First, I’ll describe what I did; then why; then how.

What:

• I've got a Windows XP computer (host).
• I've got Portable VirtualBox (PVB).
• I've got a physical partition on the computer that is encrypted with TrueCrypt (TC).
• I've got Ubuntu 10.4 (Lucid Lynx) installed as a guest in PVB.
• I made the TC partition available in the guest as a physical partition.
• I mounted the TC partition with TC in Lucid.
• I shared the mounted TC file system from Lucid.
• I accessed the shared file system from the host. </ul> Why:
  • To see if I could!
  • I have a very aggressive anti-virus installed on the host. It treats several legitimate programs as "PUPs" (potentially unwanted programs) and it deletes them. It does NOT do this on network shared drives. I want these files accessible both in a VM and on the host. The AV program is an all-or-nothing affair. </ul> How:
    1. See Portable VirtualBox to set up PVB.
    2. Installing Ubuntu in PVB is not covered here. It is a plain vanilla Ubuntu install.
    3. Create a Virtualbox physical partition descriptor for the TC partition:
       • vboxmanage internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive1
         • MY TC partition is on my second physical drive, which Windows calls \\.\PhysicalDrive1. If you have only a single physical drive, it is probably called \\.\PhysicalDrive0
         • Note that the Windows TC's partition numbering scheme does not match VirtualBox's, so you really do have to do this step! </ul>
         • VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename raw-k.vmdk -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive1 -partitions 8
           • Substitute the file name of your choice for raw-k.vmdk.
           • Substitute the partition number of your choice for 8. You can list multiple partitions, separated with commas. </ul>
           • Move raw-k.vmdk and raw-k-pt.vmdk to \pvb\pvb-data\.VirtualBox\HardDisks
           • Use the VirtualBox GUI to add raw-k.vmdk to you list of available virtual disks (File/Virtual Media Manager/Add...)
           • Use the VirtualBox GUI to add the vmdk to your Machine's disks. Mine was added as IDE Secondary Slave. </ul>
           • Start your virtual machine via the GUI, and mount the partition from Lucid. I recommend mounting it read-only, at least until you're sure things are set up correctly. Run /usr/bin/truecrypt and mount it via the GUI. Then dismount it, and set up a shell script to run:
             • mkdir /media/tc
             • /usr/bin/truecrypt --mount /dev/sdc8 /media/tc
               • Of course, you will want to substitute YOUR correct device for /dev/sdc8 </ul> </ul>
               • Because I'm using PVB, I don't have any network interfaces created by installing VirtualBox. I needed to set up port forwarding with VirtualBox's NAT pseudo-interface. First configure a loopback adapter:
                 1. Create a loopback adapter in the host: Cpanel/Add Hardware/Yes I have already connected the hardware/Add a new hardware device/Install the hardware that I manually select/Network Adapters/Microsoft/Microsoft Loopback Adapter.
                 2. Rename the loopback adapter to "loopback1"
                 3. Bind Client for Microsoft Networks to loopback1.
                 4. Un-bind File and Printer Sharing from loopback1. This frees up port 139 on loopback1.
                 5. Bind TCP/IP to loopback1. Set TCP properties to Address=192.168.2.1, Interface Metric=9999, Enable LMHOSTS, Disable NetBIOS over TCP. </ol>
                 6. Set up port forwarding ("ubuntu-10.4" is MY guest's machine name; use your own. smb139 is an arbitrary name for the forwarding rules; use your own. 139 is the port for Windows SMB/CIFS file sharing):
                    1. vboxmanage setextradata "ubuntu-10.4" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/smb139/HostPort" 139
                    2. vboxmanage setextradata "ubuntu-10.4" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/smb139/GuestPort" 139
                    3. vboxmanage setextradata "ubuntu-10.4" "VBoxInternal/Devices/pcnet/0/LUN#0/Config/smb139/Protocol" TCP </ol>
                    4. Not it is time to share /media/tc from Lucid. I was lazy, so I installed KDE. Then I clicked System/Preferences/System Settings (which KDE adds, even to Gnome)
                       1. On the Advanced tab, click Samba
                       2. Workgroup=HOME (Use your choice of workgroups)
                       3. NetBIOS Name=UVM104 (Use your choice of computer name)
                       4. Server String=%h (Use your choice of server description)
                       5. Security Level=Share
                       6. Add a share for /media/tc, named tc.
                       7. Allow All unspecified users.
                       8. Users: Add kevin and kk. (Note: I created a synonym user "kk" to match my host user ID by editing /etc/password, copying kevin, renaming it to kk, keeping the same UID and GID, and passwording kk.)
                       9. /etc/service restart smbd
                       10. /etc/service restart nmbd </ol>
                       11. From Windows map a network drive to \\192.168.2.1\tc, using user=kevin. (I eventually got kk working, after I defined an SMB password for kk to match kk's password in Windows.) </ol> Some helpful links:
                           • http://www.blisstonia.com/eolson/notes/smboverssh.php
                           • http://virtualboximages.com/node/158
                           • http://www.aviransplace.com/2008/06/12/virtualbox-configuring-port-forwarding-with-nat/ </ul>