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

Caveat Lector: This blog post was published 11 years ago. Depending on the content, it may no longer be applicable or 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.

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