VMWare networks don't work - service does not start

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1

Hello everyone,

I am having trouble setting up VMWare with network. I installed VMWare from the aur package vmware-workstation. I used VMWare player to create a Manjaro VM. It boots but has no network. Investigation showed that

  • kernel modules were loaded properly (all three vmmon, vmnet and vmw_vmci)
  • I had no VMWare network adapters

I ran sudo vmware-networks --start which created two network adapters as following.

Enabled hostonly virtual adapter on vmnet1
Failed to start DHCP service on vmnet1
Failed to start NAT service on vmnet8
Enabled hostonly virtual adapter on vmnet8
Failed to start DHCP service on vmnet8
Failed to start some/all services

ip a

7: vmnet1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:50:56:c0:00:01 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.169.1/24 brd 192.168.169.255 scope global vmnet1
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::250:56ff:fec0:1/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
8: vmnet8: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:50:56:c0:00:08 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.173.1/24 brd 192.168.173.255 scope global vmnet8
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::250:56ff:fec0:8/64 scope link tentative 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

Excerpt from journalctl:

░░ Subject: Unit failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support
░░ 
░░ The unit vmware-networks.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Dez 31 22:13:14 fuchsbau systemd[1]: Failed to start VMware Networks.
░░ Subject: A start job for unit vmware-networks.service has failed
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support
░░ 
░░ A start job for unit vmware-networks.service has finished with a failure.
░░ 
░░ The job identifier is 113 and the job result is failed.
Dez 31 22:16:40 fuchsbau systemd[1]: Starting VMware Networks...
░░ Subject: A start job for unit vmware-networks.service has begun execution
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support
░░ 
░░ A start job for unit vmware-networks.service has begun execution.
░░ 
░░ The job identifier is 3156.
Dez 31 22:16:40 fuchsbau vmnetBridge[5051]: Bridge process created.
Dez 31 22:16:40 fuchsbau vmnetBridge[5051]: RTM_NEWLINK: name:enp34s0 index:2 flags:0x00011043
Dez 31 22:16:40 fuchsbau vmnetBridge[5051]: Adding interface enp34s0 index:2
Dez 31 22:16:40 fuchsbau vmnetBridge[5051]: Started bridge enp34s0 to virtual network 0.
Dez 31 22:16:40 fuchsbau vmnetBridge[5051]: RTM_NEWROUTE: index:2
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmware-networks[5033]: Failed to start DHCP service on vmnet1
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmware-networks[5033]: Failed to start NAT service on vmnet8
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmware-networks[5033]: Failed to start DHCP service on vmnet8
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmware-networks[5033]: Failed to start some/all services
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmware-networks[5033]: Started Bridge networking on vmnet0
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmware-networks[5033]: Enabled hostonly virtual adapter on vmnet1
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmware-networks[5033]: Enabled hostonly virtual adapter on vmnet8
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau systemd[1]: vmware-networks.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
░░ Subject: Unit process exited
░░ Defined-By: systemd
░░ Support: https://forum.manjaro.org/c/support
░░ 
░░ An ExecStart= process belonging to unit vmware-networks.service has exited.
░░ 
░░ The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 1.
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmnetBridge[5051]: Stopped bridge enp34s0 to virtual network 0.
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau vmnetBridge[5051]: Bridge process exiting.
Dez 31 22:16:41 fuchsbau systemd[1]: vmware-networks.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.

My kernel is 5.14.21-2-MANJARO and kernel headers are installed accordingly.

What’s missing?

Thanks and cheers.

2

Trying to remember what I did when I set up vmware, think it was vmware tools I needed to install

3

Hey, thanks for your reply. open vm tools were already installed. I cannot install the tools the VMWare player provides because they rely on init.d scripts.

4

I fixed it myself. I used vmware-netcfg to set the subnet of my NAT adapter to one that is similar to the net I am actually in with my host. So apparently, when the subnet is weird (I do not know why it was, it was the default), when vmware-networks starts, activating DHCP and NAT fails, causing vmware-networks to stop, causing the interfaces to disappear. When using systemd, that is - when running vmware-networks --start manually, the interfaces do not disappear (but do not work either).

If you try this workaround, make sure not to set the net for the NAT to the same net that your host is physically in as that might cause your host do lose internet because the virtual adapter will take the ip of your gateway (router).

5

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