Monday 25 November 2019

routing - VMWare Workstation: How to access the virtual disk from the host system?


I would like to access the disk of a VM from host or even better from LAN. The VM runs a Windows XP. The easiest way would be an access to the c$ share.


Peace,


Ice


Update: Upon the several answers i want to refine my question: Host OS is Linux (Ubuntu). To 'see' the windows partition (c$) inside the vm a want to use the smb protocoll. How (\computername\c$ or ip-adress\c$) works the access?


Update 2: The target of this question is: How to route the smb-protocoll on a linux-box?



Answer



If you want to share the C$ drive to a LAN, then it doesn't matter whether you're using a physical server or a VM -- just use the normal Windows [In]Security model to share the drive via CIFS.


[Edit: If you need to access a CIFS network share from Ubuntu, see the Ubuntu wiki.]


If you want the host to be able to read a VM's drive, then the answer depends upon what OS the host is running, what version of VM-hosting software the host is running, and what OS and version the VM is running AND if the VM is running.


Quoting from the vmware-mount documentation:



VMware Disk Mount is a utility for Windows and Linux hosts that allows you to mount an unused virtual disk as a separate drive or partition without needing to connect to the virtual disk from within a virtual machine. You can mount specific volumes of a virtual disk if the virtual disk is partitioned.


After you mount a virtual disk, you can read from and write to the mounted virtual disk as if it were a separate file system with its own drive letter or mount point on your computer. For example, you could scan the disk for viruses or transfer files between the host system and a powered off virtual machine. When you are finished using a mounted virtual disk, you should unmount it so the virtual machine can use its virtual disk again.



If you're not using VMware Workstation, or not using the right version of VMware or Windows or Linux, you'll need to find a different approach.


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