Cannot install Linux operating system on a virtual machine

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• You are unable to install the Linux operating system on a virtual machine
• The virtual machine fails while installing Linux operating system
• In the vmware.log file, you see entries similar to:
  
  RemoteFloppyVMX: Remote cmd uid 0 timed out.
  | vcpu-3| Caught signal 11 -- tid 115057
  | vcpu-3| SIGNAL: eip 0x1f5c2eca esp 0xcaf10da0 ebp 0xcaf10e00
  | vcpu-3| SIGNAL: eax 0x0 ebx 0x201826a0 ecx 0x593faa10 edx 0x201d63b0 esi 0x0 edi 0x593faa00
  | vcpu-3| r8 0x593faa00 r9 0x0 r10 0x1fd79f87 r11 0x293 r12 0x2022d000 r13 0x0 r14 0x0 r15 0x1fd6eba0
  | vcpu-3| Backtrace:
  | vcpu-3| Backtrace[0] 00000000caf109a0 rip=000000001f8caf9e rbx=000000001f8cad70 rbp=00000000caf109c0 r12=0000000000000000 r13=00000000caf198c8 r14=00000000caf10b50 r15=0000000000000080
  | vcpu-3| Backtrace[1] 00000000caf109d0 rip=000000001f4ef72f rbx=000000000000000b rbp=00000000caf10ac0 r12=0000000000000006 r13=00000000caf198c8 r14=00000000caf10b50 r15=0000000000000080
  | vcpu-3| Backtrace[2] 00000000caf10ad0 rip=000000000038c00f rbx=00000000201826a0 rbp=00000000caf10d10 r12=00000000caf10b50 r13=0000000000000000 r14=0000000000000000 r15=000000001fd6eba0
  | vcpu-3| SymBacktrace[0] 00000000caf109a0 rip=000000001f8caf9e in function (null) in object /bin/vmx loaded at 000000001f33e000
  | vcpu-3| SymBacktrace[1] 00000000caf109d0 rip=000000001f4ef72f in function (null) in object /bin/vmx loaded at 000000001f33e000
  | vcpu-3| SymBacktrace[2] 00000000caf10ad0 rip=000000000038c00f
  | vcpu-3| Unexpected signal: 11.
  | vcpu-3| Writing monitor corefile "/vmfs/volumes/519f119b-e52d3cf3-6825-001999db3236/EMS/vmmcores.gz"
  
  
  
• A floppy drive is attached to the virtual machine

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.0
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Resolution

This is a known issue in ESXi 5.x and occurs only when a floppy image is attached to a virtual machine.

To work around this issue, remove the floppy device from the virtual machine before installing the Linux operating system.

Additional Information

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