How to enable a Virtualbox shared folder for Debian, Linux Mint/Ubuntu, Arch Linux guest systems [Linux]

You want to share files between your main system and the system you installed in a VirtualBox.

Watch this video and you will lean how to enable a shared folder between your main system and your Virtualbox linux systems including Arch Linux, Debian, Linux Mint / Ubuntu.

More Arch Linux videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSmXPSsgkZLt66s-M_gfQtMakc8iYJY6M

More Debian videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSmXPSsgkZLtSGWdxu_vayfotqMCMzZl-

More Linux Mint videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSmXPSsgkZLsiemyy_Rzcqf_0iED8ZfHS

There are several essential steps to enble a shared folder between your guest system and your host system. The guest system is the system installed in the Virtualbox, the host system is you main system installed on your hardware.

1. You need to install guest additions for your guest system.
2. Create a shared folder between your host to your guest systems.
3. Change the user permission for a shared folder – so you can access the shared files from your guest system without root privileges.

After these steps all files created in this shared folder will be available in both the host and the guest systems.

1:06 Arch Linux guest system

Make sure your Arch Linux guest system is up to date:
sudo pacman -Syu

Install linux headers:
sudo pacman -S linux-lts-headers
or
sudo pacman -S linux-headers

Install virtualbox-guest-utils:
sudo pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils

for linux kernel choose virtualbox-guest-modules-arch
for other kernels choose virtualbox-guest-dkms

Load the Virtualbox kernel modules:
sudo systemctl enable vboxservice

Then add a shared folder. Reboot.

Add your user to the vboxsf group and give that user a permission to access the media folder:
sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf yourusername
sudo chown -R yourusername:users /media/

Log out, log in.

3:02 Debian guest system

(Please, use this way for any other distro. It’s a more universal way.)

Make sure these packages are installed:
sudo apt install build-essential dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Then add a shared folder. Reboot.

Insert Guest addition image and install VBoxLinuxAdditions:
sudo sh VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

Reboot.

Add your user to the vboxsf group:
sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf yourusername

And change the permission of the media folder:
sudo chown -R yourusername:users /media/

Log out, log in.

4:39 Linux Mint / Ubuntu guest system

Open the software manager and install
virtualbox-guest-X11
virtualbox-guest-utils
virtualbox-guest-dkms

Add a shared folder.

Reboot.

Then add your user to the vboxsf group.

sudo usermod -a -G vboxsf alu

Change the permission.

sudo chown -R alu:users /media/

Log out, log in.

Now you can use a shared folder to move files between your host and guest systems.

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