VMware

This article is about installing VMware in Arch Linux; you may also be interested in Installing Arch Linux in VMware.

Note:
  • This article is about the latest major VMware versions, meaning VMware Workstation 11 and VMware Player (Pro) 7.
  • For older versions, use vmware-patch from the AUR.

Installation

1. Install the correct dependencies:

  • fuse - the vmware-vmblock-fuse service is favored over the vmblock module, which is not built anymore without disabling fuse in the kernel
  • gtkmm - for the GUI
  • linux-headers - for module compilation

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

3. Start the installation (--eulas-agreed skips the EULAs):

# sh VMware-edition-version.release.architecture.bundle --eulas-agreed
Tip: Some other useful flags:
  • --console - Use the console UI.
  • -I, --ignore-errors - Ignore fatal errors.
  • --set-setting vmware-workstation serialNumber XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX - Set the serial number during install (good for scripted installs).
  • --required - Only ask mandatory questions (results in silent install when combined with --eulas-agreed and --console).

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

Note: During the installation you will get an error about "No rc*.d style init script directories" being given. This can be safely ignored, since Arch has moved to systemd.
Tip: To (re)build the modules from terminal later on, use:
# vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

Configuration

Tip: There is also a package called vmware-patch in the AUR with the intention of trying to automate this section (it also supports older VMware versions).
Note: Due to Workstation 11/Player (Pro) 7 taking advantage of the mainlined kernel modules, patching the VMCI/VSOCK sources is no longer required.

VMware Workstation 11.0.0 and Player (Pro) 7.0.0 support kernels up to 3.18.

3.19 kernels

Since 3.19 kernel the vmnet module will fail to build.

A patch is available at [1]:

$ curl http://pastie.org/pastes/9934018/download -o /tmp/vmnet-3.19.patch

Extract the vmnet module sources:

$ cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
# tar -xf vmnet.tar

Apply the patch:

# patch -p0 -i /tmp/vmnet-3.19.patch

Recreate the archive:

# tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only

Remove leftover:

# rm -r *-only

Rebuild modules:

# vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

systemd services

6. (Optional) Instead of using /etc/init.d/vmware and /etc/init.d/vmware-USBArbitrator (start|stop|status|restart) directly to manage the services, you may also use .service files:

/etc/systemd/system/vmware.service
[Unit]
Description=VMware daemon
Requires=vmware-USBArbitrator.service
After=vmware-USBArbitrator.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/etc/init.d/vmware start
ExecStop=/etc/init.d/vmware stop
PIDFile=/var/lock/subsys/vmware
TimeoutSec=0
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
/etc/systemd/system/vmware-USBArbitrator.service
[Unit]
Description=VMware USB Arbitrator

[Service]
ExecStart=/etc/init.d/vmware-USBArbitrator start
ExecStop=/etc/init.d/vmware-USBArbitrator stop
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After which you can enable them on boot, with:

# systemctl enable vmware
# systemctl enable vmware-USBArbitrator

Launching the application

To open VMware Workstation:

$ vmware

or VMware Player (Pro):

$ vmplayer

Tips and tricks

Entering the Workstation License Key

From terminal

# /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx-debug --new-sn XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

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

Note: The -debug binary informs the user of an incorrect license.

From GUI

If the above does not work, you can try:

# /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-enter-serial

Extracting the VMware BIOS

$ objcopy /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx -O binary -j bios440 --set-section-flags bios440=a bios440.rom.Z
$ perl -e 'use Compress::Zlib; my $v; read STDIN, $v, '$(stat -c%s "./bios440.rom.Z")'; $v = uncompress($v); print $v;' < bios440.rom.Z > bios440.rom

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 ~/vmware/Virtual_machine_name:

$ mv bios440.rom ~/vmware/Virtual_machine_name/

then adding the name to the Virtual_machine_name.vmx file:

~/vmware/Virtual_machine_name/Virtual_machine_name.vmx
bios440.filename = "bios440.rom"

Using DKMS to manage the modules

Tango-dialog-warning.png

Tango-dialog-warning.png

This article or section is out of date.

Reason: Using DKMS like described below might not work, or this is not the only valid/working solution. There are several packages in the AUR, like vmware-modules-dkms. (Discuss)

The Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) can be used to manage Workstation modules and to void from re-running vmware-modconfig each time the kernel changes. The following example uses a custom Makefile to compile and install the modules through vmware-modconfig. Afterwards they are removed from the current kernel tree.

Preparation

First install dkms from the official repositories.

Then create a source directory for the Makefile and the dkms.conf:

# mkdir /usr/src/vmware-modules-11/

Build configuration

Fetch the files with git or use the ones below.

1) Using Git
$ cd /tmp
$ git clone git://github.com/bawaaaaah/dkms-workstation.git
$ sed -i 's/9/11/' dkms-workstation/dkms.conf
# cp dkms-workstation/Makefile dkms-workstation/dkms.conf /usr/src/vmware-modules-11/
2) Manual setup

The dkms.conf describes the module names and the compilation/installation procedure. AUTOINSTALL="yes" tells the modules to be recompiled/installed automatically each time:

/usr/src/vmware-modules-11/dkms.conf
PACKAGE_NAME="vmware-modules"
PACKAGE_VERSION="11"

MAKE[0]="make all"
CLEAN="make clean"

BUILT_MODULE_NAME[0]="vmmon"
BUILT_MODULE_LOCATION[0]="modules"

BUILT_MODULE_NAME[1]="vmnet"
BUILT_MODULE_LOCATION[1]="modules"

BUILT_MODULE_NAME[2]="vmblock"
BUILT_MODULE_LOCATION[2]="modules"

BUILT_MODULE_NAME[3]="vmci"
BUILT_MODULE_LOCATION[3]="modules"

BUILT_MODULE_NAME[4]="vsock"
BUILT_MODULE_LOCATION[4]="modules"

DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[0]="/extra/vmware"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[1]="/extra/vmware"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[2]="/extra/vmware"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[3]="/extra/vmware"
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[4]="/extra/vmware"

AUTOINSTALL="yes"

and now the Makefile:

/usr/src/vmware-modules-11/Makefile
KERNEL := $(KERNELRELEASE)
HEADERS := /usr/lib/modules/$(KERNEL)/build/include
GCC := $(shell vmware-modconfig --console --get-gcc)
DEST := /lib/modules/$(KERNEL)/vmware

TARGETS := vmmon vmnet vmblock vmci vsock

LOCAL_MODULES := $(addsuffix .ko, $(TARGETS))

all: $(LOCAL_MODULES)
	mkdir -p modules/
	mv *.ko modules/
	rm -rf $(DEST)
	depmod

$(HEADERS)/linux/version.h:
	ln -s $(HEADERS)/generated/uapi/linux/version.h $(HEADERS)/linux/version.h

%.ko: $(HEADERS)/linux/version.h
	vmware-modconfig --console --build-mod -k $(KERNEL) $* $(GCC) $(HEADERS) vmware/
	cp -f $(DEST)/$@ .

clean: rm -rf modules/

Installation

The modules can then be installed with:

# dkms install vmware-modules/11 -k $(uname -r)

Troubleshooting

/dev/vmmon not found

The full error is:

Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory.
Please make sure that the kernel module `vmmon' is loaded.

This means that at least the vmmon VMware service is not running. If using the systemd service from step 6. it should be (re)started.

Kernel headers for version 3.x-xxxx were not found. If you installed them[...]

Install the headers (linux-headers).

Note: Upgrading the kernel and the headers will require you to boot to the new kernel to match the version of the headers. This is a relatively common error.

USB devices not recognized

Tip: Also handled by vmware-patch.

If VMware services are running (see step 6. for a systemd service), your installation is missing the vmware-USBArbitrator script. To readd it manually, see this forum post.

You may also manually extract the VMware bundle and copy the vmware-USBArbitrator script from destination_folder/vmware-usbarbitrator/etc/init.d/ to /etc/init.d/:

$ sh VMware-edition-version.release.architecture.bundle --extract /tmp/vmware-bundle/
# cp /tmp/vmware-bundle/vmware-usbarbitrator/etc/init.d/vmware-USBArbitrator /etc/init.d/
# chmod +x /etc/init.d/vmware-USBArbitrator

The 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):

# rm -r /etc/vmware-installer/

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:

/etc/pam.d/vmware-authd
#%PAM-1.0
auth     required       pam_unix.so
account  required       pam_unix.so
password required       pam_permit.so
session  required       pam_unix.so

and restart the vmware systemd service.

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

Note: libxslt may be required for starting virtual machines.

Issues with ALSA output

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

$ aplay -L

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:

~/vmware/Virtual_machine_name/Virtual_machine_name.vmx
sound.fileName="surround51:CARD=Live,DEV=0"
sound.autodetect="FALSE"

OSS emulation should also be disabled.

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is running

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

/etc/modprobe.d/vmware.conf
blacklist kvm
blacklist kvm-amd   # For AMD CPUs
blacklist kvm-intel # For Intel CPUs

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:

/etc/vmware/config
host.cpukHz = "X"  # The maximum speed in KHz, e.g. 3GHz is "3000000".
host.noTSC = "TRUE" # Keep the Guest system clock accurate even when
ptsc.noTSC = "TRUE" # the time stamp counter (TSC) is slow.
Tip: To periodically correct the time (once per minute), in the Options tab of VMware Tools, enable: "Time synchronization between the virtual machine and the host operating system".

Uninstallation

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

$ vmware-installer -l

and uninstall with (--required skips the confirmation):

# vmware-installer -u product --required
Tip: Use --console for the console UI.

Remember to also disable and remove the vmware service:

# systemctl disable vmware
# rm /usr/lib/systemd/system/vmware.service

You may also want to have a look at the module directories in /usr/lib/modules/kernel_name/misc/ for any leftovers.