Ubuntu

VirtualBox Shared Folders

silviogutierrez
02/08/2009
3 comments

If you're like me and still need Windows for a few tools (Photoshop), you're either dual-booting or using a virtual machine. In my case, I tried VMware Workstation, but had some kernel panics.

I decided to try the proprietary version of VirtualBox, which is free but closed-source. Vista worked well but I ended up installing XP. While it's very fast and almost everything works, I had problems browsing my shared folders. If you navigate to \\vboxsvr using the address bar you'll get an error.

Instead, open up the command line and type:

net use v: \\vboxsvr\YOUR_SHARE_NAME

Replace YOUR_SHARE_NAME with the share you'd like to use, in my case it was Home. This will map the share to a network drive. It will be mapped every time you start the machine, so there's no need to do it again.

Change MySQL User on Ubuntu

silviogutierrez
12/13/2008
4 comments
One thing that always bugged me is that everything on my development server is in my home directory except my databases. As I go on the road a lot and like to have my server on my laptop, "syncing" the server becomes annoying. I usually use rsync, but unless you enable the root account, you won't be able to synchronize the elusive /var/lib/mysql folder. And we all know what the community thinks of enabling the root account. This is just one of the countless reasons why I decided to move my databases to my home directory. It's also nice knowing that I need to backup only my home folder. Fortunately MySQL presents an easy way to change the user the process should run as.