VMware Communities
howaldoliver
Contributor
Contributor

VMware Fusion Networking completely screwed up in macOS Big Sur Beta 10

Hi everybody,

I have a problem with VMware Fusion 12 and macOS Big Sur Beta 10 (I'm not sure, if it occurred on earlier Betas or macOS Catalina, but I can tell that Fusion 11.5 and Catalina worked well with the same setup).

The problem is, when I choose "Autodetect" or "Wi-Fi" as Network setting in vm preferences, I can't do various internet-base operations anymore in the vms. For example, I cannot install snap packages or I cannot pull docker images. I tested on various Linux distribution guests like Ubuntu, Fedora or CentOS. I always get the error "tls: bad record MAC", depending on the tested tool the error message is a little bit difference but comes to the same.

Searching for this error message in the web told me that this issue only occurs when the Network is screwed up, it's not fixable from Linux itself. It actually only occurs with VMware VMs, I don't have those problems with "real" computers...

Could you please have a look at this?

It's also possible, Apple screwed something up there in the latest beta, like I said, I don't know exactly when it occurred for the first time. At the moment macOS is still at beta phase but Apple will release it soon and then we should have a working VMware.

Does anybody have the same problem or some advises how I can solve this?


Thanks.

8 Replies
ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

FWIW, the big sur betas have been a lot less stable than usual, especially this late in the game.  Apple's continuing to make substantial changes to the underlying OS plumbing, so it wouldn't be a surprise if they borked something again.

Reply
0 Kudos
nancyz
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi howaldoliver ,

The problem is, when I choose "Autodetect" or "Wi-Fi" as Network setting in vm preferences, I can't do various internet-base operations anymore in the vms.

Does this problem if using NAT for VM?

Reply
0 Kudos
taolian-ps
Contributor
Contributor

Can you get NAT working at all? I can connect to VMNET8 and ping gateway IP, but no way to connect to Internet when NAT the traffic. And the natd wont even start! 

 

sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli -c 
Stopped NAT service on vmnet8
Stopped all configured services on all networks
Backed up existing network settings to backup file "/tmp/vmware.f56Dwk"
Restored network settings

 

Also tried stop and start, it wont work. tried the magic command below, does not work neither!

sudo rm /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist && sudo killall -9 configd

 

I think Fusion 12 is properly screwed by Big Sur, however the good news is Parallels 16.1 has it working (together with nested virtualisation, also does not work for Fusion 12). At least it means technically it is doable, and up to VMWare how quick it can be fixed. Hopefully very soon

bricbaker
Contributor
Contributor

I solved the problem in my Ubuntu 20.04 guest by

1, use "ifconfig -a" to find out the device name. (Yes. It does exist but just stops working.) 

2, manually add it back to /etc/network/interfaces:

auto ensXXX
iface ensXXX inet dhcp

But before doing this in my ubuntu guest OS, I also tried the "sudo rm .." approach, so that part may also have helped. That might be the reason my Windows 10 guest just work fine (I only started the Win VM after I have run the "sudo rm ..."). But the problem in Ubuntu persists.

BTW: I also tried the vmnet-cli to check the service status:
> sudo /Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmnet-cli --status
DHCP service on vmnet1 is not running
Hostonly virtual adapter on vmnet1 is disabled
DHCP service on vmnet8 is not running
NAT service on vmnet8 is running
Hostonly virtual adapter on vmnet8 is disabled
Some/All of the configured services are not running

In my case, both NAT and bridged work. So I suppose the NAT service is sufficient in this case.

I'm using MacOS Big Sur 11.01, VM Fusion (Player) 12 and Ubuntu 20.04

Reply
0 Kudos
taolian-ps
Contributor
Contributor

My VM uses dhcp anyway, as I mentioned, I have no problem "inside" VM, I can see interface, I have IP assigned, I even can ping my host IP. HOWEVER, as the VMWare's NAT service not running, I cannot go anywhere. Do you mind sharing your MacOS version + build number, and VMWare Fusion version? I dont understand why it works for you but not for me.

 

I also tried latest 12.1, still have the same problem.

Reply
0 Kudos
bricbaker
Contributor
Contributor

VM Fusion: Player Version 12.0.0 (16880131)

As I'm replying this, its update is showing up to me. I'm going to try it. Hope it still work.

Reply
0 Kudos
nancyz
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi @bricbaker ,

 

On Big Sur host, a built-in dhcp sever will be used instead of vmware dhcp server. So 'vmnet-cli' is telling 'DHCP service on vmnetX is not running'.

Reply
0 Kudos
JLWolfe1990
Contributor
Contributor

I got this to work by selecting the "Share with my Mac" and then regenerating the MAC address in the advanced options.