How to Use DropBox on a Shared / Network / Mapped Drive
Hey All -
The company I work for has a fairly strict internet blockage policy mostly due to them being so large. It's also not possible for exclusions to be made per user for some reason. I have two connections at my desk - the corporate LAN and a network plugged into an external cable modem. Instead of using two computers for when I need to get onto blocked services, I installed a 2nd NIC after receiving permission, and created a VM in VMWare Workstation assigned to the NIC. I of course have it's IPv4/6 disabled on the host to prevent cross communication.
One service I depend on is Dropbox which is blocked on the corporate LAN. It's where I organize all of my documentation and tools. I've been using it in my VM, but have tried everything I can think of to make it syncronize to a folder shared with my workstation and the VM. Unfortunatly, nothing has worked.
Here's what I've tried & result:
- Installing Dropbox to Drive mapped to host folder - Dropbox will not allow
- Creating a symlink / directory junction to a host folder - didn't work
- Creating a temp drive in VMWare with drive letter X:, assigning it to Dropbox, letting it sync, exit Dropbox, remove temp drive and map host folder to X:, start Dropbox - This started working, but after a few seconds Dropbox had red X saying it didn't have rights to access it
Things that won't work or I don't have resources to do:
- If I had enough space I'd just use a sync app to sync th dropbox between a local vm folder and host folder, but my Dropbox is 80gb.
- Map drive on host to VM folder - I can't do this because they are on two completely different networks & subnets.
I know that in a VM you can use a default DNS entry of "\\vmware-host" to refer to the host workstation. Is there any such thing going to opposite direction?
Here are the specs I have to work with:
- Host OS - Windows 7 x64
- VM OS - Windows 7 x64
- Software - VMWare Workstation 10 (just upgraded)
Any Ideas? I'm out of them - Thanks!
The company I work for has a fairly strict internet blockage policy mostly due to them being so large. It's also not possible for exclusions to be made per user for some reason. I have two connections at my desk - the corporate LAN and a network plugged into an external cable modem. Instead of using two computers for when I need to get onto blocked services, I installed a 2nd NIC after receiving permission, and created a VM in VMWare Workstation assigned to the NIC. I of course have it's IPv4/6 disabled on the host to prevent cross communication.
One service I depend on is Dropbox which is blocked on the corporate LAN. It's where I organize all of my documentation and tools. I've been using it in my VM, but have tried everything I can think of to make it syncronize to a folder shared with my workstation and the VM. Unfortunatly, nothing has worked.
Here's what I've tried & result:
- Installing Dropbox to Drive mapped to host folder - Dropbox will not allow
- Creating a symlink / directory junction to a host folder - didn't work
- Creating a temp drive in VMWare with drive letter X:, assigning it to Dropbox, letting it sync, exit Dropbox, remove temp drive and map host folder to X:, start Dropbox - This started working, but after a few seconds Dropbox had red X saying it didn't have rights to access it
Things that won't work or I don't have resources to do:
- If I had enough space I'd just use a sync app to sync th dropbox between a local vm folder and host folder, but my Dropbox is 80gb.
- Map drive on host to VM folder - I can't do this because they are on two completely different networks & subnets.
I know that in a VM you can use a default DNS entry of "\\vmware-host" to refer to the host workstation. Is there any such thing going to opposite direction?
Here are the specs I have to work with:
- Host OS - Windows 7 x64
- VM OS - Windows 7 x64
- Software - VMWare Workstation 10 (just upgraded)
Any Ideas? I'm out of them - Thanks!
ASKER
Hmm -
Thank you for the suggestion, but I frequently access many of the files and even though it may be somewhat helpful, I'm looking for a folder-based solution. Thanks for the tip, though.
Anybody else have any thoughts? Thanks!
Thank you for the suggestion, but I frequently access many of the files and even though it may be somewhat helpful, I'm looking for a folder-based solution. Thanks for the tip, though.
Anybody else have any thoughts? Thanks!
Map a network drive from the HOST to the VM.
Sync Dropbox to a local drive in the VM, and Share it.
Sync Dropbox to a local drive in the VM, and Share it.
ASKER
Thanks, but not possible. Like I said, they are on different networks and cannot talk to each other on purpose. Thanks, though...
Not even, if you create a private IP Address range.
e.g. 192.168.1.1 for both Host and VM?
e.g. 192.168.1.1 for both Host and VM?
ASKER
OK - I think I know what you are getting at...
I can add a second virtual NIC to the VM with the subnet of 192.168.1.1 - but - how would I do so host-side? Also, the last thing I want to do is compromise security so need to make sure that traffic between the two networks does not mix.
Thanks
I can add a second virtual NIC to the VM with the subnet of 192.168.1.1 - but - how would I do so host-side? Also, the last thing I want to do is compromise security so need to make sure that traffic between the two networks does not mix.
Thanks
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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http://andysworld.org.uk/2013/09/12/cloudhq-backup-and-sync-data-between-cloud-storage-providers/
What you are referring to is VMware Shared Folders, i.e. shared folders from the host appear in the VM. This is just a special internal windows shared folder.
the other way round is called Windows File Sharing.