Sharing windows folders on unix hosts using samba filesystem (smbfs) using virtualbox

The need for windows sharing..

A few days ago, I wanted to do a Oracle 12i installation on a x86 linux distribution using virtualbox. The media was available on an external hard disk, but I thought that instead of copying the 30+ G of media on unix virtual machine, why not just make it shared between the windows host OS and unix guest OS.

The quest for sharing..

And so began my quest for sharing files between windows and virtualbox unix OS (SuSE linux). I discovered that for sharing folders using virtualbox, the guest OS additions have to be installed.

I have seen that upgrading the kernel breaks the guest OS additions at times. After upgrading the guest OS from SuSE linux 9 to SuSE linux 9.3, the guest additions stopped working. The same problem also exists with vmware tools.

So first, I created a shared folder in the virtual machine's definition:

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After starting the Guest OS (Ubuntu),

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# mkdir /mnt/winshare

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# mount -t vboxsf public /mnt/winshare

Mind you, the filesystem type is NOT vboxfs, it is vboxsf (s and f are interchanged). If you do not take note of this, you might end up wasting your time for nothing.

Now, we can check that the shared folder did indeed mount:

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# mount | grep vbox
public on /mnt/winshare type vboxsf (rw)

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# ls /mnt/winshare
CyberLink  desktop.ini  Downloads  Music     Recorded TV         Videos
Desktop    Documents    Favorites  Pictures  StarzEntertainment  Vongo

Let it be mentioned here that the vboxadd and vboxvfs (note that it has vfs after vbox) modules needed to be loaded for this to work:

root@gverma-laptop:/home/gverma# lsmod | grep vb
vboxvfs                 42432  1
vboxadd                 24872  9 vboxvfs

The Caveat..

But, as every cloud has a silver lining, there was a caveat here for my problem.

The above case was just a demonstration of how the shared folder could have worked fine. I actually then went on to mount some linux media for Oracle Applications 12i for x86 intel platform. After the directory mounted all right, I had a really hard time adding the execute permissions to the rapidwiz files. Even after doing persistent # chmod -R +x commands, the shell scripts under the media were not showing the "x" execute flag.

This was very frustrating. It was probably just another virtualbox bug.

So, then I started looking around for more options. I had heard that many people had used samba with success and hence I started scouring the internet (Google Zindabaad! - Long live, Google!). Came across a link that explained how to do it in a succinct manner.

The good thing about sharing files from windows to unix using samba file system (smbfs) was that was that I did not need to run samba on unix at all.

Doing it using samba filesystem..

So here are some quick and easy steps for sharing a windows share using smbfs:

First things first. You need to create a network share for the folder that you want to share. In my case, I wanted to share an external hard disk that had the media for Oracle Applications 12i. So, I did a network share of windows folder (e.g. \\GAURAV-PC\media)

On the guest OS (Ubuntu), did the following:

# mkdir -p /mnt/media

# smbmount //GAURAV-PC/media /mnt/media -o username=gaurav,password=welcome

Please note that // (forward slashes) worked for me. Some guides on the internet say that you need to use \\ (back slashes)

Note here that GAURAV-PC hostname was defined in the local hosts file to a resolvable IP address in the LAN. The Ubuntu Virtual machine was connected to the windows Host through a host only networking type interface, that allowed the host and guest OS to talk to each other.

# more /etc/hosts
GAURAV-PC 192.168.0.2

Please note here that a ping to GAURAV-PC HAS TO work when you give the smbmount command. I wasted many hours trying to run strace on this command, just because it was hanging. The issue was that due to some strange happenstance, the ping to GAURAV-PC (windows host) was hanging.

The workaround was to ping the Ubuntu virtual machine (say 192.168.0.7) first from the host OS (windows), after which the ping to GAURAV-PC 192.168.0.2 started working from Ubuntu Guest OS. Strange, strange, I agree, but I am just a guy looking for solutions! I have seen this behaviour in Windows Vista home premium edition - host OS.

Make sure the smbfs module is loaded in the guest OS. If not, then load it using # modprobe smbfs:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# lsmod | grep smbfs
smbfs                  66296  0

Note that the Samba server does not need to run:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# ps -ef | grep smb
root      6116  5616  0 00:00:00 grep smb

This was my samba configuration file:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# more /usr/share/samba/smb.conf
[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
security = share
usershare path =  /var/lib/samba/usershare
usershare max shares = 100
usershare allow guests = yes
usershare owner only = yes
wins support = no
netbios name = GAURAV-PC

I am not exactly sure if setting the netbios name parameter was a major factor in making it work or not, but I guess it certainly did not hurt.

Now when I run mount command, the windows network share was showing up there just fine:

root@gverma-laptop:/mnt/media/oracle_12.0.4/startCD/Disk1/rapidwiz# mount
/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.24-16-generic/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
rpc_pipefs on /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs type rpc_pipefs (rw)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/gverma/.gvfs type  fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=gverma)
//GAURAV-PC/media on /mnt/media type cifs (rw,mand)

Thankfully, I was able to make the unix shell scripts executable after doing this and launch the rapid wizard for 12i installation. That's all I wanted.

Conclusion

Well, so there you have it. If you are using windows host OS and you upgraded your guest OS kernel, the guest additions may not work due to compilation errors. In such a case, you are better off using the samba file system as its much easier to deal with and not too much of a pain to setup.