VMware - ArchWiki

# VMware

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- Category:Hypervisors
- VMware/Installing Arch as a guest
- Moving an existing install into (or out of) a virtual machine

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

You may also be interested in VMware/Installing Arch as a guest. For older versions, use the vmware-patchAUR package.

## Installation

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

Note: VMware has dropped support for a number of CPUs including early Intel Core i7 CPUs since version 14. Check the Processor Requirements for Host Systems. If your CPU is not supported in the newer releases then you can use vmware-workstation12AUR.

### VMware bundle

Install the correct dependencies:

- fuse2 - for vmware-vmblock-fuse
- gtkmm - for the GUI
- linux-headers - for module compilation
- ncurses5-compat-libsAUR - 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:

    # sh VMware-edition-version.release.architecture.bundle

Tip: Some useful flags:

- `--eulas-agreed` - Skip the EULAs
- `--console` - Use the console UI.
- `--custom` - Allows changing the install directory to e.g. `/usr/local` (make sure to update the `vmware-usbarbitrator.service` paths in #systemd services).
- `-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`).

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 uses systemd.
Tip: To (re)build the modules from terminal later on, use:

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

### Package build for x86_64

Install vmware-workstationAUR, vmware-workstation14AUR, vmware-workstation12AUR or vmware-workstation11AUR for respectively versions 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
- `vmware-usbarbitrator.service` for connecting USB devices to guest
- `vmware-hostd.service` for sharing virtual machines

Lastly, load the VMware modules:

    # modprobe -a vmw_vmci vmmon

## Configuration

### Kernel modules

VMware Workstation 15.1 supports kernel 5.0 out of the box. Older versions 14.1 and 12.5.7 have native support for kernels up to 4.13 and 4.12, respectively.

For VMware bundle versions, a collection of patches needed for the VMware host modules to build against recent kernels can be found from the following GitHub repository, vmware-host-modules. 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.

Alternatively, the modules can be patched installing the vmware-patchAUR package and executing:

    # vmware-patch -f

### 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 (also available in the vmware-systemd-servicesAUR package, and also included in vmware-patchAUR and vmware-workstationAUR with a few differences):

    /etc/systemd/system/vmware.service

    [Unit]
    Description=VMware daemon
    Requires=vmware-usbarbitrator.service
    Before=vmware-usbarbitrator.service
    After=network.target

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

    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target

    /etc/systemd/system/vmware-usbarbitrator.service

    [Unit]
    Description=VMware USB Arbitrator
    Requires=vmware.service
    After=vmware.service

    [Service]
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/vmware-usbarbitrator
    ExecStop=/usr/bin/vmware-usbarbitrator --kill
    RemainAfterExit=yes

    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target

Add this service to enable networking:

    /etc/systemd/system/vmware-networks-server.service

    [Unit]
    Description=VMware Networks
    Wants=vmware-networks-configuration.service
    After=vmware-networks-configuration.service

    [Service]
    Type=forking
    ExecStartPre=-/sbin/modprobe vmnet
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/vmware-networks --start
    ExecStop=/usr/bin/vmware-networks --stop

    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target

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

    /etc/systemd/system/vmware-workstation-server.service

    [Unit]
    Description=VMware Workstation Server
    Requires=vmware.service
    After=vmware.service

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

    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target

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:

    # ln -s wssc-adminTool /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-wssc-adminTool

## Launching the application

To open VMware Workstation Pro:

    $ vmware

or Player:

    $ vmplayer

## Tips and tricks

### Entering the Workstation Pro 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

### Extracting the installer

To view the contents of the installer `.bundle`:

    $ sh VMware-edition-version.release.architecture.bundle --extract /tmp/vmware-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 `~/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"

### 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:

    Disabling 3D on this host due to presence of Mesa DRI driver.  Set mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = TRUE to override.

The config file where you can set this setting is `~/.vmware/preferences`.

Note: You might need to add the `mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE"` inside the `.vmx` file for the specific virtual machine as well, for 3D acceleration with `intel` drivers to be enabled.

### System speedup tricks

See also Improving performance.

#### Disable transparent hugepages

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

Notes: Not specific to VMware. (Discuss in Talk:VMware#)

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):

    # echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled

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're 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`:

    Virtual_machine_name.vmx

    MemTrimRate = "0"
    sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
    prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE"
    mainmem.backing = "swap"

## Troubleshooting

### Kernel headers for version 4.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-patchAUR.

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

To start:

    # vmware-usbarbitrator

To stop:

    # vmware-usbarbitrator --kill

### 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

Tip: If `kvm` modules continue to load, despite being blacklisted, and you are running a system with integrated Intel graphics (i915,i965), it may be necessary to blacklist the `kvmgt` kernel module directly from the kernel command line options. See Kernel module#Using kernel command line_2 for more details.

### Module Issues

#### /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` module is not loaded. See the #systemd services section for automatic loading.

#### /dev/vmci not found

The full error is:

    Failed to open device "/dev/vmci": No such file or directory
    Please make sure that the kernel module 'vmci' is loaded.

Try to recompile VMware kernel modules with:

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

### 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/

#### User interface initialization failed

You may also see an error like this:

     Extracting VMware Installer...done.
     No protocol specified
     No protocol specified
     User interface initialization failed.  Exiting.  Check the log for details.

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

     $ xhost +
     $ sudo ./<vmware filename>.bundle
     $ xhost -

### 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:

     This host does not support virtualizing real mode.
     The Intel "VMX Unrestricted Guest" feature is necessary to run this virtual machine on an Intel processor.

The solution is to uninstall version 14 and install version 12 (vmware-workstation12AUR).

#### Segmentation fault at startup due to old Intel microcode

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

    /usr/bin/vmware: line 31: 4941 Segmentation fault "$BINDIR"/vmware-modconfig --appname="VMware Workstation" --icon="vmware-workstation"

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-<id>`) show several instances of the following error:

    appLoader| I125+ undefined symbol

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

    # export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/lib/vmware/lib/librsvg-2.so.2:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

VMware also has a `VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS` variable:

    $ env VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS=1 vmware

#### 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:

    # cd /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libz.so.1
    # mv libz.so.1 libz.so.1.old
    # ln -s /usr/lib/libz.so.1 .

#### 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's possible to remove that file and vmplayer will use the one provided by gcc-libs instead. As root do:

    # mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libstdc++.so.6/libstdc++.so.6 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libstdc++.so.6/libstdc++.so.6.bak

Also there is a workaround:

    # export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS='yes'

#### 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-<id>`, 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:

    # mv /etc/vmware/icu/icudt44l.dat /etc/vmware/icu/icudt44l.dat.bak

Also there is a workaround:

    # export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS='yes'

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:

    # cp /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libfontconfig.so.1/

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

    # export VMWARE_USE_SYSTEM_LIBS='yes'

On systems with fontconfig version 2.13.0 and above, it may be needed to replace the shipped libfontconfig file with version 2.12.6 library file and force VMware to use that file instead of the newer system file. This applies for at least VMware version 12.5.9. As root do:

    # cd /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libfontconfig.so.1
    # wget https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/f/fontconfig/fontconfig-2.12.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
    # tar -xvf fontconfig-2.12.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1.10.1
    # mv libfontconfig.so.1 libfontconfig.so.1.old
    # mv ./usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1.10.1 ./libfontconfig.so.1
    # rm -r ./usr ./fontconfig-2.12.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
    # export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libfontconfig.so.1:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

### 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.

Extract with:

    $ tar -xvf vmware-tools-name-version-buildID.x86_64.component.tar

And install using the VMware installer:

    # vmware-installer --install-component=/path/vmware-tools-name-version-buildID.x86_64.component

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

#### 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".

#### 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.

#### 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.

## 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 services:

    # rm /etc/systemd/system/vmware.service
    # rm /etc/systemd/system/vmware-usbarbitrator.service

You may also want to have a look at the module directories in `/usr/lib/modules/kernel_name/misc/` for any leftovers, and remove `/etc/init.d/` if now empty.

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