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Melab
Asked: 2015-02-01 17:42:33 +0800 CST

Enabling shared folders with open-vm-tools

  • 772

I'm running Ubuntu 14.10 in VMware Player on Windows 7. I have installed open-vm-tools instead of VMware Tools because VMware's software was unable to compile the kernel module required for file sharing. I cannot get my shared folder to mount with sudo mount -t vmhgfs .host:/$(vmware-hgfsclient) /mnt/hgfs or sudo vmware-hgfsmounter .host:/$(vmware-hgfsclient) /mnt/hgfs. Both return Error: cannot canonicalize mount point: No such file or directory. I have no idea what this is referring to or how to fix it.

mount

6 Answers

  1. My way of solving this issue is to resort to vmhgfs-fuse installed with open-vm-tools.

    Either mount locally using vmhgfs-fuse .host:/$(vmware-hgfsclient) ~/some_mountpoint or globally using sudo mount -t fuse.vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other. To then make mounting globally persistent add the following line to your /etc/fstab:

    .host:/ /mnt/hgfs fuse.vmhgfs-fuse allow_other 0 0

    • 65

  2. As the other answers didn't work for me, I finally got it working after long time of digging from this link : Files missing in /mnt/hgfs on Ubuntu VM? where PieCot gives the solution:

    $ git clone https://github.com/rasa/vmware-tools-patches.git
$ cd vmware-tools-patches
$ ./patched-open-vm-tools.sh
    • 7

  3. On the VM make sure:

    That you have folder sharing enabled

    That you have at least one folder shared between the host and guest

    On the Ubuntu guest:

    Check /mnt/hgfs to see if you can access the folder, if your unable to do so run this tools command:

    sudo vmware-config-tools.pl

    Update the fstab using:

    gksu gedit /etc/fstab

    Use a text editor to enter the following at the end of the file:

    .host:/{shared-folder} /{path-to-mount-on} vmhgfs defaults,ttl=5,uid=1000,gid=1000   0 0

    The final step is to restart your vm ( you may need to restart it , or get an error saying unable to mount, just skip this and restart a few times)!

    Thanks, hope this helps!

    • 1

  4. Ubuntu 17.10 requires installing the vmhgfs driver through the proprietary VMWare Tools tar-based installation. For details see http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/Ubuntu_17_10.html

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  5. This worket for me in Debian, I thing that will be the same on Ubuntu.

    Install open-vm-tools-dkms package.

    apt-get install open-vm-tools-dkms

    Create a mount point.

    mkdir /mnt/hgfs

    Mount all chares in the mount point. With permission to all users

    /usr/bin/vmware-vmblock-fuse /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other
    • 0

  6. It simply means that your mount point does not exist.

    $ ll /mnt
total 12
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Feb 22 20:37 ./
drwxr-xr-x 22 root root 4096 Feb 22 20:16 ../
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Jan  3 04:56 cdrom/

$ sudo mount -t vmhgfs .host:/Share /mnt/hgfs/Share
Error: cannot canonicalize mount point: No such file or directory

$ sudo mkdir -p /mnt/hgfs/Share

$ ll /mnt/hgfs
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb 22 20:52 ./
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Feb 22 20:52 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 22 20:52 Share/

$ sudo mount -t vmhgfs .host:/Share /mnt/hgfs/Share
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