How can I access the virtual machine filesystem from within Windows? [closed]

Question

I've recently tried to get used with Oracle VirtualBox Manager and the QuickStart 1.0 VM machine: http://drupal.org/project/quickstart. I've installed it on

Everything looks fine and great but the only big issue is I cannot access the files from outside (Windows 7). I need to have a way to control the Drupal installs (backup them, commit/checkout with the linux server etc). How do I?

I heard there is a solution to install samba but this only works if you have a real linux installation on your computer.

Answer 1

Create shared folders from Virtual Box Manager. For each drive you will have to create a shared folder. These shared folder will appear in guest OS as network file-systems.

As Ubuntu (Linux) is underlying in QuickStart.

Mounting temporarily need to fire this command from terminal:

sudo mount.vboxsf [share_name] [directory - mount point e.g. /mnt/share/]

OR

sudo mount -t vboxsf [share_name] [directory - mount point e.g. /mnt/share/]

Mounting permanently using fstab (/etc/fstab)
Make sure to install samba first (in ubuntu it should be already installed or do it sudo apt-get install samba, it needs internet connection)

Now edit your fstab file and add an entry in the last

\\vboxsvr\[share_name] [directory - mount point e.g. /mnt/share/] vboxsf rw,gid=100,uid=1000,auto 0 0 

Answer 2

I recommend WinSCP for more advanced usage. Expandrive is also useful for mounting SFTP directories as Windows network drives.