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ccoudsi
Contributor
Contributor

Installing VMWare tools on Ubuntu 11.10 (64bits)

I have ESXi 4.0.0, 208167, server trying to install VMWare tools on Ubuntu 11.10 I'm getting the following error:

***************************************************************************************************************************************

Unable to create symlink "/usr/lib64/libvmcf.so" pointing to file "/usr/lib/vmware-tools/lib64/libvmcf.so/libvmcf.so".

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Any ideas???

Thanks

Here's the complete log after trying to install the second time:

***************************************************************************************************************************************

The removal of VMware Tools 4.0.0 build-208167 for Linux completed
successfully.

Installing VMware Tools.

In which directory do you want to install the binary files?
[/usr/bin]

What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)?
[/etc]

What is the directory that contains the init scripts?
[/etc/init.d]

In which directory do you want to install the daemon files?
[/usr/sbin]

In which directory do you want to install the library files?
[/usr/lib/vmware-tools]

In which directory do you want to install the documentation files?
[/usr/share/doc/vmware-tools]

The path "/usr/share/doc/vmware-tools" does not exist currently. This program
is going to create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you
want? [yes]

The installation of VMware Tools 4.0.0 build-208167 for Linux completed
successfully. You can decide to remove this software from your system at any
time by invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl".

Before running VMware Tools for the first time, you need to configure it by
invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl". Do you want
this program to invoke the command for you now? [yes]

Unable to create symlink "/usr/lib64/libvmcf.so" pointing to file
"/usr/lib/vmware-tools/lib64/libvmcf.so/libvmcf.so".

Execution aborted.

***************************************************************************************************************************************

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14 Replies
mikelane
Expert
Expert

An alternative is to simply install open-vm-tools.

For a regular desktop intsall :

sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools

For a server install:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends open-vm-tools

I find installing vmware tools a bit cumbersome.

Maybe not the answer you are looking for - but hopefully it helps.

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GerardButcher
Contributor
Contributor

When you run the Install VMTools from the Client what files are presented?

After you extract the files do you have a file install.pl?

Gerard

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ccoudsi
Contributor
Contributor

Here's the list of the files:

ccoudsi@ubuntu-vm64:~/vmware-tools-distrib$ ls -l
total 512
drwxr-xr-x  2 ccoudsi ccoudsi   4096 2009-11-08 00:06 bin
drwxr-xr-x  3 ccoudsi ccoudsi   4096 2009-11-08 00:06 doc
drwxr-xr-x  3 ccoudsi ccoudsi   4096 2009-11-08 00:06 etc
-r--r--r--  1 ccoudsi ccoudsi 499999 2009-11-08 00:06 FILES
lrwxrwxrwx  1 ccoudsi ccoudsi     13 2009-11-08 01:06 INSTALL -> ./doc/INSTALL
drwxr-xr-x  2 ccoudsi ccoudsi   4096 2009-11-08 00:06 installer
drwxr-xr-x 15 ccoudsi ccoudsi   4096 2009-11-08 00:06 lib
lrwxrwxrwx  1 ccoudsi ccoudsi     31 2009-11-08 01:06 vmware-install.pl -> ./bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl
ccoudsi@ubuntu-vm64:~/vmware-tools-distrib$

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ccoudsi
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for your reply,

if I can't get the regular procedure to work, I will try your instructions,

By the way this is the first time I have a problem installing the tools, I tried today on workstation 8 with Ubuntu 32bit 11.10, was sucessful but not with ESXi 4.0 !!!

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ccoudsi
Contributor
Contributor

Update:

It worked only with "open-vm-tools" per mikelane's instructions above

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LogLogic
Contributor
Contributor

I still get errors and do not get hgfs to work. Is anyone else seeing this?

Bill Roth

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CanuckWare
Contributor
Contributor

My /mnt/hgfs doesn't mount either. After a complete install, and seeing VM->Reinstall VMware Tools (in the menu, btw, not under the Manage entry as the doc'n suggests) I could not get access to a shared folder.  So I surrendered and did the reinstall. Now maybe I've got a bunged mess, but fortunately I never even dare burp with vmware tools without making a backup of the vm.

For VMware W/S 8 with an Ubuntu 11.10 64-bit guest I've tried installing vmware tools through both the automounted DVD containing the tarball and the open-vm-tools as suggested.

With the former, I did get /mnt/hgfs/<my share> mounted, but upon a shutdown/restart it evaporated.

With the latter, near the end of it I got:

FATAL: Module vmhgfs not found.
FATAL: Module vmsync not found.
FATAL: Module vmblock not found.

and no share at the /mnt/hgfs point.  No real surprise given the first FATAL there.

When I went down the path using the automounted DVD, I couldn't extract the tarball because I got:

You don't have the right permissions to extract archives in the folder file:///media/VMware%20Tools

yet my account was an admin.  So, given some advice from a forum elsewhere, I copied the tarball to /tmp and did a sudo tar -zxvf of it and then a sudo ./vmware-install.pl.

Maybe I shouldn't have put it in tmp, but it doesn't sit right in my mind to place it at ~ and not in a system-wide location.

Maybe I'll restore the backup and continue to figure out why /mnt/hgfs is empty.  arghh.

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CanuckWare
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Contributor

A follow-up in case anybody reads this and it helps.

I restored my machine to it's backup (out of paranoia) and then did a sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl. This is the script that the install itself finishes up with.

I have /mnt/hgfs now containing it's host share. I cycled power a couple of times expecting the mount to evaporate again and it did not.

I don't know how this mounts without an entry in /etc/fstab like below but it probably is a vmware thing at start-up.

.host:/  /mnt/hgfs  vmhgfs defaults,ttl=5,uid=1000,gid=1000   0 0

When I do a df I get:

Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1             19609276   5214244  13398936  29% /
udev                    501632         4    501628   1% /dev
tmpfs                   203824       764    203060   1% /run
none                      5120         0      5120   0% /run/lock
none                    509556      1036    508520   1% /run/shm
.host:/              292930556 106603352 186327204  37% /mnt/hgfs

mount's output with /mnt/hgfs there is:

/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro,commit=0)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
.host:/ on /mnt/hgfs type vmhgfs (rw,ttl=1)
vmware-vmblock on /run/vmblock-fuse type fuse.vmware-vmblock (rw,nosuid,nodev,default_permissions,allow_other)
gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/mjw/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=mjw)

and /etc/fstab is just:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=933eead6-3a6e-418d-9dff-7dc529d949c7 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=86c6003d-157e-495f-bb93-8243a4e372c9 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0

The only other thing going on from time to time is the Ubuntu update manager. If /mnt/hgfs becomes empty again after an update, I'll wonder if it's stepping on something..

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angryfifer
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I found that the reason for these errors...


FATAL: Module vmhgfs not found.
FATAL: Module vmsync not found.
FATAL: Module vmblock not found.

...is that the kernel modules were not being built, because they are not included in the open-vm-tools package. Installing the open-vm-dkms package fixed this on my system.

NB, I had to log out and back in again for things like "autofit guest window" to start working, but that's standard procedure when installing any kind of VM tools.

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CanuckWare
Contributor
Contributor

So.. my last comment of:

"The only other thing going on from time to time is the Ubuntu update  manager. If /mnt/hgfs becomes empty again after an update, I'll wonder  if it's stepping on something.."

..seems to have been correct. I've declined all updates since that comment in order to use this system for some time and get a sense of reliability.  Plus I'm trying to actually get something done...

Today I agreed to let the Ubuntu Update Manager inhale a load of stuff and update my machine.

Poof!  /mnt/hgfs/<myshare> gone.

sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config-tools.pl

..and it's back.

An update is stomping on something..

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furick1
Contributor
Contributor

open-vmware-tools throws a bunch of errors that logcheck finds

Mar  1 17:02:05 wdclvbeth01 vmsvc[1272]: [ warning] [guestinfo] Failed to get nic info.
Mar  1 17:02:05 wdclvbeth01 vmsvc[1272]: [ warning] [guestinfo] Failed to get vmstats.

Is there any progress on getting vmware-tools fixed on unbuntu 11.10 64bit running on vsphere ESX?

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ayman255
Contributor
Contributor

Hi all

I am trying to install Ubuntu 11 & 12 with Vmware WOrkstation 7  & I cant seem to get the shared folders working !! anyone here has found a solution.

- I am sure its not a firewal problem on the host as another windows VM ias able to access the same shared folders

- I have done this  apt-get install open-vm-dkms

- Installed VMTools from the iso provided & then reverted to a backuo & tried open-vm-tools & still same problem

-  sudo /etc/init. d/open-vm-tools restart   no luck

any tips ...

ty

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pieterjanheyse
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Beste,

ik ben in vakantie tot 15 augustus 2012. Voor dringende zaken kan u contact opnemen met het schoolsecretariaat op het nummer 093692072.

Met vriendelijke groeten,

Pieterjan Heyse

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CanuckWare
Contributor
Contributor

Just FYI, there are almost 100 screen shots of installing VMware, Ubuntu, Eclipse as well as the Android SDK at http://members.storm.ca/~mjw/ubuntu/ which could get some folks over a hump.

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