Arch Linux

lianzi2000

Member

Registered: 2018-02-20

Posts: 7

vmware:shared folder cannot auto-mount during boot

I have just downloaded and installed Arch as a guest in VMWare workstation 17 Pro (17.6.2 build-24409262), hosted by Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (OS build 26100.4652). Installed the latest open-vm-tools as well, here is my client info:

[root@TechBox ~]# uname -r
6.15.9-arch1-1

[root@TechBox ~]# pacman -Q open-vm-tools
open-vm-tools 6:13.0.0-1

[root@TechBox ~]# systemctl is-active vmtoolsd.service
active

[root@TechBox ~]# systemctl is-active vmware-vmblock-fuse.service
active

and I have the follow service configured:

# /etc/systemd/system/VMShare-VMShare.service
#-----------------------------------------------------------------
[Unit]
Description=Load VMWare shared folders
Requires=vmware-vmblock-fuse.services
After=vmware-vmblock-fuse.services
ConditionPathExists=.host:/VMShare
ConditionVirtualization=vmware

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/bin/fmhgfs-fuse -o allow_other -o auto_unmount .host:/VMShare /VMShare

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

At the prompt, I can manually run the mount command /usr/bin/fmhgfs-fuse -o allow_other -o auto_unmount .host:/VMShare /VMShare and get the shared folder work as expected. Or I can even manually start the service by

systemctl start VMShare-VMShare.service

But as I enable the service (systemctl enable VMShare-VMShare) and try to get it auto mounted, it does not work. The relevant entries from the journal are:

[root@TechBox ~]# journalctl -b
......
Aug 03 12:52:38 TechBox systemd[1]: /etc/systemd/system/VMShare-VMShare.service:3: Failed to add dependency on vmware-vmblock-fuse.services, ignoring: Invalid argument
Aug 03 12:52:38 TechBox systemd[1]: /etc/systemd/system/VMShare-VMShare.service:4: Failed to add dependency on vmware-vmblock-fuse.services, ignoring: Invalid argument
Aug 03 12:52:38 TechBox systemd[1]: /etc/systemd/system/VMShare-VMShare.service:5: ConditionPathExists= path is not absolute, ignoring: .host:/VMShare
......

So I do not understand what is wrong with the path .host:/VMShare, especially it works when invoked manually.

I also tried to add a rule in the /etc/fstab file:

.host:/VMShare /VMShare fuse.vmhgfs-fuse allow_other,auto_unmount,defaults 0 0

But that caused a different error:

Aug 03 14:34:28 TechBox mount[524]: mount: /VMShare: fsconfig() failed: fuse: Unknown parameter 'auto_unmount'
Aug 03 14:34:28 TechBox mount[524]:        dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call
Aug 03 14:34:28 TechBox systemd[1]: VMShare.mount: Mount process exited, code=exited, status=32/n/n
Aug 03 14:34:28 TechBox systemd[1]: VMShare.mount: Failed with result 'exit-code'
Aug 03 14:34:28 TechBox systemd[1]: Failed to mount /VMShare
Aug 03 14:34:28 TechBox systemd[1]: Dependency failed for Local File System
Aug 03 14:34:28 TechBox systemd[1]: local-fs.target: Job local-fs.target/start failed with result 'dependency'

I'm out of idea. Please help and thanks in advance.

Last edited by lianzi2000 (2025-08-03 20:10:17)