On my work, I have a box with WinXP, running Virtual Box as a host, and a Ubuntu Server 9.10 box as a guest. My problem is that the firewall on the corporate network does not allow Ubuntu to update the date and time against any NTP server (like pool.ntp.org or ntp.ubuntu.com). So, I need a way to keep the hour updated on the guest. Fortunately, VirtualBox has the ability to synchronize it from the host, the only thing I need to do was to install the Guest Additions package.
To do this, first, we need to click on Devices/Install Guest Additions (from the VirtualBox menu).
Then, on the Ubuntu Server, we install some pre-requisites:
$ aptitude install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) -y |
Now, we will mount the virtual CD-ROM (where the Guest Additions are):
$ mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/ |
And then, run the installer script (there is a 32-bit and 64-bit versions). For 32-bit (which is the most probable, as VirtualBox Open Source only supports 32-bit guests):
$ /mnt/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run |
Or for 64-bit guest:
$ /mnt/VBoxLinuxAdditions-amd64.run |
It should install the available modules (like timesync), and drop a fail message saying that X server
was not found, which is OK as we are working with a server without GUI.
Finally, we umount the CD-ROM:
$ umount /mnt/ |
Now, the guest box time should be sync with the host, so we have one less thing to worry about.
Perfect! I’ve been looking for this solution! Thanks!
your tutorial is very good!It’s help resolve the problem.thank you very much!
Thanks for the concise tutorial. I found that trailing / after mnt in both mount and umount commands are unnecessary and cause commands to fail. Remove them and all works perfect. Thanks again