FS#59062 - [open-vm-tools] 6:10.2.5-1 copy-and-paste only works if vmtoolsd started by the user, not systemd

Attached to Project: Community Packages
Opened by Manuel Kießling (ManuelKiessling) - Tuesday, 19 June 2018, 09:42 GMT
Last edited by Toolybird (Toolybird) - Friday, 05 May 2023, 03:03 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages
Status Closed
Assigned To Christian Hesse (eworm)
Architecture x86_64
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description:

My setup is Arch Linux running as a guest in VMware Fusion 10.1.2 (8502123) with Linux 4.17.2-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Jun 16 11:08:59 UTC 2018 x86_64 GNU/Linux. I'm running X (with i3) by booting into graphical.target, then running startx manually using my normal user account.

Although vmware-vmblock-fuse and vmtoolsd are running at this point, VM Host-Guest copy-and-paste doesn't work.

The fix for me is to not have vmtoolsd started by systemd, which would result in the following:

root 352 0.2 0.1 120764 10748 ? Ss 11:02 0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd
root 353 0.0 0.0 158568 992 ? Ssl 11:02 0:00 /usr/bin/vmware-vmblock-fuse -d -f -o subtype=vmware-vmblock,default_permissions,allow_other /run/vmblock-fuse

(vmtoolsd is running as root, with no additional parameters).

Instead I disable the service launch via `sudo systemctl disable vmtoolsd.service`, and run `vmware-user` from my .xinitrc, which results in the following:

root 353 0.0 0.0 158568 992 ? Ssl 11:02 0:00 /usr/bin/vmware-vmblock-fuse -d -f -o subtype=vmware-vmblock,default_permissions,allow_other /run/vmblock-fuse
manuelk+ 887 2.2 0.4 417960 34684 pts/0 Sl 11:03 0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3

(vmtoolsd is now running under my user account, and has additional parameters)

With this, copy-and-paste works.


Not sure if this is really a bug - it could be my setup. If you don't consider this a bug, I would instead add a note to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VMware/Installing_Arch_as_a_guest#Installation which might help others with the same problem.


Additional info:
* open-vm-tools-6:10.2.5-1
* gtkmm3-3.22.2+2+g3002ed86-1
This task depends upon

Closed by  Toolybird (Toolybird)
Friday, 05 May 2023, 03:03 GMT
Reason for closing:  No response
Comment by Manuel Kießling (ManuelKiessling) - Tuesday, 19 June 2018, 11:54 GMT
Sorry, I got it wrong - it's sufficient to have gtkmm3 installed and running `vmware-user` as the user within X, in addition to having systemd launch vmtoolsd.service at startup, resulting in:

root 358 0.0 0.0 158568 1056 ? Ssl 13:45 0:00 /usr/bin/vmware-vmblock-fuse -d -f -o subtype=vmware-vmblock,default_permissions,allow_other /run/vmblock-fuse
root 1052 0.0 0.1 194496 10952 ? Ssl 13:47 0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd
manuelk+ 1161 0.3 0.4 417964 34484 pts/0 Sl 13:48 0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3


In fact, both are required; without the systemd-launched root-owned parameter-less vmtoolsd process, dynamic VMware Fusion window resizing doesn't work (the Arch Linux guest X server won't recognize the resolution change), and without the user-launched, user-owned parametrized vmtoolsd process, copy-and-paste doesn't work.
Comment by Norbert Pfeiler (npfeiler) - Friday, 31 August 2018, 00:05 GMT
/usr/share/applications/vmware-user.desktop is not installed
/etc/xdg/autostart/vmware-user.desktop is a dead link

can be found in open-vm-tools-stable-10.3.0/open-vm-tools/vmware-user-suid-wrapper

https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/285
Comment by Toolybird (Toolybird) - Wednesday, 05 April 2023, 07:07 GMT
Is this still happening with latest pkgs? I do not see mention of the issue on [1].

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VMware/Install_Arch_Linux_as_a_guest

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