Where to find the shared folder in Kali Linux?

Question

I use Kali Linux as a virtual machine in VMware Workstation Player with Windows 10 Home as host. The Player has the option to pick a Windows folder to be used as a shared folder. I set this up, it says it's enabled, but in Kali Linux this shared folder should be present in /mnt/hgfs. /mnt exists, but is empty. I'm stuck here.

Answer 1

Both stackprotector's AND petoetje59's answer helped with this issue.

1. cd /mnt/hgfs
2. If the folder is missing --> sudo mkdir hgfs
3. sudo vim /etc/fstab
4. Enter vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs fuse defaults,allow_other,nofail 0 0 at the end of the file and save
5. sudo reboot now
6. ls /mnt/hgfs
7. The Shared Folder you enabled in VMware Fusion Settings will appear

Answer 2

The short of it is below, but here's a little ten minute video that goes through a good step by step process.

Even if the hgfs folder was present, it would be empty. The host has made the files available to the vm, but the vm still needs to be told about their presence. The same thing happens occasionally when you plug in a thumb drive. To do this, from the Kali command line you use the mount command. After you're done working with the shared folder I would use umount, so that I wouldn't have a persistent connection across my operating systems. Keep us updated on your fix.

Answer 3

Executed the instructions mentioned in that video, and as expected, that guy on Youtube left out half the story to make it really work - even by reading up on the comments... Sigh. I finally assembled everything I found into my answer, and tested it successfully.

I have a working VMware Workstation Player (VMWP) with Windows 10 Home as the host and Kali Linux 2020.2 as guest OS. The required VMware Tools for Linux have been installed (I use a premade VM image which had them already embedded).

To REALLY setup a shared folder for both OS:

1. Create the shared folder on the host, e.g.: E:\VM_SHARE

2. Start the guest.

3. From the VMWP :

Player
Manage
Virtual Machine Settings...
Options tab
Shared Folders
Always enabled
Add..., Next
Browse...
Host path : E:\VM_SHARE
Name : VM_SHARE
Next
Enable this share
Finish
OK

4. According to this the shared folder on the guest is supposed to appear in /mnt/hgfs but the last folder was missing on my system. Open a terminal window in the guest, and create the missing folder:

cd /mnt
sudo mkdir hgfs

5. From the terminal window create (or add to) the - in my case also missing - file /etc/rc.local:

mousepad /etc/rc.local

Add the following line:

sudo mount -t fuse.vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other

Important, the first line in this file has to be: #!/bin/sh -e

Save the file.

6. No you're not there yet, the file must be made executable:

ls -l /etc/rc.local

In my case this line started with the wrong attributes: -rw-r--r--

Make it executable:

   sudo chown root /etc/rc.local
   sudo chmod 755 /etc/rc.local

Test : ls -l /etc/rc.local

The right attributes should now be: -rwxr-xr-x

7. Put some test file test.txt in E:\VM_SHARE on the host.

8. Restart the VM, and check whether the test file also appears on the guest - using the graphical File System on the guest's desktop:

/mnt/hgfs/VM_SHARE/test.txt

That's it.

If I missed something that might also spoil things, feel free to add to this answer.

Answer 4

Just add the following line to your /etc/fstab and reboot your machine:

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

You will find your shared folder at /mnt/hgfs/<FOLDER_NAME> afterwards.