NFS sharing between a Mac host and an Ubuntu/Debian Guest VM

Ever wondered how Vagrant shared folders work in the background with NFS on a Mac host?

It's pretty straight forward, so let's dive in.

Step1. Mac Host:

• supposing that you are using VirtualBox, just add a Host-Only interface to the Ubuntu/Debian Guest VM, usually the Host-Only interface has the following gateway IP 192.168.33.1

Step2. Ubuntu/Debian Guest VM:

• Add the followings to /etc/network/interfaces

   auto eth1
   iface eth1 inet static
            address 192.168.33.120
            netmask 255.255.255.0

• Then

   cd ~
   mkdir myWebApp

Step3. Host:

• First:

   cd ~/Sites
   mkdir myWebApp

• Then add to /etc/exports/:

   "/Users/yourMacUser/Sites/myWebApp" 192.168.33.120 -alldirs -mapall=501:20

• Then restart nfsd with sudo nfsd restart

Step4. Guest:

sudo mount -t nfs 192.168.33.1:"/Users/yourMacUser/Sites/myWebApp" ~/myWebApp

You should now see your Mac Host folder /Users/yourMacUser/Sites/myWebApp content mounted into your Ubuntu/Debian Guest folder ~/myWebApp.

Let us know what you think.