How do I share clipboard with virtual machine running Ubuntu Server?

Question

I recently installed Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS in a VirtualBox machine, and manually installed the Guest Additions successfully. However, I found I couldn't use shared clipboard with the operating system. Being a server machine, I don't plan on installing X11 and a window manager.

I noticed that during the Guest Additions installation, the graphics drivers were obviously not installed due to the lack of X11. This terminated the installation; could this mean that the shared clipboard drivers might have been installed after the graphics drivers, if the installation had continued?

Also, I know I can just SSH into the server and use my clipboard there, but that's slightly inconvenient as I already have the actual machine open in a window on the same PC. I just want to know if this is possible.

Answer 1

The clipboard sharing feature only works in Xorg. This applies to both VMWare's and Virtualbox's additions. You can simply use a GUI ssh client, or just the ssh command to get a shared clipboard and all the goodies that ssh comes with.