How to Share Files Between a Photon OS VM and the VM Host

(The following is adapted from the official Photon OS FAQ.)

How do I transfer or share files between #Photon and my host machine?

Use vmhgfs-fuse to transfer files between Photon and your host machine:

1. Enable Shared folders in the Workstation or Fusion UI (edit the VM settings and choose Options->Enabled shared folders).

2. Make sure open-vm-tools is installed (it is installed by default in the Minimal installation and OVA import).

3. Run vmware-hgfsclient to list the shares.

4. Next, do one of the following:

   • Mount shared folders:

   vmhgfs-fuse .host:/$(vmware-hgfsclient) /mnt/hgfs

   (Note: The above doesn’t work with more than one shared folder. Since I only had a handful, I just enumerated the ones I wanted to share.)

   mkdir /mnt/hgfs/share1 /mnt/hgfs/share2 /mnt/hgfs/share3
   vmhgfs-fuse .host:/share1 /mnt/hgfs/share1
   vmhgfs-fuse .host:/share2 /mnt/hgfs/share2
   vmhgfs-fuse .host:/share3 /mnt/hgfs/share3
   

   • or, add the following line(s) to /etc/fstab and reboot

   .host:/ /mnt/hgfs fuse.vmhgfs-fuse <options> 0 0

   (Note: Likewise, enumerate the individual desired shares in the fstab file)

   .host:/share1 /mnt/hgfs/share1 fuse.vmhgfs-fuse <options> 0 0
   .host:/share2 /mnt/hgfs/share2 fuse.vmhgfs-fuse <options> 0 0
   .host:/share3 /mnt/hgfs/share3 fuse.vmhgfs-fuse <options> 0 0