CrunchBang Linux

rabbitofdeath

#! Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2010-11-10

Posts: 83

Website

VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

This could just be a one off thing that my not affect other people, but it still may be an issue for some. If not I'll come back and reference it for myself. (I'll continue to do some research to see if I can duplicate it, I just don't have the time right now)

This is running on a 32bit XFCE install (latest build r20101205) with minimal changes.

Symptoms: Installing VMware Workstation works fine and you are able to run virtual machines right after installation, but when you reboot your system, VMware Workstation runs, but you can't start VMs and end up with an error:

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

sudo modprobe vmmon

I tried to power on the VM again and it fails with a different error:
"Failed to open device "/dev/vmci": No such file or directory. Please make sure that the kernel module 'vmci' is loaded. Module Device PowerOn power on failed."

So I loaded the kernel module:

sudo modprobe vmci

Finally I was able to power on the virtual machine...
...but networking was not working and I ended up with a virtual machine with no network connectivity. That is kinda useless so I started looking around and found that the vmnet module wasn't starting. (Note that this module doesn't prevent power on, but you do need it for network connectivity to your virtual machines.) So I tried loading the kernel module by running

sudo modprobe vmnet

and it didn't give me any errors. But after powering on the VM I still had no network connectivity. After some digging, I found that you can run

sudo vmware-networks --status

and get a status on the virtual networks. If you run

sudo vmware-networks --start

, this will create the missing network devices for your VM to use.

But in the end this is ugly and no one wants to load kernel modules by hand and start networking services. So after pulling my hair out for a little while, I found that it seems that the modules are not loading properly on boot. I ran

update-rc.d -f vmware defaults

and it spit out some errors/warnings that I haven't deciphered yet, I then rebooted and now all the modules are loading properly.

It seems that for some reason, when you install VMware Workstation, this doesn't get updated. But like I said, this is on a relatively clean install of the latest build and I'll try to duplicate it later, but in the mean time, I hope I help somebody.

Last edited by rabbitofdeath (2010-12-20 19:36:06)

rizzo

#! wanderer

From: ~/

Registered: 2008-11-25

Posts: 5,109

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

Is there any advantage in using VMWare workstation over virtualbox? I don't have any problems with the latter.

rabbitofdeath

#! Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2010-11-10

Posts: 83

Website

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

Personally, I've never tried virtualbox, but I've been using VMware Workstation for years (since 4.0) and I use VMware ESX on a daily basis at work so I've just gotten used to Workstation and am pretty familiar with its quirks under linux. Plus I've got a bunch of VMs that I use so its just easier for me

rabbitofdeath

#! Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2010-11-10

Posts: 83

Website

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

OK, So I had some time to look into this and I could not get it to happen again after a kernel upgrade so it must have been a fluke somewhere. Consider this solved.

tradetaxfree

#! CrunchBanger

Registered: 2011-03-05

Posts: 111

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

Anyone running the Liquorix 2.6.37 kenels or later will find the Vmware kernel modules will not compile. I found a solution here to patch vmware.

rabbitofdeath

#! Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2010-11-10

Posts: 83

Website

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

Could not replicate my problem on a clean install of CB with VMware Workstation 7.1.4 (just got a new SSD and did a clean install on my toughbook - CB flies!)

andrei-epure

New Member

Registered: 2012-01-06

Posts: 2

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

Thanks a lot, rabbitofdeath. I had the same problem( the only difference is that I am using VMware Player 3.1.5), and it now works.

rabbitofdeath

#! Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2010-11-10

Posts: 83

Website

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

Glad to hear it worked for you!

mynis01

#! Die Hard

From: 127.0.0.1

Registered: 2010-07-02

Posts: 1,719

Re: VMware Workstation 7.1.3 Issues on Statler r20101205

In the future, you can also use bum or rcconf to make sure the kernel modules are set to load at startup.