open-vm-tools and VMWare Shared Folders for Ubuntu guests

open-vm-tools-vmware-ubuntu-sharing.md

(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.

TL;DR

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.

Pre-work

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

Mounting

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

Setting up auto-mounting

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

If using the noauto keyword, but you want automount

1. Create or edit the script /etc/rc.local (as root), and add the line:

  mount /mnt/hgfs

2. make sure rc.local is executable and owned by root:

   sudo chown root:root /etc/rc.local
   sudo chmod 0755 /etc/rc.local
   

3. enable the rc.local service in systemd:

   sudo systemctl enable rc-local.service
   

4. 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.

setup-hgfs-automount-ubuntu.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
## this must be run as root!
## It should set up VMWare Shared folders on Ubuntu guests using open-vm-tools

## USAGE setup-hgfs-automount-ubuntu.sh [noauto]

rclocal="/etc/rc.local"
owner="root:root"
mountpoint="/mnt/hgfs"

## fail if we're not run as root
if [ "$EUID" != 0 ]
then
  (>&2 echo "$0 must be run as root")
  exit 127
fi

## set up FSTAB
mkdir -p $mountpoint
if [ "$1" == "noauto" ]
then
  echo ".host:/	${mountpoint}	fuse.vmhgfs-fuse	nauto,allow_other	0	0" >> /etc/fstab
else
  echo ".host:/	${mountpoint}	fuse.vmhgfs-fuse	auto,allow_other	0	0" >> /etc/fstab
  echo "You may now `mount ${mountpoint}`; it will also be auto-mounted on next boot"
  exit 0
  # if using the `auto` keyword, no rc.local setup is required, and we're done here.
fi

## set up rc.local script
if ! [ -f "$rclocal" ]
then
  echo '#!/bin/sh' > "$rclocal"
fi

echo "mount '$mountpoint'" >> "$rclocal"
chown $owner "$rclocal"
chmod 0755 "$rclocal"

## enable rc.local service
systemctl enable rc-local.service
systemctl start rc-local.service

## report and exit
(>&2 echo -e "set up and started $rclocal\nyou should be able to browse $mountpoint now and after reboots")
exit 0

Can confirm this also works on PopOS 19.10 & VMware Fusion 11.5.1 -- with the auto option instead of noauto

No need "rc.local" at all.

I tested your solution for auto-mounting with the option auto instead of noauto and it worked fine (Ubuntu 18.04). Can be considered as a valid solution or may cause problems in future?

I haven't tested with Ubuntu 18.04; I can't validate. It's good news that they seem to have fixed the issue that required the rc.local workaround, but I don't know what the issue was so I can't comment about how safe it is to switch to using auto. It seems easy enough to fix either way, but for now I know that noauto + an rc.local script always works.

You're probably better off using autofs rather than putting an entry in fstab. As the author pointed out, bad things can happen if the mount cannot happen at the proper point in the boot process and you have an entry in fstab that for whatever reason can't mount, blowing the boot process out of the water. With autofs, the mount doesn't occur until you actually try to stat below the mount point.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/filesystems/autofs.html

1. Install autofs through your package manager
2. Create a mount point for autofs:
   sudo mkdir /mnt/autofs
3. Create a file (as root):
   /etc/auto.master.d/hgfs.autofs
   with the contents:
   /mnt/autofs /etc/auto.mnt
4. Create a file (as root):
   /etc/auto.mnt
   with the contents (assuming you didn't rename "Macintosh HD" in OS X):
   hgfs -fstype=fuse.vmhgfs-fuse,allow_other .host:/Macintosh\ HD
5. enable autofs to start at boot, restart the service, and reload the autofs configs we just made:
   sudo systemctl enable autofs
sudo systemctl restart autofs
sudo systemctl reload autofs
6. Navigate to your new automount, which will be your root OS X file system:
   cd /mnt/autofs/hgfs # fuse file system will mount on this command
7. If you're really ambitious, you could:
   sudo ln -s /mnt/autofs/hgfs /mnt
cd /mnt/hgfs # fuse file system will mount on this command

Confirmed, in (Kubuntu) Ubuntu 20.04, I only had to add the following line to /etc/fstab, then reboot:

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

No other steps were necessary for me.

I have domain user in AD with LDAP UID/GID, so I set uid=<ADuserUID>,gid=<ADuserGID> and permissions/ownership persist across platforms (note: I use local account in Linux, I just change the UID/GID of the account so AD knows who it is)

Adding the one line to /etc/fstab also worked for me.

I am using VMware Fusion 12.2.1 on macOS 11.6.1 (Big Sur) with an Ubuntu 18.04.2 guest. I had tried using the VMware Tools package supplied by VMware Fusion. The /mnt/hgfs service worked fine, but copy-and-paste between the guest and host did not work at all. Using the open-vm-tools-desktop package instead of VMware Tools solved the copy/paste issue, but /mnt/hgfs was empty until I opened the VM settings and toggled "Enable Shared Folders" off then on.

Great little piece of knowledge. All good for me.

Thank you!!!

Worked for me too. Thank you

It works! Thank you!!

@kfreund I followed your steps precisely but it didn't load the shared folders.

root@debian:/home/debian# cat /etc/auto.master.d/hgfs.autofs 
/mnt/autofs /etc/auto.mnt
root@debian:/home/debian# cat /etc/auto.mnt
hgfs -fstype=fuse.vmhgfs-fuse,allow_other,uid=1000 .host:/
root@debian:/home/debian# automount -f -v
Starting automounter version 5.1.8, master map /etc/auto.master
using kernel protocol version 5.05
lookup_nss_read_master: reading master file /etc/auto.master
do_init: parse(sun): init gathered global options: (null)
lookup_read_master: lookup(file): read entry +dir:/etc/auto.master.d
lookup_nss_read_master: reading master dir /etc/auto.master.d
lookup_read_master: lookup(dir): scandir: /etc/auto.master.d
include_file: lookup(dir): include: /etc/auto.master.d/hgfs.autofs
lookup_nss_read_master: reading master file /etc/auto.master.d/hgfs.autofs
do_init: parse(sun): init gathered global options: (null)
lookup_read_master: lookup(file): read entry /mnt/autofs
lookup_read_master: lookup(file): read entry +auto.master
lookup_nss_read_master: reading master files auto.master
do_init: parse(sun): init gathered global options: (null)
master_do_mount: mounting /mnt/autofs
automount_path_to_fifo: fifo name /var/run/autofs.fifo-mnt-autofs
lookup_nss_read_map: reading map file /etc/auto.mnt
do_init: parse(sun): init gathered global options: (null)
mounted indirect on /mnt/autofs with timeout 300, freq 75 seconds
st_ready: st_ready(): state = 0 path /mnt/autofs

Any idea?

This works:

root@debian:/home/debian# vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs/ -o allow_other -o uid=1000
root@debian:/home/debian# ls /mnt/hgfs/
Desktop

But it is not a solution for putting into the /etc/fstab file if shared folders have not been enabled yet.

Thank you.

@BillHargen's solution worked for me perfectly - I had upgraded open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop and even rebooted, but no dice. Deselecting and then selecting the "Enable Shared Folders" checkbox in the VM's settings window under "Sharing" got my shares to mount using

sudo mount -t fuse.vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other

Doesn't work on Ubuntu 22.04, attempting to mount crashes with a segmentation fault.

Thank you!