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Table Of Contents
VMware, Inc. 183
Chapter 8 Configuring Virtual Machine Hardware
4Verifythatthelinereferringtothelpmoduleinthe/etc/modules.confor
/etc/conf.modulesfileisremovedorcommentedoutbyinsertingahash
character(#)atthebeginningoftheline.Thenameoftheconfigurationfile
dependsontheLinuxdistributionyouareusing.
Whenyourebootthe
hostafterremovingthisline,theconfigurationfilenolonger
startsthelpmodule.
5Toensurethatthepropermodulesfortheparallelportareloadedatboottime,add
thislinetothe/etc/modules.confor/etc/conf.modulesfile:
alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
Linuxkernelsinthe2.6.xseriesalsouseaspecialarbitratorthatallowsaccesstothe
parallelporthardware.Iftheparallelportisinusebythehost,theguestcannotuseit.
Ifavirtualmachineisusingtheparallelport,thehostandanyusersaccessingthehost
arenotgivenaccesstothedevice.VMwareServerputsalockonthedevice,andthis
lockrestrictsaccesssothatonlythevirtualmachinecanusetheport.
Device Permissions
SomeLinuxdistributionsdonotgrantthevirtualmachineaccesstothelpand
parportdevicesbydefault.Inmostofthesecases,theownerofthedeviceisrootand
theassociatedgroupislp.ToallowtheVMwareusertoaccessthedevice,addtheuser
tothe
associatedgroup.Toviewtheownerandgroupofthedevice,runthiscommand:
ls –la /dev/parport0
Thethirdandfourthcolumnsoftheoutputshowtheownerandgroup,respectively.
Toaddtheusertothedevicegroup,editthe/etc/groupfile.Onthelinebeginning
withlp,whichdefinesthelpgroup,addtheVMwareServerusersusername.You
mustmakethischangeasthe
rootuser.Thefollowinglineprovidesanexamplefora
userwhoseusernameisuserj.
lp::7:daemon,lp,userj
Thenexttimetheuserlogsontothehost,thechangestakeeffect.