VirtualBox: Can't find / access SharedFolder

Support Virtualization
1

My computer is running MANJARO and I’d like to have a virtual machine running MANJARO for testing. This is, what I did:

  • Installed and run virtualbox.
  • Installed MANJARO as a virtual machine.
  • Started the virtual machine, run vboxadditons and defined a shared folder (permanent, mount on start-up).
  • Re-started the virtual machine an run sudo usermod -aG vboxsf username.

For whatever reason, I can’t find the shared folder and would appreciate any support.

3

Does your /media have the right permission?
VirtualBox - Manjaro

ls -la /media

I saw from another post that you already have linux612-virtualbox-host-modules.

You can run this script and try again:

VM setup 

pkg=(
    # linux612-virtualbox-host-modules
    virtualbox-guest-utils
    # virtualbox-host-dkms
)

    sudo pacman -Sy

    for pkg_ in "${pkg[@]}"; do
        sudo pacman -S --needed "$pkg_"
done


    sudo gpasswd -a "$USER" vboxusers   # Host
    sudo usermod -aG vboxsf "${USER}"   # Guest


    sudo modprobe vboxguest vboxvideo vboxsf

    if systemctl status vboxservice | grep "inactive" >/dev/null 2>&1; then
        sudo systemctl enable --now vboxservice.service
    fi

    if [[ ! -d  /media ]];then
    sudo mkdir /media
    sh -c "sudo chmod 755 /media"
    else
        sh -c "sudo chmod 755 /media"
fi


 sudo vboxreload

 modprobe vboxdrv
4

@MaMicha

Note that unlike some other distributions, Manjaro does not have a /media directory by default. It must be created manually.

Typically, /media should be owned by root and any subdirectories intended as mount points should be owned by the intended user(s).

See Mount points in a non-related topic for an explanation.

5

Thank you @soundofthunder and @terashy88,
I started from scratch again:

  • Created a new virtual machine and installed MANJARO in it.
  • Started this virtual machine and checked ls -la /media: No /media existing. So I run: sudo mkdir /media. Now it’s existing, owned by root.
  • In the virtualbox-menu I started vbox-GAs. In that directory, I run sudo bash VBoxLinuxAdditions.run.
  • Re-started the virtual machine an run sudo usermod -aG vboxsf username.
  • Re-started the virtual machine: /media is empty.
    Now what?
6

See the guide - this one, for example:
(section 3)

VirtualBox - Manjaro

This is for the host, not within the guest.
That group (vboxusers) needs to exist on the host - and probably does.
It’s part of the installation - you (your user) just needs to be made a member of that group.

7

Thank you @anon33601770, just checked this

while you answered and run it on the host.

vboxservice.service could not be found.

$ sudo modprobe vboxguest vboxvideo vboxsf returns nothing.

$ modinfo vboxsf                                                                    INT ✘ 
filename:       /lib/modules/6.12.44-3-MANJARO/kernel/fs/vboxsf/vboxsf.ko.zst
alias:          fs-vboxsf
license:        GPL v2
author:         Oracle Corporation
description:    Oracle VM VirtualBox Module for Host File System Access
srcversion:     AA5FCFAD1FFCCBECCA512CB
depends:        vboxguest
intree:         Y
name:           vboxsf
retpoline:      Y
vermagic:       6.12.44-3-MANJARO SMP preempt mod_unload 
sig_id:         PKCS#7
signer:         Build time autogenerated kernel key
sig_key:        35:C8:78:5D:B0:9C:2F:6C:D0:E1:C9:8B:E5:94:3F:1B:C8:99:60:FD
sig_hashalgo:   sha512
signature:      30:64:02:30:0D:55:AA:80:34:A8:FA:33:69:1C:38:8F:F6:AF:1B:52:
                B1:04:0A:C5:96:C6:E2:47:C9:2F:D1:CC:9F:AB:DB:53:0A:94:35:C7:
                88:FF:86:2E:C4:D4:2B:B8:59:E0:41:D5:02:30:4B:05:DE:3E:69:87:
                2F:2A:F8:99:1D:1B:F6:08:86:E7:BA:D3:75:47:49:DD:68:4C:13:52:
                38:66:60:A4:4A:77:2C:8B:F1:89:7F:FC:83:E4:83:B8:DA:FE:ED:12:
                DB:23
parm:           follow_symlinks:Let host resolve symlinks rather than showing them (int)
    ~  uname -a                                                                              ✔ 
Linux ABC-T33VMman 6.12.44-3-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon, 01 Sep 2025 23:07:10 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
8

That should not be the case - that service should be present (on the host) as it is part of the installation.
It might not be active, but it should be present.

That is normal - if the modules are already loaded, the output returns nothing.

I’d advise to go through the installation guide once more, from the top.

Or through this on the Arch wiki:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VirtualBox

9

Not in Manjaro, though. I’ve just checked the files list of the virtualbox package — via octopi, because I don’t have virtualbox installed — and it isn’t in there. :man_shrugging:

10

Hmm - I just looked at the PKGBUILD of the package on the Arch Linux website,
didn’t check whether Manjaros was different.

snippet:

install -D -m0644 vboxservice.service "${pkgdir}/usr/lib/systemd/system/vboxservice.service"

I don’t have it installed either - one major reason is that all my Manjaro installations are VMs already (not on real hardware) - I never tried to install a VM inside a VM.

It should work, I just never tried.
With (only) 8 GB of total RAM on my Laptop
and half of that for a VM running on it, I’d likely really run into memory constraints.

1 Like
11

See [root tip] [How To] VirtualBox - Installation - USB - Shared Folder

12

Solved it like this:

  • Installed and run virtualbox.
  • Installed MANJARO as a virtual machine and started it.
  • UPdated the fresh install: $ pamac update -a
  • Created the mount-point for the shared folder and checked its owner to be root:
$ sudo mkdir /media
$ sh -c "sudo chmod 755 /media"
$ ls -la /media
   drwxr-xr-x  8 root root 4096
   drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096
  • Re-Started the virtual machine, run vboxadditons and defined the shared folder from the host (permanent, mount on start-up).
  • Re-started the virtual machine
  • Checked, if the guest system user is member of vboxsf group:
$ groups 
   sys network power lp wheel $USER
  • As it was missing: $ sudo gpasswd -a $USER vboxsf
    and restarted the guest to activate the group membership.
  • Added my user to group: $ sudo usermod -aG vboxsf "${USER}"
  • Checked modprobe to show NULL-result: $ sudo modprobe vboxguest vboxvideo vboxsf
  • Opened the share folder in /media/sf_data and added it to Dolphin’s locations.

May be. this is helpful for someone else …

13

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