You can use permissions to restrict access to the files in a shared folder on a Linux guest operating system.

On a Linux host, if you create files that you want to share with a Linux guest operating system, the file permissions shown on the guest operating system are the same as the permissions on the host system. You can use the fmask and dmask commands to mask permissions bits for files and directories.

If you create files on a Windows host system that you want to share with a Linux guest operating system, read-only files are displayed as having read and execute permission for everyone and other files are shown as fully writable by everyone.

If you use a Linux guest operating system to create files for which you want to restrict permissions, use the mount program with the following options in the guest operating system.
  • uid
  • gid
  • fmask
  • dmask
  • ro (read only)
  • rw (read-write)

rw is the default.

If you are using a virtual machine that was created with the Windows version of Workstation Pro, or a previous release of the Linux version of Workstation Pro, you can change the owner permissions only.