# strange problem with vmware-workstation

## pent0z

hi to all

i have a problem with vmware-workstation

first of all, my configuration

Mainboard Asus P5WD2-E Premium (Intel 975x)

CPU Pentium D 940 (Dual Core EM64T 2x 2mb Cache)

2x 200 Gb SATA-2 Drives

2 Gb of Ram DDR2/533

My system is a x86_64 profile, running on a device-mapper RAID0 (fast!!!)

My / and /home partitions are  encrypted via dm-crypt and formatted in Reiser4

I'm running reiser4-gentoo-sources-2.6.16-r2 (taken from one howto on gentoo-wiki)

The system is very stable, however i've had to install a Zalman CPU cooler (50 € of cooler) because with the standard intel's fan hangs a lot.

The problem is that if i try to install any OS in vmware-workstation, in the / or /home partitions (reiser4) my system hangs in random moments... so i've tryed to install a Windows X64 guest system on a directory located on a FAT32 filesystem (a 20gb filesystem used for exchange files between my Gentoo and my REAL Windows x64 environment)

Anyone knowns if VMware and Reiser4 are incompatible? i can't grab the NULL pointer from dmesg when hangs, but i can see that has some to do with the keywords: crypt, inode and something other that i can't remember now.

anyway, seems that on the fat32 fs vmware is working good, i'm planning to buy a new hard disk to use with vmware (maybe a full disk give me better performance with a guest os installed on it? or better to format this disk in reiserfs without encrypting it?)

Thanks in advance!

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## pent0z

update:

When installing Windows x64 as guest os, it gives me a nice BSOD about BAD_POOL_ADDRESS in the later stage of installation (after asking me the network parameters), i'll try Windows XP 32bit now...

this problem make me crazy... i need a Windows Guest OS on my linux because i had to develop on it (and of course i want Linux always running   :Razz:  )

I haven't problems in the past with a full 32bit environment, but now with this powerful machine i'd like to have only x86_64!

Another question (with minor interest) is: isn't supported the Intel 975x chipset by agpgart on x86_64? i remember that when configuring a kernel (32bit) i've see an option for latest intel chipsets on agpgart section

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## davidgurvich

Perhaps this version of vmware does not support x86_64 properly.

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## pent0z

maybe... but now i'm successfully running a windows xp 32bit guest os.

another problem now is that i share my homedir with samba and is terribly slow (eth0 bridge)

with x86 it was really fast  :Sad: 

same problem without samba (using \\.host\Shared Folders) terribly slow

i've also tryied vmware-server but i can't connect (tryed as user into group vmware, or root)

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## davidgurvich

I believe there is an addon for vmware, where drivers for the guest os are installed to speed things up.  I believe it is called vmware-linux-tools on gentoo.  Last time I used vmware was on a suse-9.3 box about 2 years ago.

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## pent0z

seems to be a samba-related problem because

i've mounted with

mount -t smbfs -o username=blah,password=blah //localhost/share tempdir

and then a 

cp tempdir/file.zip / takes a very long time (is a 700mb zip testfile)

so i think that is a samba x86_64 problem, now i'm trying to compile it with no CFLAGS

copying from inside my guest os in vmware <- a file in a remote share on another my server (1gbit LAN) is very fast! so is absolutely

the samba server on my host that is b0rked!!!

ideas?

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## Corona688

 *pent0z wrote:*   

> copying from inside my guest os in vmware <- a file in a remote share on another my server (1gbit LAN) is very fast! so is absolutely
> 
> the samba server on my host that is b0rked!!!

  Not necessarily, especially since you say it's fast with 32-bit hosts...  Try downloading something with another computer from your "slow" share.  The bottleneck may be the bridge/whatever that convinces your computer that both your host and your kernel are inhabiting eth0...  with a little delay things go as expected, but when things happen instantaneously it can wait around stupidly.  iow, a vmware driver bug.

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## pent0z

hum, you're right... it was a problem in the bridging mode! (maybe a bug? or incompatibility with my eth* driver [sky2.ko]?)

now i'm using nat mode and i can access my shares on the host at good speed... however that was not my ideal setup, since i have to do a lot of -j DNAT with iptables to make my vmware-guest-os visible from the internet  :Smile: 

external server -> DNAT -> linux host with vmware installed -> DNAT -> internal subnet ip of vmware host

in bridge mode i simply dnat to the vmware bridget ip address...

tricky, but works!

what is the difference between host-only and nat in vmware-workstation???

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