Skip to content


android  notes  hal  aidl  hidl  kernel  arduino  esp32  book  management  c/c++  arm  freertos  stm32  debug  sysview  jetson  linux  vuejs  nodejs  electron  chromium  dmm  hardware  raspberry-pi  camera  i2c  ffmpeg  performance  v4l2  picamera  stream  hls  dash  python  h264  mjpeg  ros  jinja  javascript  mkdocs  markdown  encryption  asm  rtt  swv  virtual-machine  docker  hyper-v  serial  yocto  gnss  lidar 


Virtual Machine »

Notes for Virtual Machines

Tips, hints, and tricks when working with Virtual Machines

#virtual-machine   #notes  

Last update: 2022-06-29

Table of Content

Automount VMWare shared folder#

Unlike Virtual Box, VMWare does not automatically mount shared folders. Here are steps to make it work at system startup:

Make sure the mounting target folder exists. If not:

sudo mkdir /mnt/hgfs

Edit /etc/fstab and add:

vmhgfs-fuse    /mnt/hgfs    fuse    defaults,allow_other    0    0

Then remount:

sudo mount -a

A faster way, but be carefull of the redirection syntax: must use >> to append a new line:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/hgfs && \
sudo bash -c 'echo \
    "vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs fuse defaults,allow_other 0 0" \
    >> /etc/fstab'

Mount shared network folder in Ubuntu#

This is for mounting Samba shared-folder in Linux.

Install necessary packages:

sudo apt install -y \
    smbclient \
    cifs-utils

Then use smbclient to probe sharing points:

smbclient -L //<ip>

Create a mount point:

sudo mkdir -p /media/SharedFolder

Then mount:

sudo mount -t cifs \
    -o user=<username>,pass=<password>,uid=<uid>,gid=<gid> \
    //<ip>/<share_point> \
    <mount_point>

Run id to see ID of user and groups of the current user.

Install VirtualBox Guest Additions CD Image from Terminal#

Install build kernel modules:

sudo apt install -y dkms build-essential linux-headers-generic linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Insert Guest Additions CD Images and mount it:

sudo mkdir - /media/cdrom
sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

Change to the sudo account and run the build script:

./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

VirtualBox Guest Additions functions only works in GUI desktop!

Compact Virtual Disk#

  1. Install zerofree in the virtual machine

  2. Boot into Recovery mode

    Press ESC while boot up to see Grub menu.
    Select Advanced options → (recovery mode) → root.
    Press Enter afterwards when Press Enter for maintenance appears on your screen. You’ll be given a terminal prompt.

  3. Run zerofree on the target disk, such as /dev/sda2:

    zerofree -v /dev/sda2

    Error: filesystem is mounted rw

    Remount system in ro mode, and run zerofree again:

    echo "u" > /proc/sysrq-trigger
zerofree -v /dev/sda2

  4. Shutdown the machine

    poweroff

  5. Compress the disk file

    VBoxManage modifyhd --compact /path/to/VDI/VM.vdi

Comments