Symlinks within shared folders in VirtualBox: Operation not permitted and Read Only Filesystem

This blog post was published 9 years ago and may or may not have aged well. While reading please keep in mind that it may no longer be accurate or even relevant.

This is not a bug, it is a security feature of Virtual Box. Nevertheless it is annoying. To enable symlinks:

VBoxManage setextradata <MACHINE_LABEL> VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/<SHARE_LABEL> 1

For example:

VBoxManage setextradata Debian Wheezy VBoxInternal2/SharedFoldersEnableSymlinksCreate/Public 1

To check if your setting has been ‘taken’, run

VBoxManage getextradata MACHINE_LABEL enumerate

Restart the virtual machine and the creation of symlinks should work.

Keywords: virtualbox