title: How to run meteor app inside an Ubuntu VrtualBox and edit using an editor on a Windows host?
body: <p>I'm looking to run a meteor server for development purposes inside a virtualbox guest running Ubuntu. The project would be inside a folder on the host that would be shared to the guest (the folder itself is inside a Dropbox folder - this way I can share development between multiple VMs and workstations, but that shouldn't hurt), </p>
  
  <p>I've got networking set up on the guest through host-only adapter &amp; NAT with SSH keys entered into putty for convenience + the guest's ip in the windows <code>etc/hosts</code> file so the server is accessible locally on <code>http://dev:3000</code>, this part is working out fine.</p>
  
  <p>The virtualbox is running on Windows 7 so the catch is that Meteor won't start due to not being able to start Mongo which wants to create a lockfile (since the file would have to be on the windows host shared to guest through vboxfs).</p>
  
  <p>If I move the project to a different folder then there's no longer a way to edit the files with an editor on the host. I tried playing with moving <code>.meteor/local</code> folder out to an ext3 partition and connect with symlinks but this doesn't work for same reason lockfile can't be created.</p>
  
  <p>So, anyone got suggestions on how to set this up?</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>I installed mongodb inside the ubuntu guest, but then when I attempted to run <code>meteor</code> the startup broke because meteor seems to want to create symlinks inside the folder:</p>
  
  <pre><code>/home/bbozo/.meteor/tools/09b63f1ed5/lib/node_modules/fibers/future.js:173
                                                  throw(ex);
                                                        ^
  Error: EROFS, read-only file system '/media/sf_Shared/Dropbox/dev_uhurajr/chat/.meteor/local/.build320446.build/programs/server/npm/logging/main/node_modules'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Plan B would be something in the lines of @user3185338 answer which is a workable workaround but I'm kind of hoping there's a more elegant alternative to running a while loop with x second lag inside <code>screen</code></p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p>
  
  <p>Is there perhaps a way to tell meteor to move it's .meteor work folder without resorting to symlinks? Perhaps by setting up an application server in ubuntu something in the lines of apache/nginx + passenger?</p>