Enabling shared folders with open-vm-tools

I'm running Ubuntu 14.10 in VMware Player on Windows 7. I have installed open-vm-tools instead of VMware Tools because VMware's software was unable to compile the kernel module required for file sharing. I cannot get my shared folder to mount with sudo mount -t vmhgfs .host:/$(vmware-hgfsclient) /mnt/hgfs or sudo vmware-hgfsmounter .host:/$(vmware-hgfsclient) /mnt/hgfs. Both return Error: cannot canonicalize mount point: No such file or directory. I have no idea what this is referring to or how to fix it.

My way of solving this issue is to resort to vmhgfs-fuse installed with open-vm-tools.

Either mount locally using vmhgfs-fuse .host:/$(vmware-hgfsclient) ~/some_mountpoint or globally using sudo mount -t fuse.vmhgfs-fuse .host:/ /mnt/hgfs -o allow_other. To then make mounting globally persistent add the following line to your /etc/fstab:

.host:/ /mnt/hgfs fuse.vmhgfs-fuse allow_other 0 0

As the other answers didn't work for me, I finally got it working after long time of digging from this link : Files missing in /mnt/hgfs on Ubuntu VM? where PieCot gives the solution:

$ git clone https://github.com/rasa/vmware-tools-patches.git
$ cd vmware-tools-patches
$ ./patched-open-vm-tools.sh

On the VM make sure:

That you have folder sharing enabled

That you have at least one folder shared between the host and guest

On the Ubuntu guest:

Check /mnt/hgfs to see if you can access the folder, if your unable to do so run this tools command:

sudo vmware-config-tools.pl

Update the fstab using:

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Use a text editor to enter the following at the end of the file:

.host:/{shared-folder} /{path-to-mount-on} vmhgfs defaults,ttl=5,uid=1000,gid=1000   0 0

The final step is to restart your vm ( you may need to restart it , or get an error saying unable to mount, just skip this and restart a few times)!

Thanks, hope this helps!

Ubuntu 17.10 requires installing the vmhgfs driver through the proprietary VMWare Tools tar-based installation. For details see http://partnerweb.vmware.com/GOSIG/Ubuntu_17_10.html