gbohn Tracker

Re: How do i re-encrypt Windows VMs when going from WP 17.5 to 17.0.2

gbohn — Sat, 04 Nov 2023 01:07:04 GMT

Just a wild guess, but for the case where you removed the TPM (to be able to decrypt) and went back to 17.0.2, maybe you were seeing an issue from 'secure boot' related to losing the TPM values?

Re: I can't start any virtual machine after updating to 17.5.0

gbohn — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 01:20:34 GMT

"... Just remove the device, and go with a more traditional means of printing."

But as I understand it, if you have 'full' VM encryption and a TPM, then you can't edit the .vmx file without decrypting the VM. And to do that you would need to throw away the TPM information.

Is that correct?

I'm currently using the TPM, and the full VM was encrypted in order to have the TPM in the first place.

It would likely be a major pain to decrypt 500 GB, and try to rework whatever is dependent on the current TPM values to get everything working again, and then re-encrypt the same 500 GB.

Or can you just remove the 'printer' from the hardware list?

Re: Network Bridge Mode Not Working Windows 11 Host

gbohn — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 01:34:40 GMT

I'm disappointed that this hasn't been fixed after all this time.

Has anyone tried the 'Tech Preview' to see if its been fixed there?

At this rate, it could be that the next version of Vmware Workstation doesn't have this fixed either...

Re: Wireless bridge mode not working on Linux VMs when running VMware Workstation 17.0.1 on Windows

gbohn — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 19:10:09 GMT

This problem seems to have been reported for some time now and I've been holding off switching to version 17 until this is fixed.

But at this point it seems unclear when (or if) this will ever get fixed.

Has VMWare acknowledged this as an issue anywhere?

Re: Vmware 17 Pro very slow on Windows 11 22H2

gbohn — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 21:06:23 GMT

Hi;

> The driver I'm using now is NVIDIA Studio Driver – WHQL (driver version: 536.23,

Going to the Nvidia driver pages today I only see a 'Game ready driver' for version 536.23.

The newest studio driver I see listed is 535.98 (at https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us).

Maybe I'm just missing it (or maybe it's no longer available?).

Do you have a link to the 536.23 Studio driver page?

Re: Can you switch between 'fast' and 'regular' encryption for TPM?

gbohn — Wed, 10 May 2023 13:44:53 GMT

Thanks.

I was afraid that that was the case.

Can you switch between 'fast' and 'regular' encryption for TPM?

gbohn — Wed, 10 May 2023 13:13:41 GMT

This might be a dumb question, but is it possible to switch between 'regular' and 'fast-encryption' when you have an existing guest with a virtual TPM added?

My understanding is that Workstation Pro 17 will allow you to set up either 'Regular'/traditional full Guest encryption or a new 'fast' encryption (one of which is needed to allow you to add a Virtual TPM).

I'm thinking about using this for a RHEL 8 Linux Guest, but I guess the same question applies to a Windows Guest.

My concern is that once you choose one of the two types, are you permanently locked in to that choice?

For example, would you have to remove the Virtual TPM and re-add it if you switched encryption type? (Which would lose all the TPM data presumably).

Re: Is it worth to update from 16.2.3 to 16.2.4?

gbohn — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 18:13:21 GMT

By extension I'd also like to know if it's now safe to go to 16.2.4 from 16.1.2 on a Windows 10 host.

I've been holding off updating to 16.2.x since so many people were reporting problems with 16.2.x whereas their 16.1.x environment had been working o.k. for them.

Workstation Pro 16 Guest Suspend on Host reboot?

gbohn — Wed, 29 Jun 2022 14:08:56 GMT

I left a RHEL 8.6 Guest running overnight on a Windows 10 Host. (This was using Workstation Pro 16.1.2). I was doing a long running analysis on the Guest.

This morning I discovered that Windows had decided to restart my system overnight (at 12:30 AM for updates) and this took out the running Guest in the process.

I thought I had long ago managed to disable the 'automatic' restart of Windows 10 on update apply, but this apparently didn't work... (My goal would be to come in the next day and see that I was being asked to restart).

As best as I can tell, this just unceremoniously killed the Guest without either suspending or shutting it down. (I didn't see anything that looked like that in either the Guest /var/log/messages or Host vmware-0.log.

Is there some way to get Workstation 16 to either Suspend or shutdown the Guest if the Host gets restarted?

This is an encrypted Guest if that makes any difference.

RHEL 8.4 and 3D KDE Plasma Guest crash

gbohn — Fri, 28 May 2021 01:59:22 GMT

Hi;

I'm using VMWare Workstation Pro 16.1.2 on a Windows 10 20H2 Host to run a RHEL Guest and have an issue trying to use KDE Plasma Desktop on RHEL 8.4.

Using a RHEL 8.3 Guest everything seems o.k.. After upgrading this Guest to RHEL 8.4 I found that I could not log in to the guest using a KDE Plasma desktop anymore (which used to work fine).

F.W.I.W. under RHEL 8.4 the Gnome desktops I tried seem to work fine, so it seems to be KDE Plasma related.

Trying to log in to a RHEL 8.4 Guest I get a crash pop-up window for 'ksplashqml' (in the guest) and then a black screen with a mouse pointer only (in the guest). I have to then use 'VM/Power/Shutdown Guest' to get anywhere, which works).

I eventually figured out that if I Disable 3D Acceleration in the Guest settings, then I can log in to KDE Plasma without this issue.

Is there any known incompatibility with KDE Plasma, VMWare Workstation, and 3D acceleration?

For what it's worth under RHEL 8.3 I see that open-vm-tools-11.1.0-2.el8.x86_64 is installed in the guest.

Under RHEL 8.4 open-vm-tools-11.2.0-2.el8.x86_64 is installed.

Thanks;

Re: Massive Disk Space Usage Disparity

gbohn — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 22:00:06 GMT

You're welcome.

Also, I happened to use the command line to do the compact part (after filling with zeroes), but I would imagine that you should be able to do that from the GUI drive settings as well.

Re: Massive Disk Space Usage Disparity

gbohn — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 16:26:27 GMT

If I understand correctly (the Linux Guest reports about 97 GB less usage than the space used on the Host by the grow-able .vmdk files), It might be the case where your .vmdk files are accumulating a fair amount of detritus that was once used, but is now un-allocated in the Guest.

In my experience with Linux Guests on a Windows 10 Host (using Guest EXT4 formatted virtual drives), I needed to zero out the unused space before trying to shrink/compact the .vmdk files in order for it to actually free up the space.

Otherwise it appeared as though it wasn't recognized as unused.

It's been a long time since I last did this, but it went something like:

*) In Linux Guest

dd if=/dev/zero of=wipefile bs=1024x1024; rm wipefile

This fills all available unused storage space (on the current partition) with bytes of 'zeros'. It did not expand the Host .vmdk size to any noticeable amount.

This can take a while and you don't want the guest to be doing anything at the time.

I think this needed to be done with the VM not having any snapshots.

*) From Host Windows command line run the Shrink/Compact command while the Guest was shut down:

vmware-vdiskmanager.exe -k "<path to vmdk>"

I'm not sure if it's your issue, but good luck. Make sure you have a backup in case things go wrong.

Also, if you are low on free space it might become an issue trying to shrink the .vmdk (But if your prior attempt worked I guess that's a good sign).

Re: Does VMWARE Workstation support CPU affinity?

gbohn — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 15:37:32 GMT

Just for reference, I don't know if this still works, but Tie the VM to a cpu? mentions setting .vmx affinity values like

processor0.use= "TRUE"

processor1.use= "FALSE"

etc.

Re: Windows 10 crashed with bugcheck at vmx86.sys

gbohn — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 15:34:57 GMT

I don't have Version 16, but was seeing a similar BSOD intermittently on my 15.5.6 system. (Same vmx86+100a location, same "CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT_INTERRUPTS_DISABLED_vmx86!unknown_function").

(In case it's relevant, I am using a Xeon E5-1650 v4 CPU and ECC memory on an Asus X99-E WS/USB 3.1 motherboard).

Replacing the CPU and motherboard didn't help. It hasn't happened (knock on wood) in over 9 weeks, but I changed multiple settings trying to see if any of them helped.

That's in addition to less controlled changes like Windows updates, Guests going from RHEL 7.7 to 7.8, I'm not using video in the guest nearly as much, etc.

It may or may not have had anything to do with it, but some things I changed (sadly several at once) between seeing this and not were:

*) My RHEL Guest used to have the processor settings for 'Virtualize Intel VT-X/EPT' and 'Virtualize CPU Performance counters' set.

I unchecked them since I didn't need them.

*) I disabled Hyper-threading. (I later re-enabled hyper-threading without ill effect, but I replaced that with the next change

so not a definitive change as such).

*) Manually set the Turbo limit to x38 in BIOS for 1-4 cores. (Since this is a Xeon, I have no idea if that actually

accomplished anything since they normally ignore some changes to speed settings).

x38 is applicable for this CPU (Limit to 3.8 GHz turbo), but would vary based on the specific CPU.

Just F.Y.I in case any of those is helpful to you.

I've been reluctant to re-enable some settings on the chance it will ruin the current peace...

Can you disable Control-R (Restart Guest) on Workstation Pro?

gbohn — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 20:47:48 GMT

HI;

I've noticed that on Workstation Pro 15.5.6 I often accidentally invoke VMWare Workstations 'Restart Guest' functionality when switching between Linux Guests.

My plan is usually to switch between full screen guests and use the Linux 'Control-R' on a command line window to recall a prior command.

But I often forget to click on the new Window first. The result is I get the Workstation pop-up asking if I want to restart the Guest.

Since I very much don't want to normally do that, I was wondering if there was a way to disable (or re-assign) that hot-key so that I lessen the chance of accidentally restarting the guest. (Lucky for me the window still has the check box about showing the window next time, but it still makes me nervous).

I didn't immediately see a choice for anything like that under preferences/hotkeys.

Or, is there a way to to have the new Guest get control automatically when I click on its tab (so I don't have to first click on it after switching Guest Tabs)? Normally I go to the tabs at the top of the full screen to select a different guest.

Thanks;

Re: BSOD on Workstation Pro 15.5.6 (running RHEL 7.7 Guest).

gbohn — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 16:07:22 GMT

In my case (on V 15.5.6 since I don't have V 16), the BSODs always indicated a trap in the VMWare code.

You probably need to look at your memory dump file to see what specifically it is unhappy about.

As an update to my situation, replacing the CPU and Motherboard did not fix the issue. I had a few more BSODs. (I have an Intel Xeon E5 1650 v4 cpu which isn't exactly main-stream in case that's related).

I changed a bunch of settings after that and haven't had a BSOD in 9 weeks now (knock on wood).

I'm slowly going back and restoring the original settings one at a time to see what might have helped.

One of the things I did was to uncheck the Guests settings for Processors/ 'Virtualize Intel VT-X/EPT' and 'Virtualize CPU Performance counters'. I had these checked for some reason even though I didn't actually need them.

I mention this in case you have these checked on your guest.

Workstation 15.5.6- RHEL 8.2 Linux Guest and Secure Boot

gbohn — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 03:37:19 GMT

I recently created a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.2 Guest installation as 'UEFI'. This seems to run o.k. (running on a Windows 10 1909 Host).

I was thinking I could now enable 'Secure Boot' for this in the advanced settings, but I see that the option is grayed out.

Is there a trick to enabling this? Or is this not supported?

It looks like I can enable secure boot for Windows 10 Guests (well, the box is check-able at least)..

Thanks;

Re: BSOD on Workstation Pro 15.5.6 (running RHEL 7.7 Guest).

gbohn — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 19:43:41 GMT

> try to boot the VM with just a single cpu

The system is working at the moment. But I'll try setting a single core to see if that makes any difference in the future.

Two weeks ago it also had a BSOD (also while running Workstation with the same guest), but it didn't create a memory.dmp (or mini-dump) file so I couldn't analyze it that time.

On the hardware front, I've tried several types of 'stress' tests with no issues detected.

*) Multiple runs of the 'Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool' and it always passes.

*) I ran Passmark Memtest 86 for 4 full passes (over 11 hours using all 6 of the 'real' cores) without it detecting a problem.

*) I ran Prime 95 for 4 hours without issue.

Both times the system wasn't heavily loaded when it hit the BSOD. (The guest is used as a workstation).

Re: BSOD on Workstation Pro 15.5.6 (running RHEL 7.7 Guest).

gbohn — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 21:56:45 GMT

From the googling this error so far, I've seen some references that seemed to say that in general this BSOD could be either hardware or driver induced.

"...processor is hung and not processing interrupts."

So, when the analyze output shows

"CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT_INTERRUPTS_DISABLED_vmx86!unknown_function"

would that mean that interrupts had been disabled by something?

I get the impression that the output says it was in the VMware driver (and exe) at the time...

But not knowing anything about how that's supposed to work (in the VMware driver) it might be helpful if someone from VMWare could take a look as well.

I see a few others reporting a similar issue, but no definitive resolution there (one way or the other)... At Windows 10 crashed with bugcheck at vmx86.sys and Blue Screen caused by vmx86.sys VM Workstation 15.5.2

Just in case it's related my system has 12 virtual cores (6 real ones). I have 4 cores assigned to the Guest.

At least one of the other two reports I mentioned seems to show that they have at least up to processor 0xa (10).

Thanks.

BSOD on Workstation Pro 15.5.6 (running RHEL 7.7 Guest).

gbohn — Mon, 29 Jun 2020 20:40:55 GMT

Hi;

I just got a BSOD running a Windows 10 Host (1909). I was running a RHEL 7.7 Linux Guest full-screen at the time. (I had just returned from a break).

I got a mini-dump and a memory.dmp.

Running windbg against the memory.dmp calls out what looks to the casual observer like Workstation driver and process references:

"FAULTING_PROCESSOR: 6

PROCESS_NAME: vmware-vmx.exe

FAULTING_THREAD: ffffdd86e5270080"

and

STACK_TEXT:

ffff8603`bfddf468 fffff801`4f778228 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : vmx86+0x100a

ffff8603`bfddf470 fffff801`4f77abdb : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 ffff8603`bfddf938 00000000`00000000 : vmx86+0x8228

ffff8603`bfddf5b0 fffff801`4f771f13 : 00000000`000001b0 00000000`00000001 ffff8603`bfddf938 ffffdd87`01c65430 : vmx86+0xabdb

ffff8603`bfddf680 fffff801`4f77293e : 00000000`00000000 fffff801`391543a9 00000000`00000000 fffff801`38f132d4 : vmx86+0x1f13

ffff8603`bfddf860 fffff801`394b2a2b : 00000000`000003f8 fffff801`38f13269 00000000`00000000 ffffdd86`fab5d7a0 : vmx86+0x293e

ffff8603`bfddf8c0 fffff801`394b22f6 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!IopXxxControlFile+0x71b

ffff8603`bfddf9e0 fffff801`38fd3c18 : 00000000`746c6644 ffff8603`bfddfa00 00000000`00000000 ffff8f85`bb997c40 : nt!NtDeviceIoControlFile+0x56

ffff8603`bfddfa50 00007ffe`f23dc154 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x28

00000073`dc9ff5c8 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : 0x00007ffe`f23dc154

STACK_COMMAND: .thread 0xffffdd86e5270080 ; kb

SYMBOL_NAME: vmx86+100a

MODULE_NAME: vmx86

IMAGE_NAME: vmx86.sys

BUCKET_ID_FUNC_OFFSET: 100a

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT_INTERRUPTS_DISABLED_vmx86!unknown_function"

I'll attach the entire !analyze -v output. (I'm only familiar enough with WinDbg to produce the !analyze output at this time, so I'm not sure what else would be helpful).

Is this an issue with the workstation driver? The system has an E5-1650 V4 Xeon CPU, for what its worth.

Thanks;