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chaosgeisterchen

Member

From: Kefermarkt, Upper Austria

Registered: 2006-11-20

Posts: 550

[vmware] Best way to share files between host and client

Good afternoon!

I have successfully installed VMware server on my machine and set up a virtual machine, powering Windows XP for study issues (emulation via wine does not do the trick for me). The virtual machine runs fast and stable but does not meet my requirements unless I have two issues faced:

First:

How to access a USB pendrive monunted by the host system properly within the client?

Second:

What is the best way to share file system space between host and client? Should I set up a Samba share which is accessible for both host and client or is it save to grant my VM access to my physical hard disc as a whole (using it as a partition)?

Thanks for answers in advance, I have still quite a lot to learn, when it comes to VMs.

Regards,
~cg

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celestary
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.86 GHz
kernel26
KDEmod current repository

gorn

Member

Registered: 2008-02-01

Posts: 56

Re: [vmware] Best way to share files between host and client

Do not setup your VMware to be able to access your physical disk as a whole. This would have you mounting the filesystem twice, corrupting it in the process.

You /can/ setup VMware with Sharing Folders that lets you share your filesystem (either / or just /home or something else) and that is what I would recommend.

As for accessing the pen drive from both operating systems at once, I'd say use the same Sharing Folders method. I always share /mnt so that I can access my cdrom/USB/etc from the vmware OS.

The sharing folders is basically the same as a samba share, but uses vmware's own method (HGFS). Samba is more secure (if you are worried about your VMware OS breaking from it's shell and attacking your real filesystem, which is unlikely). You need the vmware tools installed to make use of it.

chaosgeisterchen

Member

From: Kefermarkt, Upper Austria

Registered: 2006-11-20

Posts: 550

Re: [vmware] Best way to share files between host and client

I have set up samba to communicate between the host and client. Works quite nice, thanks for the hint.

Success was achieved following this comprehensive howto.

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celestary
Intel Core2Duo E6300 @ 1.86 GHz
kernel26
KDEmod current repository