Shared folder

 

Windows

To configure a shared folder in a Windows virtual machine:

  1. Launch VMware Fusion.
  2. Power on the virtual machine.
  3. Click Virtual Machine > Settings.
  4. Click Sharing.
  5. In Fusion 8.x and 7.x, select Enable Shared Folders. In Fusion 6.x, 5.x and 4.x, turn ON the Shared folders option. In Fusion 3.x, select the Share folders on your Mac option.
  6. Click the + button.
  7. Browse to the folder on the Mac that will be shared with the virtual machine and click Add.

Shared folders can be accessed via the VMware Shared Folders shortcut on the Windows desktop or the mapped network drive Z:.

Linux

To configure a shared folder in a Linux or Solaris virtual machine:

Note: FreeBSD does not support Shared Folders.

  1. Launch VMware Fusion.
  2. Power off the virtual machine.
  3. Click Virtual Machine > Settings.
  4. Click Sharing.
  5. In Fusion 8.x and 7.x, select Enable Shared Folders. In Fusion 6.x, 5.x and 4.x, turn ON the Shared folders option. In Fusion 3.x, select the Share folders on your Mac option.
  6. Click the + button.
  7. Enter the share name, browse to the folder on the Mac that will be shared with the virtual machine and click Add.
  8. Click Apply, then OK.
  9. Power on the virtual machine.
  10. Open the Terminal utility in the guest operating system.
  11. Browse to the Host Guest File System (HGFS) folder by running this command:cd /mnt/hgfs

Note: Whenever the Linux kernel (Operating System) is updated, VMware Tools will need to be reinstalled.

 

NAT and Network

When you modify the nat.conf file to fix the NAT configuration, Use

/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli

to restart VMware Fusion’s networking subsystem.

  • vmnet-cli –stop stops networking
  • vmnet-cli –start starts networking
  • vmnet-cli –status shows the status
  • vmnet-cli –configure resets networking to the factory defaults (and destroys your NAT configuration)

Run these commands while Fusion is running, otherwise they won’t work.

To fix greyed out network adapter settings

If Fusion has decided to grey out network settings, quit Fusion, run sudo killall vmnet-bridge, and start Fusion again. Yes, this will totally terminate whatever you have been working on in the VMs. I don’t know if it plays well with suspended VMs.

Do not under any circumstances configure NAT for ports 137 (NetBIOS Name Service) and 138 (NetBIOS Datagram Service). It just won’t do you any good.