Can't create symlink on shared folder

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Yes you are correct, apparently you can't create symbolic links on the host as this has been disabled in VirtualBox for security reasons.

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Hammadian
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Hammadian

Updated on September 18, 2022

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  • Hammadian
    Hammadian over 1 year

    I am trying to create a symlink on shared folder and it is failing.

    1. Host: Windows 7
    2. Guest: Debian Jessie
    3. Shared folder created using VirtualBox dialog, automount disabled
    4. Mounting command:

      sudo mount -t vboxsf -o uid=1000,gid=1000 vm_shared /home/userName/vm_shared

    Now, I cd to ~/vm_shared and ls and mkdir no problem, they show on host windows machine and guest Linux machine.

    When I try to create a symlink in the shared folder to be able to browse another Linux folder from Windows machine using:

    sudo ln -s ~/toBeBrowsed  ~/vm_shared/targetFolder
    

    I get the following:

    ln: failed to create symbolic link ‘~/vm_shared/targetFolder/toBeBrowsed’: Read-only file system
    

    What am I missing?

    Update: You can't create a symlink to shared folder that resides on a file system that does not support symlinks.

    • Genaro Morales
      Genaro Morales almost 7 years
      check this: superuser.com/questions/446362/… hope helps
    • Hammadian
      Hammadian almost 7 years
      Thank you for your answer, I read the answer you provided but it just shows the new symlink in the host Windows as a file with extention ".symlink"