Shared clipboard for Ubuntu 18.04 guest in Ubutnu 18.04 host under VirtualBox 6.0

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My shared clipboard wasn’t working for my Ubuntu 18.04 guests running on my Ubutnu 18.04 host under VirtualBox 6.0.

To fix first make sure that the shared clipboard is enabled in VirtualBox for the VM. The setting for that is under General -> Advanced -> Shared Clipboard.

Then try running these commands in the guest:

  • sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-dkms virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11
  • sudo reboot

These steps (or something similar) got the shared clipboard working for me. Hooray!

Note that these instructions will vary if you’re running a HWE kernel.