Ubuntu Lucid guest XP Host=/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting fail

[bwh1969]

I have been using virtualbox for some time (years). I have run into an issue where my Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 guest refuses to see any of my shared folders on my XP host.

I created a shared folder to my XP Desktop folder called XPDesktop

From the guest, I do this

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sudo mount -t vboxsf -o uid=1000,gid=1000 XPDesktop /media/VBOX

and I get this

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/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such device

I have re-read the instructions and examples and there seems to be no problem with the manner in which I am doing this. There are a few posts that this is an Ubuntu Lucid issue. Is it?

[Perryg]

Did you install the guest additions (in the guest)?

[Sasquatch]

Did it succeed using the examples first? The instructions I made in this forum always work, use that as a base, then you can change names if you want. When that fails, you know you use a wrong/incompatible name.

[kevinnku20]

I had this exact problem, even using the examples mentioned above. It turned out that in my fury of trial and error (I'm extremely ADD, reading instructions aren't my thing), I had installed the guest additions and vbox-ose form the Ubuntu repositories. Looking at my kern.log, this seemed to be causing a conflict with the guest additions I was installing from the host.

The fix for me was to uninstall everything virtual box related using synaptic, uninstall the guest additions loaded from the host

replace version and platform to suit :

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sudo /media/VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.6_63112/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run uninstall

Then reboot

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sudo reboot now

Once back online, try again, see if it works.

It's possible that I did not need to un/reinstall the guest additions from CD, but I went ahead because I also had problems with my video (I installed Nvidia drivers, which were also causing similar problems with vboxvideo) that seemed to require the rebuild of the guest additions. If you want to try without rebuilding teh guest additions, by all means give it a go, I'm not even sure you need to reboot, but again, I went with what I was pretty sure was going to work. If anyone wants to simplify what I've done and post results, go for it. Hope this helps someone.

[bwh1969]

Just because I had time, I did a karmic and a lucid install to different vdi images from 'vanilla' iso files, updated then installed guest additions to both and I have all working guest additions features EXCEPT that I am unable to mount a shared folder in The lucid host.

If someone has this working in a Lucid guest on an XP host, then I must have a peculiar issue. I assume all who have replied have a lucid guest on an xp host?

I am fine with having karmic kubuntu as a host, I just thought there might be a bug in lucid such that this does not work.

Because I did exact things, and that I used the same version of vritualbox for windows, I suspect an ubuntu Lucid is not playing nice with XP.

[Sasquatch]

I have a Meerkat (10.10) VM on Windows 7 and that has no issues mounting shared folders at all. My Lucid (10.04) VM on my 10.04 Host doesn't have any issues either.
Did you try my advise yet with default names that are in the howto?

[freedom4seagulls]

I'm experiencing the same issue with Ubuntu 10.04 as host and Ubuntu 10.04 as guest...
Any idea?
(I know this might sound crazy to have the same host and guest but I want to test installation scripts in a safe context )

Victor

[Sasquatch]

I'm experiencing the same issue with Ubuntu 10.04 as host and Ubuntu 10.04 as guest...
Any idea?
(I know this might sound crazy to have the same host and guest but I want to test installation scripts in a safe context )

Victor

Any more information you can share except for these two sentences?

[Raistlin]

Hello everybody.

I'd like to share my own experience. I have a Vista 32 bit host in which my SUSE 11.2 guest had been working with a shared folder until recently; that was on the 3.1.2 version of VirtualBox. After updating to 3.2.6, I found that the folder had got empty. I tried to re-write the fstab, but I couldn't get it to work again. Even mounting just for the session was impossible. So, in an attempt to figure out the cause, I did what follows:

-1) Fetch another Linux (to eliminate SUSE as a possible source of the problem). In this case, I got a Mint 9 Isadora.
-2) Install Mint as guest.
-3) Fully update Mint.
-4) Install Guest Additions.
-5) Create a folder in my Vista host called Compartida. I placed it in a data partition of my HDD, away from system or personal locations.
-6) Include Compartida in the virtual machine settings of Mint.
-7) Create a folder in my Mint host called Intercambio, placed like this: /home/<myname>/Escritorio<meaning desktop>/Intercambio.
-8) Try: mount -t vboxsf Compartida /home/<myname>/Escritorio/Intercambio. Feedback: "/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such file or directory".
-9) Re-try the last four steps with the names given in the examples of the HowTo. Output: "/sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such file or directory" again.
-10) Give up.

Though Mint is Lucid-based, SUSE is also affected, and both run on a Vista (not XP) host, so it doesn't seem to be a OS-related issue. I hope this few lines may be of some help to better define the problem. Thank you.

[Sasquatch]

Raistlin,
I just tried to mount an SF on my VM's desktop, no problem whatsoever. Lubuntu 10.04 VM on Xubuntu 10.04 Host. As stated above, I tried the same with Meerkat on W7, no problem either.

This is one very, very strange situation we got here. I am not able to reproduce this, yet all of you get this message. The only thing I can think of is that the SF isn't defined properly. Keep in mind that Linux is case sensitive, calling the SF 'Data' and trying to mount it with 'data' will give this kind of error.

[Raistlin]

Yes, letter case can sometimes be a pain in the... Linux. However, commands were mindful of case and, in spite of that, I didn't solve the problem. Besides, there's the SUSE clue: its shared folder stopped working right after the update, without changing a (up-to-that-moment) right configuration.

[Sasquatch]

Just for a test, remove the GA, grab the previous version from http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.2.4/ and install those. See if it works with that. If it does, then it might be a bug in the new GA version.

[glake]

Try this. It just worked for me. I'm using a Ubuntu 10.04 guest from a Windows 7 host.

Assuming you've done Settings -> Shared Folders
and created or designated a folder in Ubuntu
and installed Guest Additions:
In an X term window:
cd /sbin
sudo ./mount.vboxsf <Name for shared folder> <mount point for shared folder>

I used something original:
sudo ./mount.vboxsf Shared /Shared
having created a "Shared" folder off of root.

The examples in the VirtualBox User Manual do not include an example where the command "mount.vboxsf" is given.
I was using the "mount" command and getting error messages saying "file not found" or "Unknown file system type".

sudo /sbin/mount.vboxsf ... should work from anywhere as an alternative.

This may work for you.

glake

[milanPandya]

It works for me.

Ubuntu karmic as host and ubuntu lucid as guest.
I am sure for all those who are using ubuntu lucid as guest this might work.

This is what I did.
1) in virtualbox (on your host OS) create a machine shared folder (in my case, the shared folder name is ub_downloads)

2) now log into your guest OS (which is Ubuntu Lucid)

3) on terminal, type
mkdir /home/milan/Documents/ubuntu (i am creating a directory named ubuntu in my home->Documents folder)

4) on terminal, type
sudo /sbin/mount.vboxsf ub_downloads /home/milan/Documents/ubuntu

In other words,
sudo /sbin/mount.vboxsf <shared_folder_name> <destination_location>

The key here is creating a empty folder as your destination folder and then executing mount.vboxsf instruction.

I thank glake for his instructions. They were very helpful.

[Sasquatch]

I advise you not to use underscores in the shared folder name. It might give problems later on. I know that it did give problems on a previous version of VB. Other than that, it's obvious that you always mount file systems to an empty folder .
Glad you got a fix.