(NB: adapted from this Ask Ubuntu thread -- tested to work on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS through Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy).
Unlike using VMWare Tools to enable Linux guest capabilities, the open-vm-tools
package doesn't auto-mount shared VMWare folders. This can be frustrating in various ways, but there's an easy fix.
Install open-vm-tools
and run:
sudo mount -t fuse.vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other
(Make sure /mnt/hgfs
exists and is empty)
You can put configuration stanzas in /etc/fstab
to facilitate this, and then mount /mnt/hgfs
will work.
See the Setting up auto-mounting section for setting up auto-mounting instead.
Make sure open-vm-tools
(and open-vm-tools-desktop
if you're using a desktop environment) are installed, and that you've rebooted after their installation.
sudo apt update
sudo apt install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop
Make sure you have a /mnt/hgfs
directory made and empty. If not:
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/hgfs
To mount the filesystem, run:
sudo mount -t fuse.vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other
The shared folders will now be in subdirectories of /mnt/hgfs
Add the following line to /etc/fstab
:
.host:/ /mnt/hgfs fuse.vmhgfs-fuse auto,allow_other 0 0
Update: based on extensive testing, the auto
keyword seems to work fine. Prior versions suggested noauto
. If you have trouble with auto
, change to noauto
and see below
- Create or edit the script
/etc/rc.local
(as root), and add the line:
mount /mnt/hgfs
-
make sure
rc.local
is executable and owned by root:sudo chown root:root /etc/rc.local sudo chmod 0755 /etc/rc.local
-
enable the
rc.local
service in systemd:sudo systemctl enable rc-local.service
-
reboot
The rc.local
script runs as the last step of startup, allowing the HGFS filesystem to mount after open-vm-tools
services are running, which is required for successful operation.
Browse /mnt/hgfs
at will.