On my MacBook Pro M3 Pro running VMWare Fusion I have installed open-vm tools in the Fedora guest and set VMWare to share some folders from the MacOS host but sharing isn’t working. What could be the problem? Is there a fix?
This might be the following issue that’s noted in the VMware Tools release notes (it also applies to open-vm-tools). I’ve excerpted it here:
Shared Folders mount is unavailable on Linux VM
If the Shared Folders feature is enabled on a Linux VM while it is powered off, the shared folders mount is not available on restart.
If the VM is powered on, disable and enable the Shared Folders feature from the Fusion interface. To resolve the issue permanently, edit /etc/fstab and add an entry to mount the Shared Folders automatically on boot.
For example, add a line similar to the following:
vmhgfs-fuse /mnt/hgfs fuse defaults,allow_other,_netdev 0 0
I gave up on vmware a while ago on the mac.
I was using parrallels for a while, worked better the vmware,
But now I use the open source UTM which works well for me. https://getutm.app/
1 Like
A quick toggle off/on of the “Enable Shared Folders” check box in the Fusion VM’s Sharing settings should allow your configured shared folders to mount in the Fedora VM. You can check that by dropping into a shell in the VM and seeing if there’s a vmhgfs-fuse device mounted on /mnt/hgfs. Any shared folders defined in the Fusion GUI will appear as directories in /mnt/hgfs.
Adding the line I posted to /etc/fstab and any shared folders you define will mount automatically at boot.
Your Fusion shared folders won’t automatically appear as a bookmark on the side bar of Nautilus/GNOME Files. You’ll need to manually create a bookmark to /mnt/hgfs to get faster access to any shared folders.