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iawelch
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Fusion 6.02: linux guest --- how to see possible shares?

[ok, I admit that I am trying out the kubuntu beta for 14.04, trusty tahr.  it has trouble with screen resolution under vmware, but I have fixed most of these.]

I installed the latest vmware tools on the latest vmware fusion 6.0.2..  everything installed fine, and then I rebooted.  (I also installed and then uninstalled open-vm-tools, and then reinstalled vmware-tools when nothing helped.)

so, I have fusion sharing ("Shared Folders") turned on, both for my main OSX root and for my /Users/me folder.  on my linux vm, there is a /mnt/hgfs, but it is empty.  nothing seems automounted.


how do I find out what sharable .host directories there are?


how do I mount?


mkdir shares

mount .host://Users/me ./shares


fails, as does


mount -t hgfs .host://Users/me ./shares

(this seems unnecessarily complicated.  why couldn't vmware fusion just access the host file system, the same way it can access an external disk drive??   if I authorize it to do this, it should be painless...)

regards,

/iaw

Tags (1)
31 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hi Iawelch,

Thanks for using Fusion.

It should be mounted automatically, and you can see your mounting  point: cd /mnt/hgfs/...

I have reported this to our dev team, and they are working on this. Thanks for pointing that.

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi there,

If this is the beta 1 Ubuntu 14.04 version with the newest version of the kernel 3.14 and has changes which are not backwards compatible and as such the shipping Linux HGFS client does not build with it.

There has been a bug filed to track this issue and it will be addressed shortly. Existing shipping versions with these new releases may or may not work depending on the Linux kernel modifications that have been made. We continually strive to address these as they come up but there is a lag between the fixes to HGFS Linux client and when these new Linux kernels are available.

Thanks.

Steve

Thanks. Steve
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myitcv
Contributor
Contributor

+1 for an update that fixes this

Thanks

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myitcv
Contributor
Contributor

Is there any news on when an update will be available?

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi there,

It is VMware policy not state explicit dates of when updates or releases will be available as schedules are in a constant state of flux.

All I can say, it should not be too long and just check for updates on a regular basis.

Sorry, I cannot be more explicit than that.

Steve

Thanks. Steve
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myitcv
Contributor
Contributor

I notice v6.0.3 was released over the weekend. Seems to fix everything up. Thanks very much

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myitcv
Contributor
Contributor

Ubuntu development branch has just moved from Linux kernel 3.13 to 3.15... and this appears to have again broken hgfs.

Steve et al, just to ensure you're aware of the issue? For now I have pinned my kernel to 3.13... but clearly won't be able to do so for ever.

Thanks

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Thanks for reporting the 3.15 Linux kernel breakage for HGFS. However, we did check this and I have it fixed it for 3.15 RC5 at last check.

Those changes will go out in the next set of appropriate releases.

It is somewhat of a pain to keep up with all the latest kernel changes and when they are picked up by the various distributions of Linux.

However, I do try to keep up with those changes and released in our periodic releases.

Just keep watching for further updates.

Steve

Thanks. Steve
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myitcv
Contributor
Contributor

Much appreciated. Thanks Steve.

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myitcv
Contributor
Contributor

Hi Steve - I notice 6.0.4 has just been released, but I couldn't see from the release notes whether this included the 3.15 Kernel fixes?

VMware Fusion 6.0.4 and VMware Fusion 6.0.4 Professional Release Notes

Might be a note worth including in future release notes? (I notice the 6.0.3 release notes didn't include anything about Kernel fixes either, but recall from experience there were some)

Thanks

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi there,

Sorry the fixes for the readlink code didn't make it into the 6.0.4 release. It looks as though because no official release has picked up that version of the Linux kernel there wasn't a priority to pick it up.

Hopefully, I will see if someone can get it in to the next tools release on the 6.0 release branch.

It is in Fusion 7 though. Smiley Happy

As for the release notes, I doubt that notes always include HGFS updates for Linux kernel fixes but they probably should do.

Steve

Thanks. Steve
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myitcv
Contributor
Contributor

What's the availability date for Fusion 7?

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Unfortunately, the VMware policy precludes me from saying when the release of Fusion 7 (or any release for that matter) will be made.

Suffice it to say, that it will most likely be a very similar time of year as the previous releases of Fusion were made (6.0, 5.0 etc).

Not sure, if you can or want to try the Fusion 7 Tech Preview 2 that has just been made available, which would allow you to try the fixes out.

https://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/fusion/vmware-fusion-technology-preview-2014

Steve

Thanks. Steve
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kaistaats
Contributor
Contributor

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 14.04 and the shared folders stopped working. When I ran vmware-hgfsclient it could "see" what was suppose to be shared, but no-go for an actual mount point at /mnt/hgfs. But when I then upgraded to VMWare 6.0.4 and re-ran vmware-config-tools.pl --it all works and life is good again.

So, it seems that Ubuntu 14.04 must have VMWare 6.0.4

kai

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steve_goddard
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Yes 6.0.4 has the changes for Ubuntu 14.04 release.

Glad to hear you are good to go.

There are most changes coming to fix the later kernel releases, since we are heading to kernel version 3.16 currently.

Steve

Thanks. Steve
iawelch
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have a naive question: why can't the vmware-tools become part of the official linux kernel itself, just like many other (and more obscure) hardware devices that are supported in there?   would this not make installing vmware+linux simpler for the enduser, and maintaining vmware-tools simpler for vmware?

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kaistaats
Contributor
Contributor

Steve, Seena,

I may have missed this on your website, but do you have a comparison

chart, a matrix which shows the VMWare product versus the various

flavours and versions of Linux?

This would allow for easy, visual reference as to what is supported,

something like:

Fusion Debian Ubuntu Fedora

6.0.2

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

That's what open-vm-tools is about: Open Virtual Machine Tools.  There are some drivers that we have contributed to the Linux kernel, plus some userspace components.  open-vm-tools has already made it into many Linux distributions, and is installed by default for a few of them.

--

Darius

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dariusd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Yes, we have the VMware Compatibility Guide, which (among other things) shows official Guest OS support across VMware products.

VMware Compatibility Guide: Guest/Host Search

--

Darius

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