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<!DOCTYPE topic
  PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
<topic xml:lang="en-us" id="vboximg-mount">
            <title>vboximg-mount: A Utility for FUSE Mounting a Virtual Disk Image</title>

            <body>
               <p>
                  <userinput>vboximg-mount</userinput> is a command line utility for Mac
      OS and Linux hosts that provides raw access to an <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
      virtual disk image on the host system. Use this utility to mount,
      view, and optionally modify the disk image contents.
    </p>
               <p>
      The utility is based on Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) technology
      and uses the VirtualBox runtime engine. Ensure that <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
      is running on the host system.
    </p>
               <note>
                  <p>
        When using <userinput>vboximg-mount</userinput>, ensure that the
        following conditions apply:
      </p>
                  <ul>
                     <li>
                        <p>
            The disk image is not being used by any other systems, such
            as by guest VMs.
          </p>
                     </li>
                     <li>
                        <p>
            No VMs are running on the host system.
          </p>
                     </li>
                  </ul>
               </note>
               <p>
      Raw access using FUSE is preferred over direct loopback mounting
      of virtual disk images, because it is snapshot aware. It can
      selectively merge disk differencing images in an exposed virtual
      hard disk, providing historical or up-to-date representations of
      the virtual disk contents.
    </p>
               <p>
                  <userinput>vboximg-mount</userinput> enables you to view information
      about registered VMs, their attached disk media, and any
      snapshots. Also, you can view partition information for a disk
      image.
    </p>
               <p>
      The <userinput>vboximg-mount </userinput>command includes experimental
      read-only access to file systems inside a VM disk image. This
      feature enables you to extract some files from the disk image
      without starting the VM and without requiring third-party file
      system drivers on the host system. FAT, NTFS, ext2, ext3, and ext4
      file systems are supported.
    </p>
               <p>
      Use the <codeph>--help</codeph> option to view information about
      the <userinput>vboximg-mount</userinput> command usage. The complete
      command reference is described in
      <xref href="../cli_topics/man_vboximg-mount.dita"/>.
    </p>
               <p>
      When <userinput>vboximg-mount</userinput> mounts an <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
      disk image, it creates a one level deep file system at a mount
      point that you specify. The file system includes a device node
      that represents the synthesized disk image as a readable or
      readable-writeable bytestream. This bytestream can be mounted
      either by using the host OS or by using other FUSE-based file
      systems.
    </p>
            </body>


         </topic>
