Creating a virtualbox with nginx, but the files are on the Host Windows

Question

Here's what I'd like to achieve:

• I want to develop on windows (where all my tools are) and test on Linux (where the s/w works best).
• I don't want to push to a third server in between and pull into the guest OS each time I make a change.
• So in an ideal world, I just make a change in a file from Windows, that change also is available in the guest's /mnt because I shared the folder, and the browser should show me the change when reloaded.

What I tried to do:

• I have installed Debian as a Guest OS on Windows 7 Host.
• I have then shared a folder from Windows, and mounted that on /mnt.
• I added an entry into my Windows 7 /etc/hosts file to allow me to reach 192.168.56.101 from a custom myproj.dev domain name.
• I set up a second Host-only adapter to provide access to 192.168.56.101
• Then I configured nginx in the guest OS, and I am now trying to make a VirtualHost whose root is the shared folder on /mnt.
• I am running nginx as root, because /mnt and its contents are owned (and grouped) only by root, and I cannot change it with chgrp I think because it is a shared folder.

The output I get when I navigate to the server is:

~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ‘•¶~óv·A¶Ï\jµ¶~óv·Àp´¶Ï啶~óv·@A¶ÿvç¶~óv·€B¶Ï$–¶~óv·€A¶Ï?^¤¶~óv·@f¢¶ÿa–¶~óv·ÀA¶ÏuĶ~óv·ÀĶϢ–¶~óv·B¶Ï„¢5¶~óv·@T4¶Ïì–¶~óv·@B¶Ï."]¶."]¶À#\¶À#\¶ÿL¶L¶€a¶€a¶ÿ‹¶~óv·a¶Ï~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿ~óv·~óv·ÿÈ`:¶~óv·À¼9¶ïÏB2¶~óv· 1¶ÿ@˜¶¶~óv·€¨´¶ÿí%£¶í%£¶0¢¶0¢¶ÿÐ7¶~óv·ÀB¶Ï8¶~óv·C¶ÿ:8¶~óv·@C¶ÿ~8¶~óv·€C¶Ï"C&¶~óv·@O%¶ÏÉ8¶~óv·ÀC¶ÿ9¶~óv·D¶ÿE9¶~óv·@D¶Ï“P‰¶~óv·@‰¶Ïß9¶~óv·€D¶Ï8:¶~óv·ÀD¶ÿ‘:¶~óv·E¶

/mnt consists of a Laravel installation, and it is plain English, not some other language.

Is what I am trying to do possible at all? Am I missing a crucial step somewhere?

Answer 1

There's a 'user' configuration right on top of the nginx config file.

When I set this to 'root', everything works -

user root;

In case you don't want to grant all access, you can set this to 'www-data' (if you have that user).

user www-data;

But for this to work, you have to add 'www-data' user to the 'vboxsf' group -

usermod -a -G vboxsf www-data

Answer 2

It's probably a little less than ideal but WinSCP has an automatic sync feature between two hosts.

I've setup a similar vm setup using apache without issue in the past. I don't have enough experience to help with the nginx.

Answer 3

I guess the problem is ... that one cannot set octal permission on a NTFS drive.

As i wrote on G+ ...

Just bridge the network interface and FTP/SFTP the box.

You could download VMware, create the container and use the VMplayer in case you don't want to spend money on it (it auto-bridges the virtual NIC, no need to bridge it manually).

Once blogged how to setup proFTPd for web-development:

http://www.codefx.biz/2012/01/proftpd-making-apache-owner-uploaded-files-directories

I only use hgfs for exporting Excel 2007 files - for opening/saving files I use FTPrush (tip: you might want to add * as filetype to open with your text-editor, else it might not open certain file-types as expected.

Hard to tell where that output comes from - ever tried disabling nGinx?

Best practice is to enable full PHP error output and investigate the log files. Seems to be some clutter from nGinx; only seen something similar with Memcached once. The log-files should give insight ... most likely not yet configured accordingly.