How to Disable IPv6 for Vmware ESX
Details
In many Linux distributions if IPv6 is enabled, VMware Tools cannot be configured with vmware-config-tools.pl after installation. In this case, VMware Tools is unable to set the network device correctly for the virtual machine, and displays a message similar to the following:
Unloading pcnet32 module
unregister_netdevice: waiting for eth0 to become free
This message repeats continuously until you reboot the virtual machine. To prevent this problem in virtual machines running Linux, disable IPv6 before installing VMware Tools.
Note: VMware ESX 4.0 and later versions support IPv6. You do not need to disable IPv6 before installing VMware Tools.
Solution
Most Linux Systems:
To disable IPv6 in a virtual machine running Linux
- If the /etc/sysconfig/network file contains the line NETWORKING_IPV6=yes, change the line to the following:
NETWORKING_IPV6=no
- In the file /etc/modules.conf, add the following lines:
alias ipv6 off
alias net-pf-10 off
Ubuntu Systems:
To disable IPv6 in a virtual machine running Ubuntu
- Log on as root or superuser.
- If the /etc/modprobe/aliases file change the following line :
alias net-pf-10 ipv6
to
alias net-pf-10 off
-
Save the file and reboot the system.
After you disable IPv6, you should be able to install and configure VMware Tools successfully.