Virtualbox on Windows 7/Windows 10: Use npm/nodejs within a shared folder

virtualbox-with-shared-folder-for-node.md

Do not create a shared folder in settings/before - it will be created in step 3!

Enable symlinks for your VM

Open Windows PowerShell with adminstrator rights, enter:

$ VBoxManage setextradata YOURVMNAME VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/YOURSHAREFOLDERNAME 1

Check if it got set:

$ VBoxManage getextradata YOURVMNAME enumerate

Add a new shared folder to your VM

Inside the same PowerShell with administrator rights enter:

$ VBoxManage sharedfolder add YOURVMNAME --name "YOURSHAREFOLDERNAME" --hostpath "\\?\C:\PATH\TO\YOUR\SHARED\FOLDER\ON\WINDOWS"

Start VirtualBox (or your headless VM) as Adminstrator

Auto-mount the new shared folder (On the VM console/terminal)

Create a new folder for the mount:

$ mkdir /PATH/TO/NEW/FOLDER

Open:

$ sudo nano /etc/rc.local

Inside the file before the exit 0 enter:

 # Mount shared folder
 /sbin/mount.vboxsf YOURSHAREFOLDERNAME /PATH/TO/NEW/FOLDER vboxsf

Save and reboot your VM.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes, after a new version of VirtualBox or debian updates, you need to reinstall the GuestAdditions and run sudo m-a prepare and sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-uname -r dkms to install the new linux headers that somehow get lost sometimes...

Thank you for the gist. It worked for me!

If anyone wants to make use of the hot reload feature of webpack-dev-server, the poll method should be used in the webpack watch options: https://webpack.js.org/configuration/watch/#watchoptionspoll, otherwise the default method won't work in this scenario.

You're welcome - good to know that it helped & worked!