VMware
This article is about the latest major VMware versions, meaning VMware Workstation Pro and Player 16, 15, 14 and 12.5.
You may also be interested in /Install Arch Linux as a guest.
Prerequisites
1. Enable Virtualization through your machine's BIOS/UEFI
Installation
You can either install using VMware bundle or package vmware-workstationAUR. 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
- ( for older versions of vmware) - needed by the installer
- - for event sounds
Download the latest VMware Workstation Pro or Player (or a beta version, if available).
Start the installation:
# sh VMware-edition-version.release.architecture.bundle
--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 thevmware-usbarbitrator.servicepaths 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-agreedand--console).
For the , use /etc/init.d (the default).
If it shows , please try #Cannot load Module vmmon.
Package build for x86_64
Install vmware-workstationAUR, , , , or vmware-workstation11AUR for respectively versions 17, 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 or linux-lts-headers.
For vmware-workstationAUR, start first to generate .
Then, as desired, enable some of the following services:
- for guest network access (otherwise you will get an error and you will not be able to use vmware-netcfg)
- for connecting USB devices to guest
- for sharing virtual machines (not available since version 16)
Lastly, load the VMware modules:
# modprobe -a vmw_vmci vmmon
If it loads for too long without response, please try #Cannot load Module vmmon.
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 (start|stop|status|restart) and directly to manage the services, you may also use files (vmware-usbarbitrator and vmware-networks are also included vmware-workstationAUR 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 calls 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
From terminal
# /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx-debug --new-sn XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
Where is your license key.
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 :
$ 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 file:
Enable 3D graphics on Intel, Optimus and AMD
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 configuration file where you can set this setting is .
VMware Workstation 16.2 switched from OpenGL to Vulkan, so the setting is a bit different. If your driver is unsupported, you might see a message like this in the log:
mks Vulkan Renderer: Only the AMDVLK driver is supported at this time. mks Vulkan Renderer: No supported Vulkan device/driver found (See mks.vk.allowUnsupportedDevices or mks.vk.forceDevice configuration options).
If your Vulkan driver is blacklisted, you might have to add to or switch to a supported driver - check in the VM's directory if unsure.
mks.gl.allowBlacklistedDrivers = "TRUE" inside the .vmx file for the specific virtual machine as well, for 3D acceleration with intel drivers to be enabled.Suspend virtual machines before host suspend/hibernate
Create an executable file :
See also Power management#Hooks in /usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep, suspend all virtual machines with vmrun and Support for hibernation.
System speedup tricks
See also Improving performance.
Disable transparent hugepages
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 .
You can also use instead of to still allow applications that are optimized for transparent hugepages to obtain the performance benefits. This does the same for vmware as above.
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 :
''Virtual_machine_name''.vmx
MemTrimRate = "0" sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE" prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE" mainmem.backing = "swap"
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 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 :
Shut down the virtual machine and change the SCSI adapter: set the to the following:
scsi0.virtualDev = "pvscsi"
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 network adapter can be used.
Arch has the kernel module available with a default install. Once enabled in mkinitcpio (or if it is auto-detected; check by running to see if it is loaded), shut down and change the network adapter type in the .vmx file to the following:
ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"
After changing network adapters, the network and dhcpcd settings will need to be updated to use the new adapter name and MAC address.
# dhcpcd new_interface_name # systemctl enable dhcpcd@new_interface_name.service
The new interface name can be obtained by running .
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 = "FALSE" MemTrimRate = "0" prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE" MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE" sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
- 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 = "100" mainMem.partialLazySave = "FALSE" mainMem.partialLazyRestore = "FALSE"
- 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[...]
Install the headers ().
Cannot load Module vmmon
As VMware Comunity explained, please disable Secure Boot to use to load the VMware module.
USB devices not recognized
If not using the systemd service to automatically handle the services, you need to manually start the 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 due to incorrect PAM configuration of the service. To fix it, edit /etc/pam.d/vmware-authd like this:
and restart the 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:
$ aplay -L
If interested in playing 5.1 surround sound from the guest, look for , if experiencing quality issues, look for . Finally put the name in the :
OSS emulation should also be disabled.
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is running
To disable KVM on boot, you can use something like:
/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 module is not loaded. See the #systemd services section for automatic loading.
Another possible reason is Indirect Branch Tracking on 11th Gen and later Intel processors and starting from kernel 5.18.
Add to your kernel command line. See for more details.
/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.
First, try to manually load the modules
# sudo modprobe -a vmw_vmci
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 , 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 dependency or temporarily allowing root access to X:
$ xhost + $ sudo ./<vmware filename>.bundle $ xhost -
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 ().
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:
/usr/bin/vmware: line 31: 4941 Segmentation fault "$BINDIR"/vmware-modconfig --appname="VMware Workstation" --icon="vmware-workstation"
See Microcode for how to update the microcode.
vmplayer/vmware version 14 fails to start
On systems with version 2:2.44.0 and above, the log files (located in ) show several instances of the following error:
appLoader| I125+ undefined symbol
A workaround is to downgrade to earlier version, or more preferably, force VMware to use its own shipped version of :
# export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/lib/vmware/lib/librsvg-2.so.2:$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 the temporary workaround is to downgrade the package to version 1.6.28-1 and keep it in the 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 , missing CXXABI_1.3.8.
If the system have installed , 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:
# 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 , there are , , VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS is not set, issues. Process simply terminates with 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 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 for the shipped fontconfig. This applies for at least VMware version 12.5.9. As root do:
# ln -s /usr/lib/libexpat.so /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libfontconfig.so.1/libexpat.so.0 # export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libfontconfig.so.1:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
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 .
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 module not being loaded . See also the #systemd services section for automatic loading.
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:
# chgpr group /dev/vmnetX # chmod g+rw /dev/vmnetX
Give permissions to all users:
# chmod a+rw /dev/vmnetX
Uninstallation
To uninstall VMware you need the product name (either vmware-workstation or ). To list all the installed products:
$ vmware-installer -l
and uninstall with ( skips the confirmation):
# vmware-installer -u product --required
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 if now empty.