Tuesday

VMware/Windows Tip: Mounting a stage directory

Here is a quick tip on how to mount Windows shares in a Linux environment. I mention this as a VMware tip because I see alot of people transferring source files to their VMware image by launching a browser within the vm or via ftp.

If the product your installing is fairly large this could inflate your vmware image, taking up more room on your hard drive. If you take snapshots or back them up, then thats space can add up. As well for products like R12, the stage directory is just under 40GB. Thats not something your going to want to store inside your VM.

I have one directory on my system which contains all the products I have downloaded including R12 for Linux, various versions of Oracle for different OS’s and patches. I share out this directory via Windows (right click on the folder name followed by “Share…” (Vista)) and mount it within the virtual machine by executing the following command:

mount -t cifs //192.168.0.100/R12 -o username=dave,password=mypass /mnt/Stage

Note: make sure /mnt/Stage is an empty directory otherwise the mount will fail and that your kernel supports CIFS. The username and password above are that of my Windows account. //192.168.0.100/R12 would be my laptops IP address and the Windows share name.

4 comments:

Jornica said...

Just wondering?

Why not use shared folders functionality (see Virtual Machine settings, tab Options). You will need to install VMware tools. However there is no username/password and ip address involved.

With kind regards,

Jornica

Unknown said...

Thanks, I didn't know you could do that. I have experienced issues with VMware tools not installing properly sometimes so I guess its good to be familiar with both methods.

Mehmood Rehman said...

I must say it is very nice post, especially if you dont have the VmWare workstation, and you are working on VmWare Server.

keep it up buddy.

cheers

http://mehmoodm.blogspot.com

priyakeerthi said...


I do agree with all the ideas you have presented in your post. They’re really convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are very short for newbies. Could you please extend them a little from next time? Thanks for the post..

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