Hello all,
I thought I'd ask you guys about this one since I've had no luck from vmware forums/kb or google ...
I have a centos 4.3 x86-64 (athlon64 with cool-n quiet enabled) with vmware server 1.0 installed and working beautifully with the annoying exception of my guest machines clocks (centos, ubuntu etc) run very fast. I've read the vmware white paper on guest clocks, tried all their suggestions and had no joy. I've tried passing the clock=x parameters to the guests kernel etc to no avail. There is one last hope according to the white paper....install vmware tools and then set clock=pmtr and then use ntp from within the guest to sync the time periodically. Do any of you know a way to get vmware tools installed when you do not run a graphical interface (ie runlevel of the box is 3) ? I cant seem to get it going. Should I download the tools and copy them into the vm ?
Any help much appreciated as I'm not cutting over to use production VMs until I can fix this.
Cheers,
Bards.
On Sat, 2006-07-15 at 13:19 +1000, Centos-admin wrote:
Hello all,
I thought I'd ask you guys about this one since I've had no luck from vmware forums/kb or google ...
I have a centos 4.3 x86-64 (athlon64 with cool-n quiet enabled) with vmware server 1.0 installed and working beautifully with the annoying exception of my guest machines clocks (centos, ubuntu etc) run very fast. I've read the vmware white paper on guest clocks, tried all their suggestions and had no joy. I've tried passing the clock=x parameters to the guests kernel etc to no avail. There is one last hope according to the white paper....install vmware tools and then set clock=pmtr and then use ntp from within the guest to sync the time periodically.
This was discussed recently on this list and it looks like maybe you didn't search CentOS lists? I don't use it, but IIRC, the "pmtr" was one of the possible solutions. Search CentOS and maybe you'll get lucky and see your config mentioned?
Do any of you know a way to get vmware tools installed when you do not run a graphical interface (ie runlevel of the box is 3) ? I cant seem to get it going. Should I download the tools and copy them into the vm ?
This wasn't discussed, IIRC. And I'm ignorant about that GUI gooey stuff.
Any help much appreciated as I'm not cutting over to use production VMs until I can fix this.
Always a safe posture. AAMOF, I quit cutting *anything* over to production many years ago. ;-) Now my nerves are much better, thanks!
<snip sig overage>
Bards.
<snip sig stuff>
William L. Maltby wrote:
On Sat, 2006-07-15 at 13:19 +1000, Centos-admin wrote:
I have a centos 4.3 x86-64 (athlon64 with cool-n quiet enabled) with vmware server 1.0 installed and working beautifully with the annoying exception of my guest machines clocks (centos, ubuntu etc) run very fast. I've read the vmware white paper on guest clocks, tried all their suggestions and had no joy. I've tried passing the clock=x parameters to the guests kernel etc to no avail. There is one last hope according to the white paper....install vmware tools and then set clock=pmtr and then use ntp from within the guest to sync the time periodically.
This was discussed recently on this list and it looks like maybe you didn't search CentOS lists? I don't use it, but IIRC, the "pmtr" was one of the possible solutions. Search CentOS and maybe you'll get lucky and see your config mentioned?
I think William is referring to this:
http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2006-February/060651.html
I successfully use "clock=pit" on i686 environment on a lot of CentOS4.3 and RH9 inside CentOS4.3 installs. However, it still requires the vmware-tools to have been installed and the "Sync to Host Clock" option has been clicked.
Do any of you know a way to get vmware tools installed when you do not run a graphical interface (ie runlevel of the box is 3) ? I cant seem to get it going. Should I download the tools and copy them into the vm ?
This wasn't discussed, IIRC. And I'm ignorant about that GUI gooey stuff.
Here's a possibility:
- Copy the vmware tools ISO image out of the VM Host onto the the Guest. It is found in "/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/linux.iso"
- mount the ISO loopback and copy the RPM/tarball into /tmp/ - unmount
- install the VMware-Tools RPM/tarball
- run vmware-config-tools.pl (no gui needed).
- *don't forget* - edit your Guest VM /etc/grub.conf to add the "clock=pit" (I keep forgetting on new VMs I create...)
- shutdown your guest.
- Now on your HOST, edit your guest's .vmx file and change the line from:
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"
to "TRUE". In mine, it's the last line in the .vmx file. I sure wish this could be done from the VMware Server Console...
- Fire up the guest and run for cover!
I have not tried this, I just poked around trying to figure out what that check-box was causing to change. Worst case, you need to tunnel X through an SSH login from a remote system with an X display and check the checkbox in vmware-toolbox from there...
Do *NOT* run NTP in the VMware Guest. The basic clock in the VM isn't precise enough and you'll never get synchronization. NTP is to add accuracy to a reasonably precise but not necessarily accurate clock source. However, it cannot fix an "insane" time-source. You definitely want to run NTP on your VMware Host, though.
Best of luck, Ken Key
Ken Key wrote:
Copy the vmware tools ISO image out of the VM Host onto the the Guest. It is found in "/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/linux.iso"
mount the ISO loopback and copy the RPM/tarball into /tmp/ - unmount
Actually, you don't need to copy the ISO image to the guest. Just change definition of guest's CD-ROM drive to point to the ISO image. You'll need to change both path and type. That's basically very similar to what happens when you click on "install vmware tools" in the vmware-console (it simulates that you inserted the CD into the guest's CD-ROM drive). Not sure for the vmware server, but with ESX you can do this either in the web management interface, or while the client is running using vmware-console.
I'd also recommend to download latest version of the vmware tools from their web site. The latest versions of vmware tools have precompiled kernel modules for CentOS 4.x (with older versions, you had to compile them on the guest).
On Sat, 2006-07-15 at 13:19 +1000, Centos-admin wrote:
Hello all, Do any of you know a way to get vmware tools installed when you do not run a graphical interface (ie runlevel of the box is 3) ? I cant seem to get it going. Should I download the tools and copy them into the vm ?
No, when your virtual machine is running, take the vmware console and choose in the menu VM/Install VMWare tools . It will swap your cd with a iso images containing the vmware-tools rpms. If you're running in init3 (which is normal for a server) just mount your cd from within a bash session and install the corresponding rpm. If you're running a known kernel from vmware, you'll just have to install the rpm and configure with vmware-tools-config.pl (if i remember well ...)
Any help much appreciated as I'm not cutting over to use production VMs until I can fix this.
Cheers,
Bards.
CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On 7/14/06, Centos-admin redhat-at-mckerrs.net wrote:
I've tried passing the clock=x parameters to the guests kernel etc to no avail.
Try passing this to your HOST kernel instead of the guest. I had the same issue with an AMD SMP box I recently built:
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/pipermail/plug/2006-March/046834.html
I also had to tie each VM to a specific CPU core in order to prevent VMware coredumps due to the same TSC problem.
-- Steve
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Aleksandar Milivojevic -
Centos-admin -
Fabian Arrotin -
Ken Key -
Steve Bonds -
William L. Maltby