| 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic
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| 3 | PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 4 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="sharedfolders">
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| 5 | <title>Shared Folders</title>
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| 6 |
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| 7 | <body>
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| 8 | <p>With the <i>shared folders</i> feature of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>, you
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| 9 | can access files of your host system from within the guest system. This is similar to how you would use network
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| 10 | shares in Windows networks, except that shared folders do not require networking, only the Guest Additions. Shared
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| 11 | folders are supported with Windows 2000 or later, Linux, and Oracle Solaris guests. <ph
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| 12 | conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> includes experimental support for Mac OS X and OS/2 guests. </p>
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| 13 | <p>Shared folders physically reside on the <i>host</i> and are then shared with the guest, which uses a
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| 14 | special file system driver in the Guest Additions to talk to the host. For Windows guests, shared folders are
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| 15 | implemented as a pseudo-network redirector. For Linux and Oracle Solaris guests, the Guest Additions provide a
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| 16 | virtual file system. </p>
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| 17 | <p>To share a host folder with a virtual machine in <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"
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| 18 | />, you must specify the path of the folder and choose a <i>share name</i> that the guest can use to access the
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| 19 | shared folder. This happens on the host. In the guest you can then use the share name to connect to it and access
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| 20 | files. </p>
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| 21 | <p>There are several ways in which shared folders can be set up for a virtual machine: </p>
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| 22 | <ul>
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| 23 | <li>
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| 24 | <p>In the window of a running VM, you select <b outputclass="bold">Shared Folders</b> from the <b
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| 25 | outputclass="bold">Devices</b> menu, or click the folder icon on the status bar in the bottom right corner. </p>
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| 26 | </li>
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| 27 | <li>
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| 28 | <p>If a VM is not currently running, you can configure shared folders in the virtual machine's <b
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| 29 | outputclass="bold">Settings</b> window. </p>
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| 30 | </li>
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| 31 | <li>
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| 32 | <p>From the command line, you can create shared folders using <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput>, as
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| 33 | follows: </p>
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| 34 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage sharedfolder add "VM name" --name "sharename" --hostpath "C:\test"</pre>
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| 35 | <p> See <xref href="../cli_topics/vboxmanage-sharedfolder.dita"/>.</p>
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| 36 | </li>
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| 37 | </ul>
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| 38 | <p>There are two types of shares: </p>
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| 39 | <ul>
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| 40 | <li>
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| 41 | <p>Permanent shares, that are saved with the VM settings. </p>
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| 42 | </li>
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| 43 | <li>
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| 44 | <p>Transient shares, that are added at runtime and disappear when the VM is powered off. These can
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| 45 | be created using a check box in <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/vbox-mgr"/>, or by using the
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| 46 | <codeph>--transient</codeph> option of the <userinput>VBoxManage sharedfolder add</userinput> command. </p>
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| 47 | </li>
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| 48 | </ul>
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| 49 | <p>Shared folders can either be read-write or read-only. This means that the guest is either allowed to
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| 50 | both read and write, or just read files on the host. By default, shared folders are read-write. Read-only folders
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| 51 | can be created using a check box in the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/vbox-mgr"/>, or with the
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| 52 | <codeph>--readonly option</codeph> of the <userinput>VBoxManage sharedfolder add</userinput> command. </p>
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| 53 | <p><ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> shared folders also support symbolic links, also
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| 54 | called <i>symlinks</i>, under the following conditions: </p>
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| 55 | <ul>
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| 56 | <li>
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| 57 | <p>The host operating system must support symlinks. For example, a macOS, Linux, or Oracle Solaris
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| 58 | host is required. </p>
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| 59 | </li>
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| 60 | <li>
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| 61 | <p>The guest VM must have a version of the Guest Additions installed which supports symlinks.
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| 62 | Currently only the Linux and Oracle Solaris Guest Additions support symlinks. </p>
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| 63 | </li>
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| 64 | <li>
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| 65 | <p>For security reasons the guest OS is not allowed to create symlinks by default. If you trust the
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| 66 | guest OS to not abuse this functionality, you can enable the creation of symlinks for a shared folder as
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| 67 | follows: </p>
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| 68 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage setextradata <varname>VM-name</varname> VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/<varname>sharename</varname> 1</pre>
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| 69 | </li>
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| 70 | </ul>
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| 71 | <p>If a symbolic link is created inside a shared folder on the host and the installed Guest Additions do not
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| 72 | support symbolic links then the guest will see the target of the symlink as a file inside the shared folder. For
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| 73 | example, if a symlink is created to a file on a Linux host: </p>
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| 74 | <p>
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| 75 | <pre xml:space="preserve">$ cd /SharedFolder && ln -s filename symlink-to-filename</pre>
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| 76 | </p>
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| 77 | <p>When the shared folder is viewed on a Windows guest there will be two identical files listed,
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| 78 | <userinput>filename</userinput> and <userinput>symlink-to-filename</userinput>. </p>
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| 79 | </body>
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| 80 |
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| 81 |
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| 82 | </topic>
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