktop
. You can modify it in settings. - Sending files and folders:Select _send files/Directory _ from the tray icon, select the file /directory you want to share, click on open.Then select the VM device from the menu and click OK.
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Try this combo. I used this as I am using AMD64 CPU.
It works. Also Make sure
After installing the VBox Guest additions on the guest OS (VM) fire up a terminal on Guest server and type in
Example
where
/home/myshare
is a folder on Host Server and /mnt
is a folder on guest server.Start dumping files on host folder
BuZZ-dEE/home/myshare
and see the same on guest /mnt
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