Mount shared folder (vbox) as another user

Question

I'm trying to mount my vbox shared folder every time my ubuntu starts.

So, I added an entry on /etc/init with this:

description     "mount vboxsf Desktop"

start on startup

task
exec mount -t vboxsf Desktop /var/www/shared

Seems to work, except by the fact that all the files are owned by "root", and I don't have permission to write on the folder (neither chmod nor chown seems to be working).

So, how can I make all the files under this shared folder to be owned by www-data user/group?

Thanks

ps.: The main reason for me to have an automatic shared folder, is so I can create/edit files from the HOST on the GUEST www folder.

If you have a better idea for that, instead of sharing the folder, fell free to say.

score 15 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:41

[Same answer as in: StackOverflow]

Well, while I was having another issue related with my shared folder, I ended up getting to this stackoverflow question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6298933/shared-folder-in-virtualbox-for-apache

It helped me in 2 ways, and seems that what I need are those uid and gid options.

So, to mount a shared folder as another user, I would run:

mount -t vboxsf SHARE_NAME /some/dir -o uid=48,gid=48

Also, to see what are your www-data's gid and uid, just run id www-data.

If you also need to change the permissions on the mounted files, just add "dmode" to the options, as:

sudo mount -t vboxsf SHARE_NAME -o rw,dmode=777,gid=GROUP_ID,uid=USER_ID /path/on/guest

The available options are (from mount's help):

rw         mount read write (default)
ro         mount read only
uid       =<arg> default file owner user id
gid       =<arg> default file owner group id
ttl       =<arg> time to live for dentry
iocharset =<arg> i/o charset (default utf8)
convertcp =<arg> convert share name from given charset to utf8
dmode     =<arg> mode of all directories
fmode     =<arg> mode of all regular files
umask     =<arg> umask of directories and regular files
dmask     =<arg> umask of directories
fmask     =<arg> umask of regular files

And if you need it to run during the system init, just create a file on /etc/init/SOMETHING.conf, with something like this:

description     "SOME DESCRIPTION"

start on startup

task
exec mount -t vboxsf SHARE_NAME /path/on/guest -o uid=1000,gid=33

Goodness, I have been looking for well over an hour how to get the owner to anything else than `root` and I was going crazy: you saved my sanity! — Matthieu M., Jul 15 '12 at 14:19
I'm glad that it helped (If you could, just up vote my answer please) :) — dmmd, Jul 15 '12 at 22:15
excellent, excellent answer. I did not realise the idea is to mount it as another user. I answered my own question http://superuser.com/questions/527963/how-to-allow-nginx-in-guest-vm-access-shared-folders-in-host-os/527991 with your help. Thank you! — Kim Stacks, Jan 04 '13 at 09:06
Thanks! And of course SHARE_NAME-o is actually SHARE_NAME -o — Martin Cleaver, Dec 23 '14 at 01:09
Thanks for pointing that out, @MartinCleaver. I've edited the answer. — dmmd, Dec 30 '14 at 20:52

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jan 16 '16 at 08:38

If you want to share your files between your host and your guest, you can easily run a Web Server instead of hard sharing of a folder. Please note that host and client is Ubuntu 14.04 in my commands: In the host:

mkdir /home/SomeDirectory
cd /home/SomeDirectory
python -m SimpleHTTPServer

Supposing host ip (10.1.0.110), now in the guest, open the directory using the followings:

xdg-open http://10.1.0.110:8000

Note that your port above may be different than 8000. xdg-open is in xdg-utils package. If you don't install it before, run this in the guest:

sudo apt-get install xdg-utils

Mount shared folder (vbox) as another user

2 Answers2