VmWare tools certificate error in win 7

[PaulAnderson52]

Hello,

I'm using VmWare Player 6.0.2 build-1744117 on Linux Debian. I installed win 7 on it and when I tried to install VmWare Tools I get this error: "A certificate error occurred for the update server. Check your Internet settings or contact your system administrator".  But I don't think it's my internet settings because the internet is working in the virtual machine(win 7) and also on my host OS. I also don't use proxy.

How can I fix this problem? I really want to install VmWare Tools. Please help me to fix it.

I'm attaching screenshots with the error and with my internet settings.

[PaulAnderson52]

Maybe it could be a bug? I want to know what is wrong and how can I fix it.

More information: The win 7 VM that I'm using it was imported from VirtualBox. When I first opened it in Player, it gave me errors. Then I opened it with OVF Tool with the -lax argument and it succesfully made the .vmx. It works fine except the fact that I can't install VMware tools.

I also installed Linux Mint 17 as guest and again, I had problems with the VMware tools instalation. The dvd wouldn't mount. But I managed to install it from the guest repository with:

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools

After that, I could use Mint 17 in fullscreen. Unfortunately, I still have problems with Win 7.

[WoodyZ · Accepted solution]

As a workaround you can use the directions in Re: Vmplayer tools error while using the VMware Tools files located here.

[PaulAnderson52]

Thank you. It worked. But maybe somebody from VMware should investigate this problem and fix it. It should work the normal way.

[admin]

When you visit https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/ in a web browser, does it trust the certificate? Is there a "Baltimore_CyberTrust_Root.pem" in /etc/ssl/certs (with SHA1 fingerprint D4:DE:20:D0:5E:66:FC:53:FE:1A:50:88:2C:78:DB:28:52:CA:E4:74)?

[PaulAnderson52]

Yes, there is a "Baltimore_CyberTrust_Root.pem" in  /etc/ssl/certs and it has the SHA1 fingerprint that you mentioned. When I visit the link in the browser I get the message: "File not found."".

[admin]

Can you send me a copy of your Player UI log file that shows this problem occurring? The log file is typically found at /tmp/vmware-<username>/vmware-player-<pid>.log. The "About" dialog in Player shows the location of the current instance's log file.

[PaulAnderson52]

I have /tmp loaded in ram so the log is lost at reboot. So I entered in:  File->Player Preferences->Download All Components Now and I got a similar error: "VMware Tools for Windows 95, 98, Me, and NT:
A certificate error occurred for the update server. Check your Internet settings or contact your system administrator.

VMware Tools for Linux:
A certificate error occurred for the update server. Check your Internet settings or contact your system administrator.

VMware Tools for Solaris:
A certificate error occurred for the update server. Check your Internet settings or contact your system administrator.

VMware Tools for FreeBSD:
A certificate error occurred for the update server. Check your Internet settings or contact your system administrator.

VMware Tools for Netware:
A certificate error occurred for the update server. Check your Internet settings or contact your system administrator"

I'm attaching the log.

[admin]

Here's the relevant error from Player's log:

2014-06-17T12:58:07.035+02:00| player| I120: CDS: Using NONE proxy :0 for https://softwareupdate.vmware.com/cds/index.xml.
2014-06-17T12:58:07.528+02:00| player| I120: SSL_SetVerifyCb: ctx=7F75EBF780C0 func=7F75DA251180 data=7F75EBC732B0
2014-06-17T12:58:07.573+02:00| player| I120: SSL_GetCertErrors: OpenSSL internal validation failed! state->errors is 1152
2014-06-17T12:58:07.573+02:00| player| A115: Software Updates: SSL certificate errors: 0x480
2014-06-17T12:58:07.573+02:00| player| A115: Software Updates: Cert error: A certificate in the host's chain is explicitly not trusted.
2014-06-17T12:58:07.573+02:00| player| A115: Software Updates: Cert error: A certificate in the host's chain is based on an untrusted root.
2014-06-17T12:58:07.575+02:00| player| I120: CDS: cURL error: Peer certificate cannot be authenticated with known CA certificates (60)
2014-06-17T12:58:07.575+02:00| player| I120: CDS: Change client state to CDS_HTTP_CERTIFICATE_ERROR, 0 bulletins available

The first "Cert error" line maps to OpenSSL's X509_V_ERR_CERT_UNTRUSTED error. The second "Cert error" line maps to X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_GET_ISSUER_CERT. The documentation for X509_V_ERR_CERT_UNTRUSTED isn't very helpful:

the root CA is not marked as trusted for the specified purpose.

Fortunately, the description of X509_V_ERR_UNABLE_TO_GET_ISSUER_CERT is a bit more helpful:

the issuer certificate of a looked up certificate could not be found. This normally means the list of trusted certificates is not complete.

Normally, Debian rolls the contents of /etc/ssl/certs up into /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt (essentially, it just cats them all together into one big file), but perhaps something went wrong when it attempted to do this. Is the contents of Baltimore_CyberTrust_Root.pem present in /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt?

[PaulAnderson52]

Yes, it is.

[admin]

I haven't been able to reproduce the issue. Are you able to reproduce it with a clean installation of Debian and Player?

[PaulAnderson52]

I don't want to install debian again. Maybe I will install a new linux distribution and then I'll write about what happens when I try to install VmPlayer Tools.

[Ed_Dekker]

I had this problem due to a conflict between the Kaspersky AV software and VMware.

I fixed the problem by disabling the 'Scan encrypted connections' option on the Kaspersky Network settings tab.

Ed