Sharing folder from Windows Host to Freebsd Guest

Question

What I am trying to accomplish:

• I have (at home) a PC with Windows 7 installed
• I would like to run a Unix in Virtual Box, because I am more used to developing / scripting on it

I settled on Freebsd at the moment, and I managed to install it and configure the network. The next step is sharing a folder from Windows to Freebsd so that I can easily edit files on Windows and on Freebsd both. Unfortunately it seems a though thing to do.

I rummaged on the net and found two different ways:

• mounting a vboxsf
• using samba

I installed the guest additions in freebsd using pkg_add -r virtualbox-ose-additions, the install proceeded switfly enough, and I edited /etc/rc.conf to add the two suggested lines: vboxguest_enable="YES" and vboxservice_enable="YES" and rebooted.

It did not work. The command to mount the system ends up in an error:

# mount -t vboxsf shared /home/myuser/shared
mount: shared : Operation not supported by device

where shared is the name of the folder I setup in my virtual box settings for this VM.

Is it actually possible to use a vboxsf filesystem type in freebsd ? Some comments seem to suggest it is not supported but finding up-to-date information is difficult.

Next, I moved on to the samba approach. I basically followed the guide I linked it. Unfortunately it ends up with:

# mount_smbfs -N -I 192.168.56.1 //winuser@winmachinename/Shared /mnt/shared
mount_smbfs: unable to open connection: syserr = RPC struct is bad

where Shared is the name of the shared folder I configured with windows, accessible to the winuser obviously. The ping works.

I would like to note that I have no password on the windows guest account I am trying to connect at, it seemed easier, but perhaps that it's bothering samba somehow.

edit: working from PuTTY I had not seen that some messages were printed in the console:

smb_maperror: Unmapped error 3:31
smb_co_lock: recursive lock for object 1

both appear several times. /end of edit

If the direct filesytem sharing does not work, any idea how to get samba to do it ? The article suggest it's already be done by some at least.

Technical information:

• Host: Windows 7 Familial Edition (up-to-date)
• Guest: FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE #0: Tue Jan 3 07:15:25 UTC 2012 [email protected]:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386
• Virtual Box: 4.1.16 r78094

I am open to new suggestions to sharing as well. I would if possible prefer avoiding transferring files back and forth: it's not particularly efficient and always a source of confusing errors.

I am also open to changing systems. I like the philosophy of freebsd, but if it does not work, I have no qualms about moving to a linux.

EDIT:

This question is now purely of theoretical interest. I switch to using Ubuntu Server and managed to set it up without samba since vboxsf is well supported.

Solution 1

VirtualBox shared folders are still not suppported on FreeBSD.

A FreeBSD ports committer has confirmed this on the FreeBSD mailing lists as of (2014-06-24):

Shared Folders for FreeBSD guests are not supported yet [...] There is some draft code and a kernel module for it but it's not working yet.

If you want to follow the state of the port, please search the mailing lists. There is also the #freebsd-vbox IRC channel on Freenode. It was posted to the freebsd-hackers mailing list at the bottom of this post. You will find developers there.

Finally, here is what the virtualbox-ose-additions port currently supports according to Chapter 22.2 of the FreeBSD Handbook as of today:

The VirtualBox™ guest additions provide support for:

• Clipboard sharing.
• Mouse pointer integration.
• Host time synchronization.
• Window scaling.
• Seamless mode.

As you can see, no shared folders support yet for FreeBSD.

Chapter 4.3 of the VirtualBox manual states:

Shared Folders are supported with Windows (2000 or newer), Linux and Solaris guests.

Yet again no FreeBSD. Use SMB shares for now, following the instructions that others have mentioned.

Solution 2

Ensure that you have configured sharing on the windows folder to the user you wish to use to share on freebsd.

I like to add the following to /etc/hosts for ease of use.

<ip address of server>  vboxhost
eg.
192.168.56.1    vboxhost

First test mounting the folder:

mount_smbfs -I vboxhost //username@nameofwindowsbox/foldername /mnt

If this is correct you be prompted for the windows-user password.

To make it mount on boot add the following to /etc/fstab

//username@nameofwindowsbox/foldername  /mnt smbfs  rw,noauto  0 0

It should be mounted everytime you boot

If you don't want to be prompted for password add this in /etc/nsmb.conf:

[default]
[NAMEOFWINDOWSBOX]              
addr=<ip address of host>
[NAMEOFWINDOWSBOX:USERNAME]
password=<myPassword>

Solution 3

I was fighting the same problem. A couple things on the Windows side allowed me to finally get mount_smbfs working in FreeBSD 9.0:

• Enable anonymous access for the system

Network and Sharing Center → Change Advanced Sharing Settings → Turn off password protected sharing

• Enable anonymous access on the folder via Simple Sharing

Properties → Sharing → Share... → Add 'Everyone'

In the Sharing properties there are two ways to create the share; Simple Sharing and Advanced Sharing. I was using Advanced Sharing, and for some reason I don't really care about at this point, that did not work; I re-added the share through Simple Sharing and then mount/smbclient finally worked.

Verifying that anonymous login works with smbclient:

[root@fileserv ~]# smbclient -N -I 192.168.56.1 '\\twblamer-pc\share'
Domain=[TWBLAMER-PC] OS=[Windows 7 Professional 7601 Service Pack 1] Server=[Windows 7 Professional 6.1]
smb: \> dir
  .                                  DR        0  Thu Dec 13 04:33:09 2012
  ..                                 DR        0  Thu Dec 13 04:33:09 2012
  mydirectory                         D        0  Thu Dec 13 01:55:45 2012

Comments

[Matthieu M.]

@arved: no, I did not. Is it possible to configure an auto-mount through the smb client ? (Ideally I would prefer no samba, but hey, if it takes samba to work...)

[arved]

I don't think it is possible to mount. But at least you can verify that there is no misconfiguration on the Windows Share

[Matthieu M.]

Hi Pete. Thanks for your answer. Actually I changed arms and went with Ubuntu Server as I preferred a non-samba solution and FreeBSD does not support vboxfs yet.

[Pete]

You don't need to install samba for the above solution it works from a default install of FreeBSD.

[Pete]

I would recommend giving freebsd another go if you have time as i've found its jail feature very useful for development purposes. At the moment i have 5 jails: www(apache22+php53), www(apache22+php54), MySQL, PostgreSQL, email-server. I have found this invaluable in terms of testing different versions of php and databases

[Pete]

Also as FreeBSD has many terminals by default alt+f1 -> alt+f8 meaning if you go with jails you can build them in parallel saving you time when you use the ports system. Heck you could even setup a jail just to build software. I use qjail.

[Matthieu M.]

well, my purpose was to hack on Clang/LLVM, so it's quite fine with me.

[Matthieu M.]

Thanks for the answer, I switched to Ubuntu in the end (which was easier as I had access to a friend that used it).

[twblamer]

Yep, just wanted to try to help any future googlers.

[Matthieu M.]

And I thank you for doing so, had a very hard time finding any solution when I tried :)

[Kristen Waite]

If the OP was trying to get shares to mount on boot, they should omit the noauto on the fstab entry - the use of noauto here prevents the mount on boot (i.e. you'd have to run mount -a to get it to work after boot).