IIS in VirtualBox serving files from shared Ubuntu folder

6

Here's the problem:

  • I want to use Ubuntu.
  • But I need to develop ASP.NET (MVC) sites.
  • So I setup VirtualBox with Win2003 and IIS6.
  • But I would prefer my working files to be located in my Ubuntu home folder.
  • So I setup shared folder in VirtualBox and make IIS6 virtual directory work from there.

The problem is, IIS6 can't do this. Whatever I try (mapped drive, network uri path) I get different IIS errors: can't access folder (for mapped drive), can't monitor file system changes (\vboxsvr share path), and so on.

Is there a way for IIS6 in virtual machine to configure virtual application folder to be on host machine (Ubuntu) - be it shared folder, mapped drive, smb share, or whatever?

Here's what I got using mapped drive:

HttpException (0x80004005): Server cannot access application directory 'h:\work\web\'. The directory does not exist or is not accessible because of security settings.]

And this is using network share path option in IIS:

[HttpException (0x80070001): Failed to start monitoring changes to '\vboxsvr\queen3\work\web

UPDATE: also, to avoid "Failed to start monitoring changes" one may consider this method (disable ASP.NET monitoring file changes). This will allow to use VirtualBox shared folders, not only samba shares. This also helps to debug apps from Visual Studio using run (F5), only solution has to be open from share, not mapped file (\vboxsvr\share).

ubuntu
virtualbox
windows-server-2003
iis
iis-6
asked on Super User Mar 30, 2010 by user17859 • edited Apr 3, 2010 by user17859

1 Answer

3

It may be an issue with how virtualbox is sharing the folder using the special vboxsvr name. Try sharing the folder on Ubuntu using Samba and then mapping it in the virtual machine using the IP address instead.

answered on Super User Mar 31, 2010 by Greg Bray

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