Specifications

www.vmware.com
134
VMware GSX Server Virtual Machine Guide
Sharing Files Between Guest and Host
Operating Systems
To share files between a host computer and a virtual machine or between two virtual
machines, you use the networking features of GSX Server. If you know how to share
files between two physical computers on a network, you already know how to share
files with a virtual machine.
This section describes four scenarios for sharing files between two systems, either a
host computer and a virtual machine or two virtual machines, where
• Both systems run Windows operating systems, using Windows file sharing
• You are connecting from a Linux system to a Windows system, using
smbmount
• You are connecting from a Windows system to a Linux system, using Samba
• Both systems run Linux operating systems, using NFS, FTP and Telnet
You can apply the same principles to share files between virtual machines.
The following scenarios assume you have set up your virtual machine using NAT
networking. Besides giving the virtual machine a direct connection to the host
computer’s network, NAT networking sets up a virtual network adapter on the host
computer. You can use this adapter, which connects to a virtual switch identified as
vmnet8, to communicate between host and virtual machine. You can also connect
two or more virtual machines using vmnet8. For details on NAT networking, see
Network Address Translation (NAT) on page 232.
In all cases, the user name you use to log on to the system from which you are
connecting must be a user on the system to which you want to connect.
To understand how to share files, read the following sections:
• Sharing Files Between Two Windows Systems on page 135
• Sharing Files by Connecting to a Windows System from a Linux System on
page 135
• Sharing Files by Connecting to a Linux System from a Windows System on
page 136
• Sharing Files Between Two Linux Systems on page 138