VirtualBox 6.0 Beta 2 Adds File Manager For Host/Guest File Copies, OS/2 Shared Folder

[michael-vb]

And yes, there are bug reports open for the 5.2.22 revision, but they don't seem to give a [...]

It is actually more the difference between the number of users to find bugs and the number of developers to fix them. Particularly given the size of the user base, and of course the ones paying the money are the ones that let us continue development. I am always hoping for more contribution, given that the code is public, but I understand that it is a large code base, and that bugs may not be quite important enough to the people reporting them for them to start working on it themselves.

Anyway, if the beta solves your problem that is good.

[Danniello]

qemu <other options> -net nic,model=rtl8139 -net user,smb=/home/username/shareddirname

The first parameter creates an additional NIC in the emulated environment.

The second parameter makes qemu to use that NIC in the following way:

1. It creates a private network using that NIC on 10.0.2.x
2. Assigns to the host in that virtual interface the IP 10.0.2.4
3. Launches a smbd on that virtual interface sharing with SMB the specified directory on the share \\10.0.2.4\qemu

To access it, you have to follow two additional steps:

4. Inside the guest, you have to configure that secondary NIC with an IP in that network (i.e. 10.0.2.1)
5. Inside the guest you have to connect to the network share \\10.0.2.4\qemu

Thank you for detailed explanation.

So it is additional network adapter in guest VM. It means that it will not work - protected VPN connections are blocking all traffic going by other adapters. Perhaps it could be somehow omitted - perhaps via changing route table or something, but my network knowledge is not good enough even to try

[Antartica]

Is that much different than setting up a network samba share? With Win 10 afaik, auto-discovery isn't available due to the WannaCry vulnerability so v1 protocol is disabled/blocked by default? I assume it's pretty much like having a network share setup? If not more instructions could be good sure

Is is exactly setting up a network samba share, only that with this method it is private between qemu and the guest OS. In my case, I didn't want that guest to be able to reach the host (or have internet access), but wanted an easy way to transfer files to/from the guest.

I you are already running samba and don't have security concerns about having that guest accessing it, it is much easier to configure the share globally in samba.

[nils_]

Would be really nice if KVM guests had similar feature to shared folders for exchanging data with the host :\ Not quite sure why VirtualBox and VMWare are able to have that and KVM is missing such a feature? Is it because there is less demand for it since KVM is typically used for a different demographic?

it's possible with KVM too, it uses the plan 9 filesystem... http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/9p_virtio

[polarathene]

it's possible with KVM too, it uses the plan 9 filesystem... http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/9p_virtio

That only supports Linux afaik? Not Windows or macOS? I know there was a driver in the past for Windows but iirc it either was not complete, had bunch of issues or just too old/unmaintained and not supporting newer versions of Windows.

[starshipeleven]

I mean who is using OS/2?

Shows what kind of userbase is still paying for VirtualBox. They won't add shit for modern OS GL, GPU passthrough, and whatnot, but they will gladly add features for OS/2.