Sharing files between my Guest Kubuntu OS and Host Windows has become a real headache.

So, far I have done the steps below:

GUEST LINUX OS

• VM -> Settings -> Options -> Shared Folders. And added my folder.
• Installed properly my VMware tools (I can drag and drop files so I am confident that it is installed)

HOST WINDOWS OS

• Shared the folder with everyone (to assure that there is no permit limitations with my files)

If I type vmware-hgfsclient in my guest OS, the folder I am sharing does appear. But when I check the /mnt/hgfs folder, it is empty.

I have gone through the VMware manual, and I am sure that I have followed their requirements.

I am really out of ideas. Does any one have a suggestion?

7 Answers

Run this command:

sudo vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs/ -o allow_other -o uid=1000

It will magically show all shared folders in /mnt/hgfs.
(I had Ubuntu 16 VMWare running on a Windows 10 host)

VMware documentation here

4

I had this exact problem. It turned out IT had installed some old version of VMWare tools with non-functioning vmhgfs kernel module.

My solution was to run the configuration with the clobber-kernel-modules setting to overwrite the existing vmhgfs module.

 sudo vmware-config-tools.pl -d --clobber-kernel-modules=vmhgfs

The -d selects all the defaults for you (remove it if you don't want the defaults).

6

mount -t vmhgfs .host:/share /mnt/hgfs/ where host is the host you are connecting to share is the share name and /mnt/hgfs is the mount point for the share in your system.

vmware-hgsclient will show you the available mounts, you still need to mount them with vmware-hgfsmounter or using the mount command above described.

If that does not work check if the module vmhgfs is loaded lsmod | grep "vm."

2

For me, it turned out that vmware-hgfsmounter was not installed (ubuntu 12.10). After installing that module, I was able to mount my share as descibed above

1

This was working for me on Ubuntu 18.04, but suddenly stopped working sometime in February/March 2019. What was needed to be done, was sudo mkdir /mnt/hgfs, as that directory is being used by the vmware init script.

0

For me, I installed "Development Tools" and reinstalled VMware Tool. Then I see the shared folder.

Host: Windows 7 Guest OS: CentOS 7

I ran into same issue while working with Ubuntu 21.10 impish. Below is a complete solution guide for this shared folder issue.

Pre-work

Make sure open-vm-tools (and open-vm-tools-desktop if you're using a desktop environment) are installed, and that you've rebooted after their installation.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop

Make sure you have a /mnt/hgfs directory made and empty. If not:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/hgfs

Mounting

To mount the filesystem, run:

sudo mount -t fuse.vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other

The shared folders will now be in subdirectories of /mnt/hgfs

Setting up auto-mounting

Add the following line to /etc/fstab:

.host:/ /mnt/hgfs fuse.vmhgfs-fuse auto,allow_other 0 0

Update: based on extensive testing, the auto keyword seems to work fine. Prior versions suggested noauto. If you have trouble with auto, change to noauto and see below

If using the noauto keyword, but you want automount

1. Create or edit the script /etc/rc.local (as root), and add the line:

   mount /mnt/hgfs

2. make sure rc.local is executable and owned by root:

   sudo chown root:root /etc/rc.local
   sudo chmod 0755 /etc/rc.local

3. enable the rc.local service in systemd:

   sudo systemctl enable rc-local.service

4. reboot

The rc.local script runs as the last step of startup, allowing the HGFS filesystem to mount after open-vm-tools services are running, which is required for successful operation.

Browse /mnt/hgfs at will.

Ref :

Unlike using VMWare Tools to enable Linux guest capabilities, the open-vm-tools package doesn't auto-mount shared VMWare folders.

Reference from official docs :

2

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