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RobertoRos
Contributor
Contributor
‎02-04-2013 05:36 AM

vmware-hostd periodically writes to disk

I'm working with WS 9.0.1 on Linux host (Kubuntu 12.10 64bits).

With no virtual machines running, every 40 seconds vmware-hostd writes to disk:

14:32:20 28456 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   34.93 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml

Sometimes this is a bit of an inconvenience, either because I have a noisy hard disk or because it interferes with obtaining accurate performance timings from the software I'm developing.

Is there a way to avoid those pointless disk writes or make them less frequent?

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lptr2vmware
Contributor
Contributor
‎02-26-2013 11:48 PM

ACK: Same here Smiley Sad

Even if Workstation 8 does not actively runnig it flashes the harddrive about every 20 .. 40 s.

In an very old document I did read that this can be configured anyhow. But that guy missed to mention how this could be done.

$ sudo iotop -obtqqq |grep "vmware"
08:39:20  2421 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   51.00 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
08:39:40  2337 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   50.96 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
08:41:00  2337 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   50.99 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
08:41:40  2421 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   50.60 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
08:42:00  2452 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   51.08 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
08:42:20  2421 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   50.99 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
08:42:40  2337 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   50.97 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
08:43:01  2421 be/4 root        0.00 B/s   51.02 K/s  0.00 %  0.00 % vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml

$ ps -ax | grep "vmware"
1621 ?        Ssl    0:00 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmblock-fuse -o subtype=vmware-vmblock,default_permissions,allow_other /var/run/vmblock-fuse
1825 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-dhcpd -s 6 -cf /etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcpd/dhcpd.conf -lf /etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases -pf /var/run/vmnet-dhcpd-vmnet1.pid vmnet1
1831 ?        S      0:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-natd -s 6 -m /etc/vmware/vmnet8/nat.mac -c /etc/vmware/vmnet8/nat/nat.conf
1981 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-dhcpd -s 6 -cf /etc/vmware/vmnet8/dhcpd/dhcpd.conf -lf /etc/vmware/vmnet8/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases -pf /var/run/vmnet-dhcpd-vmnet8.pid vmnet8
2013 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/vmware-authdlauncher
2131 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/bin/vmware-usbarbitrator
2337 ?        Sl     0:00 /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-hostd -a /etc/vmware/hostd/config.xml
3846 pts/0    S+     0:00 grep --color=auto vmware
3925 pts/1    S+     0:00 grep --color=auto vmware

Obviously process no. 2337 is responsible.

Anyone out there who knows to pull the correct register?

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