How to share files between host and guest in GNOME Boxes

Sharing files in GNOME Boxes

Yesterday we published an article about GNOME Boxes in which we talked about some of its benefits, knowing that it is not a new program, but we had to add it to the catalog of Linux Adictos because we didn't have it in our file. Also yesterday we said that we could improve things and that we would soon say how, a moment that has arrived today. As we hinted, almost everything works perfectly from the beginning, but we have to install some extra package if we want to do something else.

What's that we can't do after a fresh install of GNOME Boxes? Well share files between host and guest. In VirtualBox, although the option is not fully visible, we only have to navigate through the options, indicate which folder we want to share and then look for it in the networks section. In GNOME Boxes we have to install a package and know how to share from host to guest and vice versa, since they are two different methods.

Spice does this magic in GNOME Boxes

The first thing to do to be able to send in both directions is to install SPICE in the host system.

  1. We will install the spice-webdavd package. For Debian (sudo apt install spice-webdavd) and Fedora (sudo dnf install spice-webdavd) based systems. On other distros it may just be called "spice", and might not work as well. The package must be installed on each of the guest systems.
  2. We restart the guest system.

This is necessary to be able to pass files from the guest to the host. If what we want is to do the reverse path, passing something from the host to the guest is as simple as drag it from outside to the window from GNOME Boxes. The file will appear in the Downloads folder. Files can also be sent from the three dots (options) at the top right and choosing the “Send file” option.

To send files from the guest to the host you have to:

  1. Let's go to the three points of the options.
  2. Now we choose “Preferences”.
  3. In the window that opens, we choose «Devices and shares».
  4. We click on the plus symbol (+).
  5. With the “Public” folder selected, we click on “Save”.

Configure Spice on Ubuntu

  1. We close the window and enter the guest system itself.
  2. From here, the configuration process will depend on the file explorer. For example, in Nautilus it will show "Spice client folder" under "Other locations".
  3. When we access that folder, it will mount the drive and we will be able to pass files from the guest to the host.

Mount the drive in GNOME Boxes

And this is how you can send files from one system to another using GNOME Boxes.


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