special device /dev/cdrom doesn't exist

midway · Last edited by midway on Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hello All,
I am trying to install vmwaretools on my gentoo (as revdep-ebuild complains about it broken).

I am doing the following:-

midway · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 11:44 am Post subject:

sorry forgot to enter the output of /etc/fstab:

aCOSwt · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 12:16 pm Post subject:

midway · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:21 pm Post subject:

here is the dev dir list:

eccerr0r · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:37 pm Post subject:

This is inside a VM?
Can't help here since I do not use vmware, but the answer to this might be able to help others understand the issue.
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midway · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:47 pm Post subject:

yes this gentoo box is a vmware vm.

Veldrin · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 1:50 pm Post subject:

did you attach the cd-drive or the iso image to the coorect vm? without it, the vm guest will not see any cd-drive.

V.
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midway · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 2:17 pm Post subject:

Here is what I am doing:

1. From within the vmware Select the Gentoo VM > Select VM > Install/Uprade Vmware Tools.
2. A window appears saying - Installing the VMware Tools package > Clicked OK.
3. Then trying to mount /dev/cdrom to /mnt/cdrom but it complains that /dev/cdrom doesn't exist.

In VMware > Select the Gentoo Vm > Edit Settings > CD /DVD Drive 1 > Then I have tried both:
1. Passthrough IDE and
2. Emulate IDE

But none works. Somehow the /dev/cdrom is still not there. I am wondering whether it is known by a different name o what?
I am following this guide: http://gentoovm.blogspot.co.uk/2006/03/install-vmware-tools-in-gentoo-vm.html

Nitish

luqas · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2012 7:17 pm Post subject:

VMWare tools are located in portage so you don't have to mount the tools package to install them. After you install them via portage try to mount your CD prior to starting up your image and see if /dev/cdrom or something shows up.

midway · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:33 am Post subject:

thank you luqas. however, I am afraid it still can not see dev/cdrom:

midway · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:36 am Post subject:

this is my dev and fstab output:

eccerr0r · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 2:05 pm Post subject:

After you emerge vmware-tools you don't need to use the cdrom anymore, at least that's the hope...

The underlying issue appears that the kernel you compiled does not really understand your fake disk devices. Not knowing how vmware emulates these devices I can't really make any suggestions other than looking at your virtual lspci and making a guess as to what driver you need. What baffles me is how the root disk gets mounted, is root mount as /dev/root or something else?

cat /proc/mounts will shed some light on that for me but this is more of curiosity sake than anything...
_________________
Intel Core i7 2700K/Radeon R7 250/24GB DDR3/256GB SSD
What am I supposed watching?

midway · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 2:07 pm Post subject:

midway · Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:50 am Post subject:

anyone worked with gentoo on vmware?

Section_8 · l33t Joined: 22 May 2004 Posts: 627

I don't know anything about running gentoo as a vmware guest, but if it's a kernel config issue, you can try pasting the output of "lspci -n" here:
http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/index.rhtmlx and see if that helps.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:16 pm Post subject:

nitish.anand,

Its been a while, I gave up on vmware for a mix of KVM and Virtual Box.

There are two things. You must add a CDROM device to your VM. It can be passthrough or an ISO image. Both work.
The VM kernel, needs to support the emulated hardware that the CDROM is attached to.

VMware supports several sorts of emulated hardware, what you have depends on how you set up the VM in the first place.
However, lspci run inside the VM will show all.

Its perfectly possible in VM ware to have workng HDD emulation and non working CDROM emulation. Your CDROM will appear as /dev/sr0 when all is well. udev will make lots of symlinks to it, one of which is /dev/cdrom.
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NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

midway · Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 11:50 am Post subject:

Hi NeddySeagoon and Section_8,

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 6:40 pm Post subject:

nitish.anand,

lspci is provided by pciutils - you either need to emerge that or boot your VM with a liveCD.
Being lazy, I prefer lspci to lspci -n, that saves me looking up the vendor and device IDs but its no hardship to you to post both.

/dev/sg0 is the SCSI Generic device associated with your first block device, that will be /dev/sda.
You get a /dev/sgX for each block device on your system. When you have /dev/sr0, it will have a /dev/sg device too.

I suspect you are using the Fusion SCSI driver for your emulated HDD and have the chipset driver for the IDE/SATA missing from your kernel.
I need the lspci because I forget which driver you need.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

dagobert2002 · n00b Joined: 21 Jul 2012 Posts: 1

look at "cat /proc/diskstats"

and try "mount /dev/hdc /mnt/cdrom"

midway · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:58 am Post subject:

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 8:07 pm Post subject:

nitish.anand,

Look at your VM setup.
Where is the ISO file or emulated CDROM attached ?

You havw two choices

krinn · Watchman Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 7470

midway · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 9:40 am Post subject:

1. From within the vmware Select the Gentoo VM > Select VM > Install/Uprade Vmware Tools.
2. A window appears saying - Installing the VMware Tools package > Clicked OK.
3. Then trying to mount /dev/hda to /mnt/cdrom but it complains that /dev/hda doesn't exist.

In VMware > Select the Gentoo Vm > Edit Settings > CD /DVD Drive 1 > Then I have tried both:
1. Passthrough IDE and
2. Emulate IDE

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 5:42 pm Post subject:

nitish.anand,

Please check your kernel. Whatever, however you expect your CD to appear, it won't while you kernel does not support it.
If you use the old IDE driver(s) in your kernel, udev will not make any /dev nodes for them. root will still mount, since the kernel has to make its own arrangements for finding root but it won't have a /dev entry and neither will any other IDE block device, like your CDROM.

Migrate to the SCSI stack for everything.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.