Filesystem Sharing

The Shared Filesystem framework allows guests to access directories on the host through mountpoints of their choosing. The framework does this by providing a virtual filesystem device through which guests can interact with files in shared host directories as though they were local files.

The host has control over which directories it shares. Many guests can access the same shared directory but each guest can choose its own mountpoint for the virtual filesystem that contains this directory.

Note: This framework is considered experimental because the VirtIO specification that defines the virtual device interface or the guest OS components that use this interface might change. Thus, the guest or host components may require updates in future releases.

This chapter explains the framework's architecture in which the hypervisor manages interaction between guest applications and shared host directories, the virtual filesystem device configuration that makes a host directory available to a guest, and the necessary Shared Filesystem framework components for the guests and host.