Arch Linux User Repository

After the first installation, please:

1) install the appropriate headers package(s) for your installed kernel(s): linux-headers for default kernel, linux-lts-headers for LTS kernel...

2) reboot or load vmw_vmci and vmmon kernel modules (modprobe -a vmw_vmci vmmon)

3) Enable the services you need (using .service units to activate them during boot or .path units to activate them when a VM is started) :

• vmware-networks: to have network access inside VMs

• vmware-usbarbitrator: to connect USB devices inside VMs

@jihem, thank you very much for your to the point and prompt reply! You're awesome! :)

So I did as you said. I first ran the "vmware-netcfg" command, to make sure that the "Use local DHCP service to distribute IP addresses to VMs" option was checked.

I then proceeded with the rest of your instructions. I brought the "vmware-networks.service" down by running "sudo systemctl stop vmware-networks.service", then I got rid of the aforementioned files and folders using "sudo rm -r /etc/vmware/{networking,netmap.conf,vmnet*}". Finally I brought the "vmware-networks.service" back up again using "sudo systemctl start vmware-networks.service".

That fixed all the issues. I noticed that all the deleted files and folders were created anew, and the vmnet* subnets had also changed. The VMs are now able to pick up the IPs upon boot. Thank you so much jihem!

sh1sh1n11: Firstly, check if your virtual network has DHCP enabled. For that, start vmware-netcfg and check if, in the network interface used by your VM, the option "Use local DHCP service to distribute IP addresses to VMs" is activated.

If it is not the problem, you can try to reinitialize network settings. Stop all running VMs and run the following commands:

systemctl stop vmware-networks.service
rm -r /etc/vmware/{networking,netmap.conf,vmnet*}
systemctl start vmware-networks.service

Hi,

Thank you for this package! I've run into an issue where none of my VM's are getting an IP address issued. I am currently on Manjaro Linux Kernel 5.10.56-1-MANJARO (I know. But since it is an Arch Linux derivative, here I am.).

Interestingly, when I edit the "/etc/vmware/vmnet8/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases" file manually, and assign an IP to my VM, then it is able to assign that IP to itself upon boot.

I could only get as far as understanding that Manjaro Linux (and maybe even Arch for that matter) does not have dhcpd service, and instead it has the dhcpcd service. where as the "vmware-networks.service" seems to be running "/usr/bin/vmnet-dhcpd". How can I make it so that I don't have to manually add IPs to the dhcpd.leases file, and the VMs get IPs on boot automatically. Any help in the matter would be awesome! Thank you all.

I got an error while installing: error: could not extract /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/VirtualPrinter-Windows.iso (Truncated zstd input)

What can be wrong?

No idea why gorgiaxx didn't have the libdir variable set, but I can confirm that AUR packages are generating .pacnew files; actually AUR packages work exactly like official packages, the only difference is that they are not built and distributed by official maintainers.

@class101 To explain my choices, I finally didn't use the PathModified variable because it triggers not only file creation, but also file deletion and modification. During some tests, on one moment I wanted to "reset" my environment by stopping VMware services and removing /run/vmware directory; I realized that removing this directory restarted VMware services, which was clearly not the expected behavior. I know it's not a big deal because probably nobody will touch this directory in real conditions, but I find the PathExistsGlob solution more adapted: when a directory of this pattern is created, I am sure that it correspond to the start of a VM. Also, if a VMware service is stopped whereas at least one VM is still running, the corresponding directory still exists so the service is restarted immediately.

I admit I haven't thought about the performance cost of using regular expressions, but in my opinion it is not significant (systemd probably check a filename matching only when there is a change in /var/run/vmware folder, which happen only when a VM is started or stopped).

About services handling, I just follow what is generally made by maintainers which is to not start services by default (except for some core components). It's especially relevant here because these services are not required for VM execution and some users could want to let them disabled. As you said in a previous message: "It is a good practice under Linux to have the fewest permanent services running" :)

@gorgiaxx

If you look at the sources, this is already the case https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/config?h=vmware-workstation

I think you have old configuration in /etc/vmware/config and/or maybe a configuration update waiting in /etc/vmware/config.pacnew (not sure if AUR packages are generating .pacnew files, but but these files are good to watch every now and then as they may contain important updates)

@jihem Ty for sharing this idea with others, cool from you ;)

But I haven't used your implementation yet, I doubt that PathExistsGlob= is necessary over PathModified=. The *Glob variable has its own variable name because it make uses of regular expressions, and they have a performance cost over regular methods.

If it was up to me I would have not used PathExistsGlob if there is no specific reasons to use over the regular method.

But that's just different way of thinking anyway, not a big deal, I see you prefer to let the user to handle all the servicing stuff, while for me this is to the package responsability to install and remove the necessary files, I would hate to uninstall a systemd package that would leave behind a whole bunch of installed service, same rule for vmware, Arch Way :s

VMware workstation 16 start failed after install.

2021-06-24T14:28:00.148+08:00| appLoader| I005: Log for appLoader pid=10417 version=16.1.2 build=build-17966106 option=Release
2021-06-24T14:28:00.148+08:00| appLoader| I005: The host is 64-bit.
2021-06-24T14:28:00.148+08:00| appLoader| I005: Host codepage=UTF-8 encoding=UTF-8
2021-06-24T14:28:00.148+08:00| appLoader| I005: Host is Linux 5.12.12-arch1-1 Arch Linux
2021-06-24T14:28:00.177+08:00| appLoader| I005: Invocation: "/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware
2021-06-24T14:28:00.177+08:00| appLoader| I005: "
2021-06-24T14:28:00.177+08:00| appLoader| I005: Calling: "/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware
2021-06-24T14:28:00.177+08:00| appLoader| I005: "
2021-06-24T14:28:00.177+08:00| appLoader| I005: VMDEVEL not set.
2021-06-24T14:28:00.177+08:00| appLoader| I005: Using configuration file: /etc/vmware/config
2021-06-24T14:28:00.178+08:00| appLoader| E002: The "libdir" entry was not present in configuration file.
2021-06-24T14:28:00.178+08:00| appLoader| I005: Use library directory: (null)

Append this line to the vmware configuration file.

echo 'libdir = "/usr/lib/vmware"' >> /etc/vmware/config