Enabling Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) in VMware Workstation 6.0 & Ubuntu 7.04 (i386)

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The Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) that is provided in the VMware Workstation 6.0 work currently only with the Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 distro. But it requires the i386 version, not the x86-64. To check if you’re kernel has VMI paravirtual kernel support enabled, you can check the kernel compile config.
Code:

# grep VMI /boot/config-2.6.20-15-server

CONFIG_VMI=y

There isn’t much showing inside the virtual machine when it’s running with the paravirtual kernel support. The only quick way I’ve found so far, is to check the APIC timer interrupt. In the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) enabled machine you have to check the following

Code:

# grep VMI /proc/interrupts

0   74    IO-APIC-Edge            VMI-alarm

The normal APIC timer function has been replaced by a VMI-alarm function.

It goes without saying that you need to activate the VMI paravirtual kernel support in the config of the virtual machine in the Options/Advanced section.

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