I'd like to be able to use vmrun, but so far, but it continues to result in more work than waiting for the full GUI to launch.
I first noticed this with workstation 9, but I see that the problem persists in 10. I'm currently running Workstation 10.0.1 build-1379776 on Ubuntu 12.10
With just about every other call to "vmrun -T ws-shared ...", the vmware-hostd daemon crashes with a SIGSEGV.
In /var/log/vmware/hostd.log, I found:
2013-11-08T11:30:12.549-05:00 [7F53966C8700 verbose 'Proxy Req 00000'] New proxy client <SSL(<io_obj p:0x0000000004327d60, h:50, <TCP '127.0.1.1:9443'>, <TCP '127.0.0.1:43419'>>)>
2013-11-08T11:30:12.551-05:00 [7F5394EDD700 verbose 'Proxy Req 00000'] Connected to localhost : 8307
2013-11-08T11:30:12.591-05:00 [7F5394E5B700 verbose 'Locale' opID=hostd-22e3] Default resource used for 'AboutInfo.ws.localeBuild' expected in module 'default'.
2013-11-08T11:30:12.652-05:00 [7F5394E9C700 info 'Default' opID=hostd-fdaa] PAM symbols loaded.
I identified the error by attaching to the running vmware-hostd with gdb prior to issueing the vmrun command. The stack trace is included below and it seems to indicate a problem with the arguments being passed to pam_authenticate().
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0x7f5394e9c700 (LWP 6179)]
0x00007f5396b6fb49 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
(gdb) bt
#0 0x00007f5396b6fb49 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#1 0x00007f5396b71f95 in malloc () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#2 0x00007f5396b5e20b in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#3 0x00007f538605be02 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/security/pam_cap.so
#4 0x00007f538605c0bd in pam_sm_authenticate () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/security/pam_cap.so
#5 0x00007f538d3a3c94 in ?? () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpam.so.0
#6 0x00007f538d3a34af in pam_authenticate () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpam.so.0
#7 0x00007f539e0f5e36 in Vmacore::System::AuthenticateUserPosix(char const*, char const*, char const*, Vmacore::Ref<Vmacore::System::AuthTokenHelper>&) ()
from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#8 0x00007f539e0f612f in Vmacore::System::AuthenticateUser(std::string const&, std::string const&, Vmacore::Ref<Vmacore::System::AuthTokenHelper>&) ()
from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#9 0x00007f539dffc866 in Vmacore::Authorize::UserDirectoryPosix::Authenticate(std::string&, std::string const&, Vmacore::Ref<Vmacore::System::AuthTokenHelper>&) ()
from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#10 0x0000000000e5d5fa in ?? ()
#11 0x00007f5398815a12 in ?? () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmodlTypes.so/libvmodlTypes.so
#12 0x0000000000ca06c3 in ?? ()
#13 0x0000000000ca1259 in ?? ()
#14 0x0000000000ca7320 in ?? ()
#15 0x0000000000ce4668 in ?? ()
#16 0x00007f539e051ccf in Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsio::DoWork(Vmacore::Functor<void, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil> const&, bool) () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#17 0x00007f539e052856 in Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsio::DoOrEnqueueWork(Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsio::WorkTypeInfo&, Vmacore::Functor<void, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil> const&, int) () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#18 0x00007f539e0536b2 in Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsio::HandleWork(Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsio::WorkType, Vmacore::Functor<void, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil, Vmacore::Nil> const&) () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#19 0x00007f539e05ec0d in Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsioWorkBinder::InvokeWork_0(Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsio::WorkType, boost::function<void ()> const&) ()
from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#20 0x00007f539e05d7a6 in boost::asio::detail::completion_handler<boost::function<void ()> >::do_complete(boost::asio::detail::task_io_service*, boost::asio::detail::task_io_service_operation*, boost::system::error_code, unsigned long) () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#21 0x00007f539e063724 in boost::asio::detail::task_io_service::run_one(boost::system::error_code&) () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#22 0x00007f539e059103 in Vmacore::System::ThreadPoolAsio::RunWorkerThread() () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#23 0x00007f539dee8a38 in boost::function0<void>::operator()() const () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#24 0x00007f539e10c0d6 in Vmacore::System::ThreadPosixPrivate::ThreadBegin(void*) () from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmacore.so/libvmacore.so
#25 0x00007f5396eb6e9a in start_thread () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0
#26 0x00007f5396be33fd in clone () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6
#27 0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()