Mounting Shared Folders in a Linux Guest

Mounting Shared Folders in a Linux Guest

After you have enabled a shared folder, you can mount one or more directories or subdirectories in the shared folder to any location in the file system in addition to the default location of /mnt/hgfs.

Use the mount command to mount all shares, one share, or a subdirectory within a share to any location in the file system.

Table 2. Mount Command Syntax

Command	Description
mount -t vmhgfs .host:/ /home/user1/shares	Mounts all shares to /home/user1/shares
mount -t vmhgfs .host:/foo /tmp/foo	Mounts the share named foo to /tmp/foo
mount -t vmhgfs .host:/foo/bar /var/lib/bar	Mounts the subdirectory bar within the share foo to /var/lib/bar

You can use VMware-specific options in addition to the standard mount syntax. For usage information for the host-guest file system options, type the command /sbin/mount.vmhgfs -h.

When you install VMware Tools, an entry is made to etc/fstab to specify the location of shared folders. You can edit this file to change or add entries. For example, to auto-mount at startup, edit /etc/fstab and add the line .host :/ /mnt/hgfs vmhgfs defaults 0 0.

The VMware Tools services script loads a driver that performs the mount. If the mount fails, a message appears regarding mounting HGFS shares.

Note

The mount can fail if shared folders are disabled or if the share does not exist. You are not prompted to run the VMware Tools vmware-config-tools.pl configuration program again.