Arch linux vmware server

VMware/Install Arch Linux as a guest

This article is about installing Arch Linux in a VMware product, such as Player (Plus), Fusion or Workstation.

Contents

In-kernel drivers

• vmw_balloon — The physical memory management driver. It acts like a «balloon» that can be inflated to reclaim physical pages by reserving them in the guest and invalidating them in the monitor, freeing up the underlying machine pages so they can be allocated to other guests. It can also be deflated to allow the guest to use more physical memory. Deallocated Virtual Machine memory can be reused in the host without terminating the guest.
• vmw_pvscsi — For VMware’s Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) HBA.
• vmw_vmci — The Virtual Machine Communication Interface. It enables high-speed communication between host and guest in a virtual environment via the VMCI virtual device.
• vmwgfx — For 3D acceleration. This is a KMS enabled DRM driver for the VMware SVGA2 virtual hardware.
• vmxnet3 — For VMware’s vmxnet3 virtual ethernet NIC.
• a fuse-based hgfs implementation has been added to open-vm-tools 10.0+ and is supported from kernel version 4.0+.

The following drivers are only needed if you are running Arch Linux on a hypervisor like VMware vSphere Hypervisor. Client-server applications can write to the VMCI Sock (vsock) interface to make use of the VMCI virtual device, when communicating between virtual machines.

• vsock — The Virtual Socket Protocol. It is similar to the TCP/IP socket protocol, allowing communication between Virtual Machines and hypervisor or host.
• vmw_vsock_vmci_transport — Implements a VMCI transport for Virtual Sockets.

Some modules, such as the legacy vmhgfs shared folder module, will require additional work to manually compile and systemd enable in order to function properly.

VMware Tools versus Open-VM-Tools

In 2007, VMware released large partitions of the VMware Tools under the LGPL as Open-VM-Tools. The official Tools are not available separately for Arch Linux.

Originally, VMware Tools provided the best drivers for network and storage, combined with the functionality for other features such as time synchronization. However, now the drivers for the network/SCSI adapter are part of the Linux kernel.

The official VMware Tools also had the advantage of being able to use the Unity mode feature, but as of VMWare Workstation 12, Unity mode for Linux guests has been removed due to lack of use and developer difficulties in maintaining the feature. See this thread.

Open-VM-Tools

Utilities

The open-vm-tools package comes with the following utilities:

• vmtoolsd — Service responsible for the Virtual Machine status report.
• vmware-checkvm — Tool to check whether a program is running in the guest.
• vmware-toolbox-cmd — Tool to obtain Virtual Machine information of the host.
• vmware-user — Tool to enable clipboard sharing (copy/paste) between host and guest.
• vmware-vmblock-fuse — Filesystem utility. Enables drag & drop functionality between host and guest through FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace).
• vmware-xferlogs — Dumps logging/debugging information to the Virtual Machine logfile.
• vmhgfs-fuse — Utility for mounting vmhgfs shared folders.

Modules

• vmhgfs — Legacy filesystem driver. Enables legacy sharing implementation between host and guest.
• vmxnet — for the old VMXNET network adapter.

Installation

Install open-vm-tools . If the legacy vmhgfs shared folder module is desired, the open-vm-tools-dkms AUR [broken link: package not found] package must be installed (the new vmhgfs-fuse driver is included in open-vm-tools ). Start and/or enable vmtoolsd.service and vmware-vmblock-fuse.service .

Try to install gtkmm3 manually if it does not work properly. To enable copy and paste between host and guest gtkmm3 is required.

Official VMware Tools

Modules

• vmblock — Filesystem driver. Enables drag & drop functionality between host and guest (superseded by the vmware-vmblock-fuse utility).
• vmci — High performance communication interface between host and guest.
• vmmon — Virtual Machine Monitor.
• vmnet — Networking driver.
• vsock — VMCI sockets.

Installation (from guest)

Install the dependencies: base-devel (for building), net-tools (for ifconfig , used by the installer) and linux-headers (for kernel headers). A make dependency for checking out open-vm-tools is asp .

Then, create bogus init directories for the installer:

The installer can then be mounted:

Extracted (e.g. to /root ):

The following build failures can safely be ignored:

• VMNEXT 3 virtual network card
• «Warning: This script could not find mkinitrd or update-initramfs and cannot remake the initrd file!»
• Fuse components not found on the system.

Enable vmware-vmblock-fuse systemd services (make sure the dependencies are manually installed, or that the -s flag) used. The open-vm-tools source code should be checked out using the Arch Build System.

Reboot the Virtual Machine:

Log in and start the VMware Tools:

Additionally, to auto start vmware-tools on boot, create a new file /etc/systemd/system/vmwaretools.service :

And enable the new systemd service:

Xorg configuration

These packages should be all that are required to get started with booting into a graphical target : . /etc/xdg/autostart/vmware-user.desktop will get started which will set up most of what is needed to work with the Virtual Machine.

However, if booting into multi-user.target or using an uncommon setup (e.g. multiple monitors), then vmtoolsd.service needs to be enabled. In addition to this, edit:

to give permission for loading drivers.

Tips and tricks

Shared Folders with vmhgfs-fuse utility

Share a folder by selecting Edit virtual machine settings > Options > Shared Folders > Always enabled, and creating a new share.

The shared folders should be visible with:

Now the folder can be mounted:

If the error message fusermount: option allow_other only allowed if ‘user_allow_other’ is set in /etc/fuse.conf is displayed, uncomment the following line in /etc/fuse.conf :

Other vmhgfs-fuse mount options can be viewed by using the -h input flag:

fstab

Add a rule for each share:

Create and mount the Shared Folders (if not done so already):

Systemd

Create the following .service :

Ensure the folder exists on the system. If this folder does not exist then it must be created, as the systemd service depends on it:

Enable the — .service mount target.

If all shared folders should be mounted automatically then omit .

Legacy Shared Folders with vmhgfs module

Share a folder by selecting Edit virtual machine settings > Options > Shared Folders > Always enabled, and creating a new share.

Ensure the vmhgfs driver is loaded:

The shared folders should be viewable with:

Now the folder can be mounted:

Enable at boot

Edit mkinitcpio.conf thusly:

fstab

Add a rule for each share:

Create and mount the Shared Folders:

Systemd

For shared folders to work the vmhgfs driver must be loaded. Create the following .service s:

Ensure the folder exists on the system. If this folder does not exist then it must be created, as the systemd scripts depend on it:

Enable the mnt-hgfs.automount mount target.

If all shared folders should be mounted automatically then omit .

Prune mlocate DB

When using mlocate, it is pointless to index the shared directories in the locate DB . Therefore, add the directories to PRUNEPATHS in /etc/updatedb .

3D Acceleration

If not selected at guest creation time, 3D Acceleration can be enabled in: Edit virtual machine settings > Hardware > Display > Accelerate 3D graphics.

OpenGL and GLSL support

It is possible to update OpenGL and GLSL with new kernel modules, overriding Arch-controlled versions.

Currently, OpenGL 3.3 and GLSL 3.30 can be supported. See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=202713 for more details.

Time synchronization

Configuring time synchronization in a Virtual Machine is important; fluctuations are bound to occur more easily in a guest VM. This is mostly due to the CPU being shared by more than one guest.

There are 2 options to set up time synchronization: the host or an external source.

Host machine as time source

To use the host as a time source, ensure vmtoolsd.service is started. Then enable the time synchronization:

To synchronize the guest after suspending the host:

External server as time source

Troubleshooting

Network slow on guest

Arch Linux, as well as other Linux guests, may have slow network speeds while using NAT. To resolve this, switch the network type to Bridged mode in the guest settings on the host, changing the configuration file for the network on the guest where necessary. For more information on configuration, see Network configuration. If on a Windows host and it is not connecting properly despite correct guest configuration, open the Virtual Network Editor on the host as Administrator and press the Restore defaults button at the bottom left.

File share problems with legacy vmhgfs module and newer kernels

As the open-vm-tools-dkms AUR [broken link: package not found] package is no longer being updated, newer kernels are not patched correctly using it to be compatible with a host-guest file share. The Github repository has some patch files that can be manually applied to restore functionality.

It is also recommended that the AUR comment section be checked for this package.

Sound problems

If unacceptably loud or annoying sounds occur, then it may be related to the PC speaker. The issue may be resolved by disabling the PC speaker within the guest image:

Mouse problems

The following problems may occur with the mouse:

• The automatic grab/ungrab feature does not automatically grab input when the cursor enters the window
• Missing buttons
• Input lag
• Clicks are not registered in some applications
• Mouse cursor jumps when entering/leaving virtual machine
• Mouse position jumps to where it left the guest VM

These may be fixed by uninstalling the xf86-input-vmmouse package. xf86-input-vmmouse and xf86-input-libinput should be sufficient for handling mouse and keyboard inputs.

Adding settings to the .vmx configuration file may help (Mouse position jumps to where it left the guest VM):

VMware also attempts to automatically optimize the mouse for gaming. If problems are experienced, disabling the optimization is recommended: Edit > Preferences > Input > Optimize mouse for games: Never

Alternatively, attempting to disable the catchall event in 60-libinput.conf may be required:

Boot problems

Slow boot time

The following errors may be displayed if VMWare’s memory hot-add feature is enabled:

• add_memory failed
• acpi_memory_enable_device() error

Disable the memory hot-add feature by setting mem.hotadd = «FALSE» to the .vmx .

Shutdown/Reboot hangs

Adjust the timeout for the vmtoolsd service (defaults to 90 seconds).

Window resolution autofit problems

«Autofit» means that when the VMWare window’s size is adjusted in the host, ArchLinux in the guest should automatically follow and readjust its resolution to fit the new size of the host window.

Potential solution 1

Ensure autofit is enabled. For VMware Workstation the setting can be found in: View -> Autosize -> Autofit Guest

Potential solution 2

For some reason, autofit requires the packages gtkmm and gtk2, so ensure they are installed. If X windows is not installed or a non–GTK-based desktop environment (such as KDE) is being used, the might have to be installed independently.

Potential solution 3

The relevant modules may have to be added to mkinitcpio.conf:

Potential solution 4

If this does not work, ensure the vmtoolsd.service is restarted.

Potential solution 5

Drag and drop, copy/paste

The drag-and-drop (copy/paste) feature requires both open-vm-tools and gtkmm3 packages to be installed.

Make the command vmware-user run after X11 by either:

• Ensuring etc/xdg/autostart/vmware-user.desktop exists, and if not, running:

Problems when running as a shared VM on Workstation 11

Workstation 11 has a bug where vmware-hostd crashes if an Arch guest is running as a shared VM and vmtoolsd is running in the guest. A patch to open-vm-tools to work around the bug is here.

Shared folder not mounted after system upgrade

Most likely, this should only happen to open-vm-tools . Since the vmhgfs module belongs to open-vm-tools-dkms AUR [broken link: package not found] , the legacy filesystem driver would not be upgraded by using the command pacman -Syu . Therefore, open-vm-tools-dkms AUR [broken link: package not found] should be manually upgraded before the official repositories.

If a shared folder is not mounted after a system upgrade, then remove the shared filesystem automount, upgrade open-vm-tools-dkms AUR [broken link: package not found] , run pacman -Syu , and finally regenerate the initramfs. Do not forget to restore the filesystem automount.

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VMware

This article is about the latest major VMware versions, meaning VMware Workstation Pro and Player 16, 15, 14 and 12.5.

Contents

Prerequisites

1. Enable Virtualization through your machine’s BIOS/UEFI

Installation

You can either install using VMware bundle or package vmware-workstation AUR . The latter is preferred if using VMware Workstation on x86_64.

VMware bundle

Install the correct dependencies:

• fuse2 — for vmware-vmblock-fuse
• gtkmm — for the GUI
• linux-headers — for module compilation
• ncurses ( ncurses5-compat-libsAUR for older versions of vmware) — needed by the —console installer
• libcanberra — for event sounds
• pcsclite

Download the latest VMware Workstation Pro or Player (or a beta version, if available).

Start the installation:

For the System service scripts directory , use /etc/init.d (the default).

Package build for x86_64

Install vmware-workstation AUR , vmware-workstation15 AUR , vmware-workstation14 AUR , vmware-workstation12 AUR or vmware-workstation11 AUR for respectively versions 16, 15, 14, 12 and 11 of VMware Workstation. It is also necessary to install the appropriate headers package(s) for your installed kernel(s): for example linux-headers or linux-lts-headers .

Then, as desired, enable some of the following services:

• vmware-networks.service for guest network access (otherwise you will get an error could no connect ‘ethernet 0’ to virtual network and you will not be able to use vmware-netcfg)
• vmware-usbarbitrator.service for connecting USB devices to guest
• vmware-hostd.service for sharing virtual machines (not available since version 16)

Lastly, load the VMware modules:

Configuration

Kernel modules

VMware Workstation 16.0 supports kernel 5.8 out of the box. The older versions presented in this article and their natively supported kernels are as follows: 15.5 (kernels up to 5.4), 14.1.7 (4.18) and 12.5.9 (4.12).

For VMware bundle versions, a collection of patches needed for the VMware host modules to build against recent kernels can be found from the vmware-host-modules GitHub repository. See the INSTALL document found on the repository for the most up-to-date module installation instructions for VMware Workstation versions from 12.5.5 and up.

systemd services

(Optional) Instead of using /etc/init.d/vmware ( start|stop|status|restart ) and /usr/bin/vmware-usbarbitrator directly to manage the services, you may also use .service files (vmware-usbarbitrator and vmware-networks are also included vmware-workstation AUR with a few differences):

Add this service to enable networking:

Add this service as well, if you want to connect to your VMware Workstation installation from another Workstation Server Console:

After which you can enable them on boot.

Workstation Server service

The vmware-workstation-server.service calls wssc-adminTool in its command chain, despite having been renamed to vmware-wssc-adminTool .

To prevent the service startup, this can be fixed with a symlink:

Launching the application

To open VMware Workstation Pro:

Tips and tricks

Entering the Workstation Pro license key

From terminal

Where XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX is your license key.

From GUI

If the above does not work, you can try:

Extracting the VMware BIOS

Extracting the installer

To view the contents of the installer .bundle :

Using the modified BIOS

If and when you decide to modify the extracted BIOS you can make your virtual machine use it by moving it to

then adding the name to the Virtual_machine_name.vmx file:

Enable 3D graphics on Intel and Optimus

Some graphics drivers are blacklisted by default, due to poor and/or unstable 3D acceleration. After enabling Accelerate 3D graphics, the log may show something like:

The config file where you can set this setting is

Suspend virtual machines before host suspend/hibernate

This article or section needs language, wiki syntax or style improvements. See Help:Style for reference.

Install ruby and create an executable file /usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/vmware_suspend_all.rb :

System speedup tricks

Disable transparent hugepages

This article or section is a candidate for merging with Improving performance.

If you notice the guest and/or the host frequently freezing when running a VM, you may want to disable transparent hugepages. To disable them for the current session, run (on the host):

To make the change persistent across boots, add the kernel parameter transparent_hugepage=never .

Ensure direct RAM access

By default, VMware writes a running guest system’s RAM to a file on disk. If you are certain you have enough spare memory, you can ensure the guest OS writes its memory directly to the host’s RAM by adding the following to the VM’s .vmx :

Performance tips

To improve the performance of your virtual machine, try the following tips:

Paravirtual SCSI adapter

VMware Paravirtual SCSI (PVSCSI) adapters are high-performance storage adapters for VMware ESXi that can result in greater throughput and lower CPU utilization. PVSCSI adapters are best suited for environments, where hardware or applications drive a very high amount of I/O throughput.

The SCSI adapter type VMware Paravirtual is available in the Virtual Machine settings.

If these settings are not in the virtual machine’s configuration, the paravirtual SCSI adapter can still be enabled. Ensure that the paravirtual SCSI adapter is included in the kernel image by modifying the mkinitcpio.conf :

Shut down the virtual machine and change the SCSI adapter: set the .vmx to the following:

Paravirtual network adapter

VMware offers multiple network adapters for the guest OS. The default adapter used is usually the e1000 adapter, which emulates an Intel 82545EM Gigabit Ethernet NIC. This Intel adapter is generally compatible with the built-in drivers across most operating systems, including Arch.

For more performance and additional features (such as multiqueue support), the VMware native vmxnet3 network adapter can be used.

Arch has the vmxnet3 kernel module available with a default install. Once enabled in mkinitcpio (or if it is auto-detected; check by running lsmod | grep vmxnet3 to see if it is loaded), shut down and change the network adapter type in the .vmx file to the following:

After changing network adapters, the network and dhcpcd settings will need to be updated to use the new adapter name and MAC address.

The new interface name can be obtained by running ip link .

Virtual machine settings

These settings could help improve the responsiveness of the virtual machine by reducing disk I/O, at the expense of using more host memory. Vmware’s KB1008885 provides the following optimizations:

• mainMem.useNamedFile: This will only work for Windows hosts and this parameter can be used if high disk activity is experienced upon shutting down the virtual machine. This will prevent VMware from creating a .vmem file. Use mainmem.backing = «swap» on Linux hosts instead.
• MemTrimRate: This setting prevents that memory which was released by the guest is released on the host also.
• prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize: Unfortunately there does not seem to exist a proper explanation for this setting; it seems to prevent the host system from swapping parts of the guest memory.
• MemAllowAutoScaleDown: Prevents VMware from adjusting the memory size of the virtual machine if it cannot allocate enough memory.
• sched.mem.pshare.enable: If several virtual machines are running simultaneously, VMware will try to locate identical pages and share these between the virtual machines. This can be very I/O intensive.

The following settings can also be set in the configuration dialog of VMware Workstation(Edit -> Preferences. -> Memory/Priority).

• prefvmx.minVmMemPct: Sets amount of RAM in percent which should be reserved by the virtual machine on the host system. If this is set to a lower value it is possible to assign the virtual machine more memory than is available in the host system. Be careful though, as in this case it will most likely lead to excessive hard drive usage. If enough RAM is on the host system, this value should be left at 100.
• mainMem.partialLazySave and mainMem.partialLazyRestore: These two parameters will prevent the virtual machine from creating partial snapshots for suspends. When these parameters are used, virtual machine suspension will take slightly longer, but there should be less hard disk activity from VMware trying to store this information.

Troubleshooting

Kernel headers for version x.y-zzzz were not found. If you installed them[. ]

USB devices not recognized

If not using the systemd service to automatically handle the services, you need to manually start the vmware-usbarbitrator binary as root each time.

Incorrect login/password when trying to access VMware remotely

VMware Workstation provides the possibility to remotely manage Shared VMs through the vmware-workstation-server service. However, this will fail with the error «incorrect username/password» due to incorrect PAM configuration of the vmware-authd service. To fix it, edit /etc/pam.d/vmware-authd like this:

and restart the vmware systemd service.

Now you can connect to the server with the credentials provided during the installation.

Issues with ALSA output

To fix sound quality issues or enabling proper HD audio output, first run:

If interested in playing 5.1 surround sound from the guest, look for surround51:CARD=vendor_name,DEV=num , if experiencing quality issues, look for front:CARD=vendor_name,DEV=num . Finally put the name in the .vmx :

OSS emulation should also be disabled.

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is running

To disable KVM on boot, you can use something like:

Module Issues

/dev/vmmon not found

The full error is:

This means that at least the vmmon module is not loaded. See the #systemd services section for automatic loading.

/dev/vmci not found

The full error is:

First, try to manually load the modules

Try to recompile VMware kernel modules with:

Installer Fails to Start

If you just get back to the prompt when opening the .bundle , then you probably have a deprecated or broken version of the VMware installer and it should removed (you may also refer to the uninstallation section of this article):

User interface initialization failed

You may also see an error like this:

This can be fixed by either installing the ncurses5-compat-libs AUR dependency or temporarily allowing root access to X:

VMware Fails to Start

Module CPUIDEarly power on failed

Version 14 has stricter CPU requirements than version 12. If you try to start a virtual machine with an affected CPU, the following message will appear:

The solution is to uninstall version 14 and install version 12 ( vmware-workstation12 AUR ).

When VMware was usable and this error suddenly appears it could be due to a warm/soft boot or after suspending the system. Please try a cold boot (shutting the system down and starting it again).

Segmentation fault at startup due to old Intel microcode

Old Intel microcode may result in the following kind of segmentation fault at startup:

See Microcode for how to update the microcode.

vmplayer/vmware version 14 fails to start

On systems with librsvg version 2:2.44.0 and above, the log files (located in /tmp/vmware- ) show several instances of the following error:

A workaround is to downgrade librsvg to earlier version, or more preferably, force VMware to use its own shipped version of librsvg :

VMware also has a VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS variable:

vmplayer/vmware fails to start from version 12.5.4

As per [1] the temporary workaround is to downgrade the package libpng to version 1.6.28-1 and keep it in the IgnorePkg parameter in /etc/pacman.conf.

An easier workaround is to make VMWare use the system’s version of zlib instead of its own one:

vmplayer/vmware fails to start from version 12.5.3 to version 12.5.5

It seems to be a problem with the file /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libstdc++.so.6/libstdc++.so.6 , missing CXXABI_1.3.8 .

If the system have installed gcc-libs , that library is already installed. Therefore, it is possible to remove that file and vmplayer will use the one provided by gcc-libs instead. As root do:

Also there is a workaround:

vmware 12 process terminates immediately after start, no GUI is launched

Registered bug at Mageia, but it seems that there are no error messages shown in terminal with arch. When inspecting the logs, which are in /tmp/vmware- , there are VMWARE_SHIPPED_LIBS_LIST is not set , VMWARE_SYSTEM_LIBS_LIST is not set , VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS is not set , VMWARE_USE_SYSTEM_LIBS is not set issues. Process simply terminates with Unable to execute /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-modconfig. after vmware or vmplayer is executed. Solution is the same, as root do:

Also there is a workaround:

Despite setting the VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS variable, VMWare may still fail to find certain libraries. An example is the libfontconfig.so.1 library. Check vmware logs in the tmp directory to see which libraries are still not found. Copy them to the appropriate path with libraries existing on the system:

Instead of copying all these files manually, you may want to try exporting an additional setting:

On systems with fontconfig version 2.13.0 and above, it may be needed to force VMware to use the shipped libfontconfig file instead of the newer system file. In such case, it is also necessary to provide a shared object library file libexpat.so.0 for the shipped fontconfig. This applies for at least VMware version 12.5.9. As root do:

Guest Issues

Unable to download VMware Tools for Guests

To download the tools manually, visit the VMware repository.

Navigate to: «application name / version / build ID / linux / packages/» and download the appropriate Tools.

And install using the VMware installer:

If the above does not work, try installing ncurses5-compat-libs AUR .

Guests have incorrect system clocks or are unable to boot: «[. ]timeTracker_user.c:234 bugNr=148722»

This is due to incomplete support of power management features (Intel SpeedStep and AMD PowerNow!/Cool’n’Quiet) in VMware Linux that vary the CPU frequency. In March 2012, with the release of linux 3.3-1 the maximum frequency Performance governor was replaced with the dynamic Ondemand. When the host CPU frequency changes, the Guest system clock runs too quickly or too slowly, but may also render the whole Guest unbootable.

To prevent this, the maximum host CPU frequency can be specified, and Time Stamp Counter (TSC) disabled, in the global configuration:

Networking on Guests not available after system restart

This is likely due to the vmnet module not being loaded [2]. See also the #systemd services section for automatic loading.

Mouse issues

Mouse buttons above 5 do not work

If your mouse’s thumb buttons or other additional buttons do not work, set guest to use advanced mouse.

Strange mouse wheel behavior on Guest

This is related to the current Xorg keyboard layout on Host system. Keep primary layout (e.g., English) selected on Host while working on Guest.

No IP address and network access for nested VMs

This issue is related to promiscuous mode which, following standard Linux practice, can only be enabled by the root user. To work around these limitations, the permissions for the networking device in question have to be changed.

Give permissions to one group:

Give permissions to all users:

Uninstallation

To uninstall VMware you need the product name (either vmware-workstation or vmware-player ). To list all the installed products:

and uninstall with ( —required skips the confirmation):

Remember to also disable and remove the services:

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