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Using VMWare Tools for OSX in VirtualBox


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While going through these forums looking for a filesharing solution when running OSX Mavericks in VirtualBox,

I had this brilliant (?) idea, that perhaps we can use the VMWare Tools for OS X instead?

 

Have anyone considered this?

What are the issues involved?

 

I'd like to hear from some more talented people as my OSX developer experience is basically NULL.

 

Basically we'd need to know how the VB and WMware Toolboxes communicate with the host. and how

to write a simple wrapper for making this successful.

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What part of the tools do you want?

1. The file/folder sharing.

2. The shared clip board.

 

Where is that Oracle repo located? Sorry dumb question: https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox/trunk

 

I would guess that both are using some kind of network socket on both (VB and VMw), and thus one may hope to hack a wrapper to/from that socket to translate to the other. But I really have no idea how they do it. Do you know anything about that?

 

----------------- EDIT -----------------

Ok, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but certainly it seem that they are maintaining this quite well.

For example: https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Additions/common/VBoxGuest/VBoxGuest-darwin.cpp

was updated only 3 months ago. So what would it take to make out own host additions? It seem that we need to make a Kext and a few other files...

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Well folder sharing can be done using regular network shares. The code in VB repo is for clipboard operations but would need building. A VB build environment is non-trivial http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Mac%20OS%20X%20build%20instructions.

 

The host <-> guest communication mechanisms do not use sockets, but have to go through hypervisor shared memory and use different APIs on the different products. It would be simpler to port the VB additions from a different OS than write a wrapper layer.

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The code in VB repo is for clipboard operations but would need building. A VB build environment is non-trivial.

Would you know if building VB would also build the VB guest add-ons?

If, so then perhaps it would be worthwhile building from scratch, but then I would naturally wonder, why it hasn't already been done?

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