diff --git a/virtcontainers/container.go b/virtcontainers/container.go
index bc2eda71f7..6bbe7825a5 100644
--- a/virtcontainers/container.go
+++ b/virtcontainers/container.go
@@ -304,6 +304,13 @@ func (c *Container) mountSharedDirMounts(hostSharedDir, guestSharedDir string) (
 			continue
 		}
 
+		// We need to treat /dev/shm as a special case. This is passed as a bind mount in the spec,
+		// but it does not make sense to pass this as a 9p mount from the host side.
+		// This needs to be handled purely in the guest, by allocating memory for this inside the VM.
+		if m.Destination == "/dev/shm" {
+			continue
+		}
+
 		randBytes, err := generateRandomBytes(8)
 		if err != nil {
 			return nil, err