Describe the bug

In Kali Linux, on a fresh and updated install of 2023.4 (amd64), with either Gnome or XFCE, copy and paste doesn't work from host to guest. To ensure this is not a Kali-only issue, I tested Ubuntu 23.10 (amd64), and the issue is worse: copy and paste doesn't work at all, whether host to guest, or guest to host.

Reproduction steps

After installing open-vm-tools-desktop, rebooting, login in a graphical session, then ensuring open-vm-tools is running:

Select text in the virtual machine
Right click and select Copy
Open a text editor on the host
Right click, and select paste (or use Ctrl-V)

Expected behavior

Copy and paste fully working, both directions (guest to host, and host to guest), with both Kali and Linux.

Additional context

Kali (Gnome)

systemctl status vmtoolsd.service

● open-vm-tools.service - Service for virtual machines hosted on VMware
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service; enabled; preset>
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service.d
             └─desktop.conf
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2023-12-16 13:51:12 EST; 4min 23s ago
       Docs: http://open-vm-tools.sourceforge.net/about.php
    Process: 456 ExecStartPre=/sbin/modprobe vmwgfx (code=exited, status=0/SUCC>
   Main PID: 472 (vmtoolsd)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 9386)
     Memory: 11.3M
        CPU: 356ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/open-vm-tools.service
             └─472 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd

Dec 16 13:51:12 kali systemd[1]: Starting open-vm-tools.service - Service for v>
Dec 16 13:51:12 kali systemd[1]: Started open-vm-tools.service - Service for vi>

systemctl status open-vm-tools.service

● open-vm-tools.service - Service for virtual machines hosted on VMware
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service; enabled; preset>
    Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service.d
             └─desktop.conf
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2023-12-16 13:51:12 EST; 4min 40s ago
       Docs: http://open-vm-tools.sourceforge.net/about.php
    Process: 456 ExecStartPre=/sbin/modprobe vmwgfx (code=exited, status=0/SUCC>
   Main PID: 472 (vmtoolsd)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 9386)
     Memory: 11.3M
        CPU: 365ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/open-vm-tools.service
             └─472 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd

Dec 16 13:51:12 kali systemd[1]: Starting open-vm-tools.service - Service for v>
Dec 16 13:51:12 kali systemd[1]: Started open-vm-tools.service - Service for vi>

Other info

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ ps aux | grep vmtoolsd
root         472  0.0  0.1 241676 12788 ?        Ssl  13:51   0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd
kali        1764  0.1  0.5 217812 42812 ?        Sl   13:51   0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3
kali        2598  0.0  0.0   6872  1920 pts/0    S+   13:56   0:00 grep --color=auto vmtoolsd

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ uname -a
Linux kali 6.5.0-kali3-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.5.6-1kali1 (2023-10-09) x86_64 GNU/Linux

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ dpkg -l open-vm-tools
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=============================================================
ii  open-vm-tools  2:12.3.5-4   amd64        Open VMware Tools for virtual machines hosted on VMware (CLI)

Ubuntu 23.10

systemctl status vmtoolsd.service

● open-vm-tools.service - Service for virtual machines hosted on VMware
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service; enabled; preset>
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2023-12-16 13:51:29 EST; 10min ago
       Docs: http://open-vm-tools.sourceforge.net/about.php
   Main PID: 3141 (vmtoolsd)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 9401)
     Memory: 1.7M
        CPU: 387ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/open-vm-tools.service
             └─3141 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd

Dec 16 13:51:29 user-None systemd[1]: Started open-vm-tools.service - Service f>

systemctl status open-vm-tools.service

● open-vm-tools.service - Service for virtual machines hosted on VMware
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service; enabled; preset>
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2023-12-16 13:51:29 EST; 10min ago
       Docs: http://open-vm-tools.sourceforge.net/about.php
   Main PID: 3141 (vmtoolsd)
      Tasks: 4 (limit: 9401)
     Memory: 1.7M
        CPU: 390ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/open-vm-tools.service
             └─3141 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd

Dec 16 13:51:29 user-None systemd[1]: Started open-vm-tools.service - Service f>

Other info

user@user-None:~$ ps -aux | grep vmtoolsd
root        3141  0.0  0.1 253228  9216 ?        Ssl  13:51   0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd
user        3567  0.0  0.0  17784  2304 pts/0    S+   14:02   0:00 grep --color=auto vmtoolsd

user@user-None:~$ uname -a
Linux user-None 6.5.0-14-generic #14-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Nov 14 14:59:49 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

user@user-None:~$ dpkg -l open-vm-tools
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version             Architecture Description
+++-==============-===================-============-===========================>
ii  open-vm-tools  2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64        Open VMware Tools for virtu>
user@user-None:~$

Host

VMware version

VMware Workstation Pro 17.5.0 build-22583795

Uname

Linux desktop 6.5.0-14-generic #14-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Nov 14 14:59:49 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

cat /proc/version_signature

Ubuntu 6.5.0-14.14-generic 6.5.3

lscpu

Architecture:            x86_64
  CPU op-mode(s):        32-bit, 64-bit
  Address sizes:         48 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
  Byte Order:            Little Endian
CPU(s):                  12
  On-line CPU(s) list:   0-11
Vendor ID:               AuthenticAMD
  Model name:            AMD Ryzen 5 5600H with Radeon Graphics
    CPU family:          25
    Model:               80
    Thread(s) per core:  2
    Core(s) per socket:  6
    Socket(s):           1
    Stepping:            0
    CPU(s) scaling MHz:  37%
    CPU max MHz:         4280.0000
    CPU min MHz:         400.0000
    BogoMIPS:            6587.55
    Flags:               fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mc
                         a cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall n
                         x mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_go
                         od nopl nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf rapl p
                         ni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe
                          popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy sv
                         m extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetc
                         h osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_
                         nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb cat_l3 cdp_l3 hw_pstate
                          ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 sm
                         ep bmi2 erms invpcid cqm rdt_a rdseed adx smap clflusho
                         pt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc c
                         qm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local clzero irperf 
                         xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd cppc arat npt lbrv svm_lock n
                         rip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists
                          pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif v_sp
                         ec_ctrl umip pku ospke vaes vpclmulqdq rdpid overflow_r
                         ecov succor smca fsrm
Virtualization features: 
  Virtualization:        AMD-V
Caches (sum of all):     
  L1d:                   192 KiB (6 instances)
  L1i:                   192 KiB (6 instances)
  L2:                    3 MiB (6 instances)
  L3:                    16 MiB (1 instance)
NUMA:                    
  NUMA node(s):          1
  NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0-11
Vulnerabilities:         
  Gather data sampling:  Not affected
  Itlb multihit:         Not affected
  L1tf:                  Not affected
  Mds:                   Not affected
  Meltdown:              Not affected
  Mmio stale data:       Not affected
  Retbleed:              Not affected
  Spec rstack overflow:  Mitigation; safe RET, no microcode
  Spec store bypass:     Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Spectre v1:            Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
                          sanitization
  Spectre v2:            Mitigation; Retpolines, IBPB conditional, IBRS_FW, STIB
                         P always-on, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected
  Srbds:                 Not affected
  Tsx async abort:       Not affected
```

Dec 16 '23 19:12 tomdot-dev

Hello @tomdot-dev,

I am using VMWare Workstation Pro 17.5 on Windows 11 22H2 too with Ubuntu 22.04 and 23.10 as operating system in my VM. There, the copy-paste functionality did also not work after the VMWare update to 17.5 until I added the following parameters to the vmx file:

keyboard.allowBothIRQs = "FALSE" keyboard.vusb.enable = "TRUE"

I am afraid that the newest VMWare version is very buggy. I am having multiple issues after the last update.

Dec 16 '23 20:12 DanielEgenolf

The 2 line changes in the VMX do not help in my case. I tested on both Kali (Gnome) and Ubuntu 23.10

I agree it is buggy. It crashed twice today. First when I copied some information from the About box before I made this bug report, and just now when I logged in on my Ubuntu VM.

Dec 16 '23 21:12 tomdot-dev

@tomdot-dev It appears that you have installed Workstation Pro 17.5 for Linux onto a Ubuntu 23.10 system - the uname for the host matches the uname for the Ubuntu 23.10 guest VM.

I do not have quite the same setup but I was able to run some tests on WS for Windows 17.5 Pro on a Win 10 system. I installed Kali 2023.4 with the default Xfce desktop and was able to successfully copy and paste files from My Windows desktop to my Kali VM desktop or Downloads directory - small text file, small .png and 9 MB .ma4 file.

I was also able to copy/paste text from a Windows app to a Kali app (vim). File drag-n-drop is also working as expected.

At the moment, the only obvious difference is WS from Linux on Ubuntu 23.10 and I am not in a position to explore that at the moment.

As to your report that copy/paste in either direction on a Ubuntu 23.10 guest VM dos not work. From the reported

user@user-None:~$ ps -aux | grep vmtoolsd root 3141 0.0 0.1 253228 9216 ? Ssl 13:51 0:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd user 3567 0.0 0.0 17784 2304 pts/0 S+ 14:02 0:00 grep --color=auto vmtoolsd

the desktop user service does not appear to be running. You do not show a /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3.

That suggests either:

open-vm-tools-desktop package has not been installed
did not log out of the desktop and relogin after the open-vm-tools-desktop was installed.
vmusr process failed to start or crashed - check /var/logs/vmware-vmusr-<user>.log

Dec 30 '23 00:12 johnwvmw

You are correct, my host is Ubuntu 23.10.

open-vm-tools-desktop is installed as stated in my initial bug report.
I did reboot, as stated in my initial bug report.
There is no such file on Ubuntu 23.10 guest, but it is present on Kali guest.

So, that makes me think this could be a Wayland-related issue as it seems Ubuntu 23.10 uses Wayland. It works in one direction when Kali is the VM, but does not work at all with Ubuntu 23.10 as guest.

You mention that the desktop service does not appear running because /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3 isn't present. How should I proceed to debug why this isn't running (I'm assuming it might have tried to start but failed/crashed).

Dec 30 '23 13:12 tomdot-dev

Sorry, typo on my part: /var/log/*

If the "vmtoolsd -n vmusr" process started, you should have two log files related to the vmusr service attached to the desktop.

    /var/log/vmware-vmtoolsd-<desktop-user>.log
    /var/log/vmware-vmusr-<desktop-user>.log

Once logged in on the desktop, you should see 2 vmtoolsd processes running.

$ ps -aef | grep vmtoolsd
root         690       1  0 15:54 ?        00:00:03 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd
jwolfe      4000    3601  0 15:56 ?        00:00:03 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3 --uinputFd 4
jwolfe      4833    4657  0 16:15 pts/0    00:00:00 grep --color=auto vmtoolsd

The "--uinputFd 4" is an indication that Wayland is in use. This the default for the Gnome desktop on Ubuntu.

If "Ubuntu on Xorg" had been chosen when logging into the desktop, the vmusr service would have shown: jwolfe 6185 5629 1 16:23 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmtoolsd -n vmusr --blockFd 3

To check whether your Gnome session is using Wayland or X11/Xorg you can display the type of your desktop display with:

$ loginctl
SESSION  UID USER   SEAT  TTY 
     12 1000 jwolfe seat0 tty2

1 sessions listed.

$ loginctl show-session 12 -p Type
Type=wayland

Please confirm that the open-vm-tools-desktop package is completely installed:

$apt list --installed | grep open-vm-tools

open-vm-tools-containerinfo/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed]
open-vm-tools-desktop/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed]
open-vm-tools-sdmp/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed]
open-vm-tools/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed,automatic]

Confirm that the vmware-vmusr-suid-wrapper is owned by root and the suid sticky bit set.

$ ls -l /usr/bin/vmware-user*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    24 Oct 27 07:24 /usr/bin/vmware-user -> vmware-user-suid-wrapper
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 14656 Oct 27 07:24 /usr/bin/vmware-user-suid-wrapper

Dec 31 '23 22:12 johnwvmw

I figured it was /var/log.

Thanks for the loginctl, I didn't know about it. It confirms what I was thinking, Ubuntu is running on Wayland.

On Ubuntu, the open-vm-tools-desktop was missing, hence why it wasn't copy-pasting at all. Now it behaves like Kali. It only works from the guest to host. Note: I did reboot after installing them and before testing.

Ubuntu

user@user-None:~$ apt list --installed | grep open-vm-tools

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

open-vm-tools-containerinfo/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed]
open-vm-tools-desktop/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed]
open-vm-tools-sdmp/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed]
open-vm-tools/mantic-updates,mantic-security,now 2:12.3.0-1ubuntu0.1 amd64 [installed]

And

user@user-None:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/vmware-user*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    24 Oct 27 06:24 /usr/bin/vmware-user -> vmware-user-suid-wrapper
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 14656 Oct 27 06:24 /usr/bin/vmware-user-suid-wrapper

Kali

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ apt list --installed | grep open-vm-tools

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

open-vm-tools-desktop/now 2:12.3.5-3 amd64 [installed,local]
open-vm-tools/now 2:12.3.5-3 amd64 [installed,local]

There is no package for the two others you have (and they are not needed for copy/paste AFAIK):

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ sudo apt install open-vm-tools-containerinfo open-vm-tools-sdmp
[sudo] password for kali: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Package open-vm-tools-sdmp is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
  open-vm-tools

Package open-vm-tools-containerinfo is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'open-vm-tools-containerinfo' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'open-vm-tools-sdmp' has no installation candidate

And

┌──(kali㉿kali)-[~]
└─$ ls -l /usr/bin/vmware-user*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    24 Nov 27 10:29 /usr/bin/vmware-user -> vmware-user-suid-wrapper
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 14848 Nov 27 10:29 /usr/bin/vmware-user-suid-wrapper

Jan 01 '24 19:01 tomdot-dev

The ovt-sdmp and ovt-containerinfo are optional packages. Don't get distracted by their absence on Kali. As you state, they have nothing to do with copy/paste.

You can switch from Wayland to X11 when entering your password at the desktop login. Click on the "setup" icon in the lower rigt corner of the screen and click on "Ubuntu on Xorg".

As I mentioned, i did not have any issues with copy/paste on the Xfce desktop.

Jan 01 '24 20:01 johnwvmw

But were you using Ubuntu 23.10 as host?

Jan 01 '24 20:01 tomdot-dev

No, I do not personally have the resources at hand to try WS for Linux on a Ubuntu 23.10 system.

An internal problem report has been filed with the Workstation team to triage problems with copy/paste using WS for Linux on a Ubuntu 23.10 host and a Ubuntu 23.10 guest.

Jan 01 '24 20:01 johnwvmw

Hello, thank you guys for the discussion ongoing. Please, I would like to know whether an Ubuntu 22.04.3 guest can also benefit from this update.

Jan 04 '24 04:01 CodeSpaniard

i have the exact same issue where copy paste only works from guest to host and not host to guest. My setup:

Fedora 39 host
Kali 2023.4 guest
vmware workstation player 17.5
fwiw i had to patch the kernel modules using https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules to get around a separate issue

Jan 11 '24 03:01 bogardon

I have the exact same issue of copy & pasting only working from guest to host too, but for whatever reason i can copy from host to guest, when i copy text from OnlyOffice Documents and then paste it in the VM. This behaviour happens on both of my VM's: Windows 10 and kali-linux-2023.4.

My Setup:

EndeavourOS 2023.08.05 (host)
VMware® Workstation 17 Player 17.5.1 build-23298084
OnlyOffice 8.0.0.99 (flatpak)

Mar 01 '24 09:03 TelekomHacker

Copy+paste to ubuntu VMs has been broken for almost 2 years. Sometimes it works for a few days but then the VM stops accepting and copy+paste operations.