Virtualbox Guest Additions: How to set a shared folder in OpenSUSE 11.2 guest

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This cost me a lot of time to figure out and this is just multiple threads combined into one. Hopefully this will save someone a lot of hassle and please respond if there is a better way to do this! (There probably is but I haven’t found it yet.)

Also most of this is shamelessly ripped from this excellent thread: VirtualBox Guest additions in OpenSUSE 11.2 - openSUSE Forums
This was the only thread that helped me to get shared folders to work but it was incomplete for my purpose so that’s why this thread exists.

Situation: OpenSUSE installed in a Virtualbox Virtual Machine and I want to set a shared folder.

1 - Set up a Virtual Machine and install OpenSUSE 11.2

2 - Create a shared folder on host (HostFolder)

3 - Setup the shared folder in Virtualbox
Via the Virtual Machine details or via Devices > Shared Folders…

4 - Install dependencies for running the Virtualbox installer
You need to install the right development kernelpackage for your machinetype (use ‘zypper search -i kernel’ to see what’s installed)
sudo zypper make gcc kernel-source kernel-hosttype/default-devel

5 - Run the Virtual Machine and go to Devices > Guest Additions
This mounts an iso image in your OpenSUSE guest.

6 - Open a root terminal and run

** cd /usr/src/linux
make oldconfig && make prepare && make scripts && make dep
cp …/linux-obj/$HOSTTYPE/default/Module.symvers .
make prepare**

** A commenter on previously mentioned thread says this step is unnecessary but it doesn’t work without on my system. I suggest trying step 7 first and returning to step 6 if that fails. **

7 - Run **./VirtualboxLinux **yourhosttype .run from the mounted iso image.

8 - Create shared folder in OpenSUSE (GuestFolder)

9 - Test with sudo mount -t vboxsf HostFolder /home/user/GuestFolder

It works? Great! Let’s set up the system so it automounts for your regular useraccount instead of root-only access.

10 - Add this line to /etc/fstab
**HostFolder /home/user/GuestFolder vboxsf defaults,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0
**

11 - It works for me but if it still doesn’t automount after a reboot; sudo mount -a

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Just another thing I had to learn the hard way… In step 3 you have to name your hostfolder and that name you have to put in /etc/fstab. Not the path like ‘/home/user/HostFolder’ that will result in a protocol error.

As an extra bonus; sudo /sbin/mount.vboxsf HostFolder /path/to/GuestFolder is also possible to mount the HostFolder :slight_smile: