No Network Connection Fusion 13.x

[HS4]

Hello,

I have apple silicon macbook and I am trying to run a "Linux ARM Ubuntu 20.04.5 Desktop" OS on VMWare Fusion 13.x pro (up to date). I am able to install and run the OS, however I am not able to connect network adaptor when trying to run through NAT. I also observed that it is not allowing me to install vmware tools on the OS either.

Error for network adapter:
- Could not connect 'Ethernet0' to virtual network '/dev/vmnet8'

Error for VM Tools:
- VMware Tools is not available for this guest.

Please assist. Thank you.

[Technogeezer]

There are no VMware Tools packages available for installation in Linux arm64/aarch64 VMs through the Fusion 13 GUI. You must use the open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop packages provided through Ubuntu’s repos (apt install open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop) if they are not already installed for you  

[HS4]

I am unable to connect to internet over NAT to install the tools. Is there a way to get the network adaptor working without installing the tools?

[ColoradoMarmot]

It should just work.  How did you build the VM?

[HS4]

Just the general setup with default options for Ubuntu. 

[Technogeezer]

The network adapter does not need tools to be installed. Fusion provides a virtual 'e1000e' network adapter for Ubuntu virtual machines. Ubuntu has a network driver for this out of the box.

There's something else going on here. 

Can you post a copy of both the vmx file for this virtual machine, plus the vmware.log file. Both are found in the virtual machine's bundle and can be obtained by:

• Right clicking the virtual machine in the Virtual Machine Library, and selecting "Show in Finder".
• In the Finder window that appears you should see the virtual machine. Right click on it, and select "Show Package Contents".

Both the .vmx file for the virtual machine and the vmware.log files should now be visible. Make a copy of the .vmx file and attach a .txt extension to it, and attach both the log file and the vmx file to a reply to this post.

Also attach the following two items:

• a copy of the file  /Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/networking  (you should be able to find this via the Finder).
• Open Terminal.app, copy the following command and paste it into the Terminal window. 

ps -ef | grep -i vm  

 Then copy/paste the output into your reply..

[HS4]

I am sharing those files with you through a private message. 

[HS4]

Never Mind, please find attached. 

[Technogeezer · Accepted solution]

Your Fusion networking is misconfigured. I re-wrote my original answer after I realized what was going on....

• The ps is indicating that you have no vmnet8 (NAT networking) processes running. That's why you are getting the error message.
• You have configured a custom host-only vmnet3, but it has the same subnet address as the vmnet8 NAT network. That is probably preventing the vmnet8 NAT networking from working properly. The network subnet for vmnet3 needs to change..
• I'm thinking that you are configuring bridged networking in the VM to specific adapters rather than choosing Autodetect for he bridged networking. That would explain the extra add_bridge_mapping items in the 'networking' file.

I'd make the change to the vmnet3 network's subnet so that it does not conflict with the vmnet8 network. Then see if you have networking in the VM.

I'm curious. Why do you have two ethernet adapters configured in the VM?

[HS4]

Thank you for taking the time. I deleted vmnet3 and the second network adapter and now I don't get the same error with adding the network adapter as NAT, however it gets stuck at connecting now. Want me to share the same set of files again?  

[HS4]

Rebooting the Mac fixed it. Really appreciate your assistance.