Virtualbox Ubuntu Linux guest shares via Guest Additions

Ok, I have Linux VM’s running on a Solaris host. One thing I can never find anywhere is instructions on how to mount the shares. It is actually very easy to do.

1. Install the guest additions in the guest.

2. Select the directories you want to share to the guest via the VirtualBox control panel (Settings->Shared Folders).

3. And now the missing piece. On the linux system make your user account part of the vboxsf group, any group that should be able to get to these shares

 

The shares will appear in the /media folder on my Ubuntu guest prefaced with a “sf_”. So if I share the folder to the guest as Videos, I would find a /media/sf_Videos folder. If you do not add the account in question to the vboxsf group then you will see no files in the folder.

I first ran into this setting up a Plex media server in a guest. Plex could not see any files in the folder, but when you add the plex account to the /etc/group file(example below) it works like a champ.

vboxsf:x:1001:plex

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