Cannot Share host directory with VirtualBox Guest Mint 16 64 bit

Problem When attempting to mount a shared directory from Linux Mint 16 VirtualBox guest OS, I receive the following error:

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on hostshare,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       (for several filesystems (e.g. nfs, cifs) you might
       need a /sbin/mount.<type> helper program)
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

My mount command is sudo mount -t vboxsf hostshare ~/host

dmesg | tail reveals: 'sf_read_super_aux err=-22'

Environment - Host OS: Windows 7 64 bit - Guest OS: Linux Mint 64 bit (Mate) - VirtualBox 4.3.10 - VirtualBox Guest Additions 4.3.10 - Shared directory defined in VirtualBox as 'hostshare' with Make Permanent checked - ~/host is defined on the guest OS file system

What I have tried I can mount this directory from other VirtualBox guests, including Mint 15 32 bit. I reinstalled guest additions on Mint 16 and from what I can see, it is running. I have rebooted the host OS, VirtualBox and the Guest OS several times. I renamed the shared folder to various silly things to no avail. Changed VirtualBox network from NAT to Bridged Adaptor. Other Guest Additions features (Shared Clipboard, Drag'n'Drop) work properly.

William

Posted 2014-03-31T19:15:51.130

Reputation: 151

3I finally fixed it but I'm too new to post the answer :(. The symlink for mount.vboxsf was broken. Here's what I ran to correct it:

cd /sbin sudo rm mount.vboxsf sudo ln /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf

Hope this is of use to someone else! – William – 2014-03-31T22:56:28.173

1Thank you so much for your discovery. I was going nuts. I wonder how you guessed that the problem was a broken symlink, given that the error message is so vague. I am on Debian wheezy 7.4 32-bit. The correct link in my case was ln -s /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.10/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf. Please post it as a solution as soon as you have enough rep so I can upvote it :) – NothingsImpossible – 2014-04-18T19:35:49.983

Answers

I confirm your solution. I'm using a debian 7 amd64 guest on a windows 7 64-bits. I updated virtualbox from 4.3.8 to 4.3.10. The following symlink: /sbin/mount.vboxsf points to /usr/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf whereas the real path to mount.vboxsf is: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf.

This issue seems to be fixed in virtualbox subversion repository. Thus, it should be fixed in next version.

yohann.martineau

Posted 2014-03-31T19:15:51.130

Reputation: 306

Solution worked great, but I can't figure out for the life of me why this "broke" all of a sudden. I'm not doing any automatic updating. – Seth – 2017-05-08T12:39:49.090

6In the meantime a workaround could be: sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf /sbin/mount.vboxsf – Alessio Gaeta – 2014-04-16T09:11:30.047

I had the same problem. and the solution of the topic starter almost worked for me, but in Lubuntu 13 instead of

ln /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf

I used

ln -s /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.10/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf

HashTag Delete Me

Posted 2014-03-31T19:15:51.130

Reputation: 141

For Debian:

There is a symbolic link in /sbin folder, file mount.vboxsf, which is linked wrong. The right link is mount.vboxsf -> /opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-xxxxx/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/mount.vboxsf.

Fabio Rodrigues

Posted 2014-03-31T19:15:51.130

Reputation: 11

It is possible to create a simblic link in /usr/lib64 which points to folder:

/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-4.3.10/lib/VBoxGuestAdditions/

It works in my Kubuntu 14.04 guest on a Windons 7 host

jjllorca

Posted 2014-03-31T19:15:51.130

Reputation: 1