Problem: Sound doesn’t work: “Error 32 opening output sound device.” You have more than one sound card.
Fix: One of your sound cards probably isn’t working correctly. Try adding
sound.device = −1
to your virtual machine’s configuration file. (This parameter setting tells VMware to look for a properly functioning sound card; if you set it to a number greater than or equal to 0, you’re directly picking a sound card.)
12.2.2 Linux Host Operating System Problems
Problem: When you try to run the installer, it says that it can’t find an uninstall script (or some other script).
You ran the installer script to upgrade or install VMware Workstation for Linux, but accidentally pressed ctrl−C during the process.
Fix: If /etc/vmware exists, the installer assumes an upgrade and removes your old version with the vmwareưuninstall.pl script before installing the new version on an upgrade. However, if this directory is incomplete, the script can’t find the uninstaller and exits. Run the following to rename the /etc/vmware directory:
mv /etc/vmware /etc/vmware.orig
You may want to delete the old directory, but be careful: you may want to copy some configuration files from it. Furthermore, if you remove it, it won’t be easy to remove your old version if you want to put the new one in a different location. First see whether the locations file exists and save a copy if it does.
Problem: Your Linux machine routes packets to and from your host−only network, but you don’t want it to.
Fix: If you don’t want your Linux host to route anything at all, just enter this command:
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
However, if you do want the host to route packets (just not the host−only packets), then you should use a firewall to keep the packets out. For Linux kernel series 2.2, use ipchains:
ipchains −A forward −i vmnet1 −j REJECT
For 2.4.x, use iptables:
iptables −A FORWARD −o vmnet1 −j DROP iptables −A FORWARD −i vmnet1 −j DROP
(For iptables, you can use REJECT instead of DROP if you have this support in your kernel or as a module.) Problem: When you power on the virtual machine, VMware pops up a dialog saying that it can’t open /dev/rtc. How can you fix this, and is this really a problem?
Fix: The /dev/rtc special file is the real−time clock on your PC’s motherboard (the one that’s backed up by the battery). There are a few possible reasons for this warning:
•
You may not have permission to read /dev/rtc on your host system. This is easy to fix; just enter chmod go+r /dev/rtc as root on your host. (You need only read permission; don’t give everyone on your system write access to /dev/rtc, because that would allow everyone to set the hardware clock.)
•
Some other program (such as another instance of VMware) may have the device open.
•
You don’t have RTC support in your kernel. You’ll find it on the Character devices submenu of the kernel configuration (CONFIG_RTC). It’s fine to compile the RTC driver as a module; the automatic kernel module loader knows about it. If /dev/rtc doesn’t exist on your system, enter the following:
mknod /dev/rtc c 10 135 chmod 644 /dev/rtc
If you can’t get VMware to connect to the real−time clock, there may be no reason to worry. However, some guest operating systems want it—Windows 98, in particular, uses the real−time clock more than most systems, and it may perform irregularly without access.
If you want the warning to go away, put this in your virtual machine configuration file to disconnect the RTC when you power on the virtual machine:
rtc.startConnected = FALSE
Problem: Something goes wrong with the module compilation when you run vmware−config.pl.
Fix: You need a working C compiler and matching header files. The header files are in the include directory of a Linux kernel distribution.
A few things can go wrong with a module compile operation:
•
You see a message similar to make: not found. You have no development tools installed. (See the next bullet point for what to do.)
•
The message make: gcc: command not found means that you have make, but you don’t have the C compiler on your system. Look for it in the development series of your distribution’s packages. Make sure that you install gcc version 2, not 3. Red Hat sometimes calls this kgcc.
•
The vmware−config.pl program tells you that your header files don’t match your current kernel version. If you’re running a special distribution kernel, install the kernel source package for that version (run uname −a for your version). Otherwise, go to http://www.kernel.org/ and pick up your version, unpack it, and point vmware−config.pl at the header files there (the include directory).
If a module compile operation fails, look in /tmp/vmware−config0. This directory contains the source code that the compiler couldn’t handle. You can go into one of the subdirectories of /tmp/vmware−config0 and use make to try the compile operation by hand. This may give you more diagnostic messages. (Note that if you try vmware−config.pl more than once, you’ll get vmware−config0, vmware−config1, and so on as compile directories—one for each try.)
Problem: Something goes wrong with the modules after you run vmware−config.pl and try to load them.
(This happens most often with SMP systems.)
Fix: Even though the version numbers are the same, your header files may not match your kernel’s
configuration. Make sure that you run make mrproper in your kernel source directory; then use a command such as make menuconfig with the same parameters as your current kernel. In particular, pay attention to the processor options, such as SMP.
Problem: The display is corrupt in full−screen mode. The most common symptom is a black window.
Fix: If you’re running XFree86 4.0.x, the direct graphics access (DGA) driver may have some bugs. Try upgrading to a newer version of XFree86 to see if this fixes the problem, or downgrade to XFree86 3.3.x. The newest and fastest cards on the market are most likely to have problems like this.
You can also try putting this line in your virtual machine’s .cfg file:
xinfo.noDGAAccel = TRUE
Problem: No matter what settings you use in your host’s XF86Config file, full−screen mode doesn’t seem to work.
Explanation: Some X servers don’t adequately support DGA, and full−screen mode requires DGA. There’s no solution here; you’ll have to live with window mode.
Problem: Various Linux kernel incompatibilities exist. (See the following list for specific kernel versions.) Fix: The best way to fix these problems is to upgrade your kernel. You can either get an update for your distribution (probably the best solution if you’re running Red Hat), or compile your own kernel. Remember that once you change your kernel, you must run vmware−config.pl again to put the appropriate VMware kernel modules in place.
You might run into trouble with these versions in particular:
2.2.3 and earlier: These versions have a few CD−ROM problems. For example, the tray may continuously open and close when you start VMware. This problem manifests itself most often when a guest system wants to do something automatically with a CD as soon as you insert it.
2.2.16: This version has some bugs in the Linux CD−ROM driver. VMware has trouble detecting a CD when you insert it, and you’ll see a warning dialog box when you power on the virtual machine. Windows 95 and 98 guest systems will see data CDs as audio CDs.
2.4.0 – 2.4.8: Various issues come up with these earlier production−release kernels, in particular in compiling the vmmon and vmnet modules. Try to use a later version of the kernel if you can, and make sure that your VMware build is reasonably up−to−date.
Problem: Your virtual machine can’t access a device.
Fix: There are two main solutions to this problem. First, check to see if you have permission to access the device; VMware won’t allow you to use a device in a virtual machine that you can’t touch on the host side. If the permissions are okay, see if some other program on your host system has the device open or locked.
Note You’re better off not directly sharing certain devices between the host and guest systems because of possible conflicts; instead, you should use host−only networking features. For example, use SAMBA or lpd to make your printer accessible to your guest.
Problem: VMware doesn’t work after a major host operating system upgrade. When you run the installer again after a host operating system upgrade, it tells you that it found a previous installation, but it aborts after telling you that it was unable to stop the VMware services.
Fix: After a major system upgrade, the VMware Workstation services probably won’t start at boot time.
Instead of running the installer again, run vmware−config.pl to install the appropriate kernel modules.
If this doesn’t work, try to replace VMware by removing the old version by hand with vmwareưuninstall.pl;
then reinstall VMware Workstation, using a newer version. If you get the same error as before, obtain a process listing for your system and look for all of the VMware−related processes (ps auxww | grep vmware) and kill them. Then use lsmod to locate any VMware kernel modules and use rmmod to remove them.
Now run mv /etc/vmware /etc/vmware.orig and note where you installed VMware the last time. Run the installer again and give the same answers that you gave when you first installed VMware (if you can’t
remember, look at /etc/vmware.orig/locations). When you’re done with the installation, you can copy some of your old configuration data back from /etc/vmware.orig—for instance, the host−only networking settings in the config file and the entire vmnet1 directory.
Problem: Your system includes a package called libsafe, and VMware aborts when you try to start it.
Fix: Remove this library package; VMware requires the brk() system call, and libsafe doesn’t let programs issue it.