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ae3265
Contributor
Contributor

Fusion 3 Headless???

Okay, so getting the new version is bad enough.

But now, headless mode is missing in action??!?!?!?!!? WTF???

Come on guys, you are supposed to be ADDING features, not removing them.

Alternative solutions are starting to look better and better....

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32 Replies
ae3265
Contributor
Contributor

Oh, and the nogui option is missing from vmrun.

$99 for this crap???

Versus Virtual Box - which has a headless mode....and is free??

Some upgrade....

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jfgoofy
Contributor
Contributor

RTFM

Headless Mode

As the Beginner's Guide said, the vmware-vmx process does the real work

of running the virtual machine while the Fusion UI process handles

input and drawing. If you don't need the UI process, you can kill the

UI process after you start the VM (e.g. ctrl-option-clicking the Fusion

Dock icon and Force Quitting). The vmware-vmx process should continue

to run in the background. You can reconnect to it by starting Fusion

again and opening the VM.

In Fusion 2.0, an easier way is to run the following command in a Terminal Window:

defaults write com.vmware.fusion fluxCapacitor -bool YES

This will add a View menu item, "Headless". If you use this option, you

probably should also use the signal config options mentioned in the

Scripting section of this document to allow you to safely shut down the

physical machine without having to reconnect to the virtual machine.

I believe the VM continues running even if you log out, since the vmware-vmx process is root-owned.

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ae3265
Contributor
Contributor

The "defaults write com.vmware.fusion fluxCapacitor -bool YES" no longer works, apparently.

The nogui option refuses to start the VM from the CLI without one being logged in. It does still show up as an option with the vmrun binary.

The point being is that on a system boot, I have certain VM's that need to start with out a user being logged in. This appears to be broken in 3 versus 2.

Force quitting is not an option for my needs.

The entire point of having a headless mode is so I don't have to mess with the gui.

I could deal without the menu item, though that's a bit of a pain, as I have VNC consoles already set up.

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cmartel
Contributor
Contributor

i'd like to add my name to the list of people who don't like the removal of this undocumented feature. Sure it's not widely supported, but just yanking it all together? Common, I am on a trial right now, and I may just stay with 2.06 to keep headless...

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hootjr29
Contributor
Contributor

agreed. I started to really enjoy using my preferred terminal client to ssh into guests without needing to worry about a head. Please re-enable the Headless mode!

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ae3265
Contributor
Contributor

Consider that there isn't a "server" product for Mac, the headless mode on Fusion is what I was running my VM servers on at home.

But, if VMware is going to do silly things like this, then I've already loaded up and am testing VirtualBox. At least there it's a recognized feature.

The sad thing is that I was running VMware, and have been a loyal customer of Fusion pretty much exclusively until this. Way to get your customers thinking about using the competitors, VMware!

Though, from the other issues I'm seeing on the forums, Fusion 3 is not nearly as ready for prime-time as I had hoped it would be...overall, as a customer, I'm just plain disappointed.

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blurk
Contributor
Contributor

Count me in as another Fusion user for whom the headless option is essential (I have a VM that I need started at boot time to run some essential services for the home LAN).

I'd like to see an official statement from VMware about whether this feature was deliberately removed or whether it's an accident. I know the drill about not commenting on future plans, but some of us have been using this.

I can't really fathom why it should be taken out since it is part of the presumbably relatively portable vmrun / vmx core code.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

I'd like to see an official statement from VMware about whether this feature was deliberately removed or whether it's an accident.

Fusion 3 has a bunch of work to improve the display model. I don't know the specifics, but my general recollection is that in making those changes, there were some corner cases we didn't get to iron out with headless mode. Management wasn't keen on spending $TIME to fix unsupported features, so it got removed. We know it's a feature that people miss, but you do indeed know the drill about not commenting on future plans.

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ae3265
Contributor
Contributor

Well, I've got VirtualBox's headless mode working on boot. So if VMware manangement isn't keen on keeping Fusion's headless mode working, I'm not keen on spending my $$$ on a product that does not suit my needs.

This is a show-stopper for me. So, until it get's replaced and fixed up, I'm done with Fusion.

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blurk
Contributor
Contributor

OK, thanks for the response. So we know there's a rationale for this and, while I'm obviously disappointed, I'm happy to know the actual situation rather than just guessing.

I'm not in a rush to upgrade, and some demand for this feature has been registered so hopefully it will come back in a supported fashion in some future version (that cannot be commented upon until it is ready). There's obviously a lot of higher priority stuff that needs fixing first. Thems the breaks.

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intranation
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for your comment etung.

This is definitely an issue for me, and until it gets resolved I will resolutely not be spending the money on an upgrade from 2. I do lots of Linux development on server environments, so headless mode is invaluable for me (and indeed my entire team, who will also not be receiving the upgrade license, since I don't believe the upgrade to be worth our money).

Very disappointed, but since 2.0.x is still working I will continue to use that until VirtualBox reaches the point where it's useful to us again. I hope this issue can be resolved with Fusion 3 before that time, as I've been very happy with Fusion 2.

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nefarioustim
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the response etung.

I'd like to concur with what intranation said; I use VMWare Fusion VMs in headless mode for Linux based web development, and am currently incredibly happy with V2.

I will not be upgrading, or recommending upgrades, until V3 supports this feature to, at least, the level of support in V2.

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Gedankenexperim
Contributor
Contributor

Hello,

many thanks to etung for the explanation.

For me Fusion is a great tool to develop Linux based appliances, running servers (if I need X11, I use the server on the OS X host). So, I really miss the headless mode very much.

I'm a long time happy Fusion user from the first pre release, and upgraded through all the updates, but, I'm sorry, I will not upgrade to Fusion 3 without headless mode.

Also, I'm planning to port all my development vm to VirtualBox which is now, for my needs, far more versatile than Fusion regarding headless mode and scripted configuration and management: the only reason I'm remaining with Fusion 2 is it's small advantage regarding virtual network DHCP server configuration... but there are issues even with it! (If someone is interested, please se my other unaswered post).

I accept that VMware will not comment on future plan, but could you give us some other trick, if exist, like the old "defaults write com.vmware.fusion ..." since, I guess, for many of us, killing the Fusion UI process is not an option.

Many thanks and kind regards,

Emiliano

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ajbrehm
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VirtualBox has a headless mode?

Well, that's it. Once I have my copy of Windows 7, I'll switch.

(I also just read that VirtualBox supports Remote Desktop Protocol, allowing any VM to be accessed from a thin client or Remote Desktop application. Looks great.)

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ajbrehm
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have tried VirtualBox with Windows 2000.

The GUI and the available settings are better than Fusion's. VirtualBox has a headless mode but cannot switch between it and the normal modes on-the-fly like Fusion still can to a degree (although with Fusion now I can only make that decision for all VMs at once and that's really annoying).

And VirtualBox is free.

Headless mode is really important for me and is one of the reasons I switched to Fusion from Parallels. The current implementation in VMware makes the on-the-fly switching between headless and window mode annoying.

So I guess I will do this: I am still waiting for my Windows 7 DVD. Only when it arrived do I have to decide whether I will install it in Fusion or whether I will install it in VirtualBox and move my other VMs to VirtualBox. If headless mode comes back to Fusion 3 in an upgrade before end of next week, I'll stay with Fusion, otherwise I'll switch.

I have two more Macs that I would need to upgrade and now don't want do. I have to choose between buying another two Fusion 3 licences and just switching everything to VirtualBox for free. If Fusion 3 brings me back the feature I need, I'll stay and pay. Otherwise I'll leave and save some money.

I can definitely recommend VirtualBox.

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ajbrehm
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Whenever I open Fusion 3 now all my running VMs are thrown into my face, and I only want to access one of them.

I don't know how most people use Fusion and what VMware were thinking when they removed the headless view, but this is ridiculous.

VirtualBox' implementation of headless mode is not as convenient as VMware's but at least it's still there.

VMware probably think that Fusion users keep a library of a few VMs and run them one at a time. But I just keep my VMs running. I bought a Mac Pro with 8 GB of memory exactly for that. And now a great feature has become a joke.

If VMware would at least announce that headless view came back, I could return to Fusion 2 and wait for the updated Fusion 3. But I think they have a policy of not talking about possible features. And maybe there is just not enough of us headless view users to justify the expense of leaving a useful feature in the system. (Was anybody bothered by the feature? Why did it have to be removed?)

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raitosan
Contributor
Contributor

I would like to add my voice to the discussion, another vote for bringing back Headless mode.

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zabouti
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I can run it headless under snow leopard 10.6.1 on my MacBook Pro:

$ /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmrun start /Users/Shared/vmware/vms/server.ubu804.dev/base.ubu804.dev.vmx nogui

==> this started the VM. I can ping it and ssh to it:

$ ping server.ubu804.dev

PING server.ubu804.dev (192.168.122.131): 56 data bytes

+ 64 bytes from 192.168.122.131: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.344 m+s

I checked to make sure that I'm using version 3 and seem to be (I never installed version 2 under snow leopard):

$ /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Fusion/vmrun | head -3

vmrun version 3.0.0 build-204229

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ajbrehm
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Can you connect to them using the Fusion GUI?

In Fusion 2 you could switch individual VMs between headless and non-headless on-the-fly.

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