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I installed a fresh Ubuntu Server 16.04 on our VMWare cluster to try it out and begin building a template for it. After install, the IP address is displayed and it seems to work if I SSH into it, but I can't see anything on the console. I tell it to do a guest OS reboot and that works, I see stuff on the screen during the boot process, but then when I expect to be shown the typical text login screen, it goes blank. Trying to interact with it doesn't make anything show up. I checked that open-vm-tools was installed and it is. I did choose the EFI instead of BIOS for the VM which isn't typical for us at this point.

The vmgfx is shown loaded according to lsmod's output.

lshw & lspci show the following information on the display adapter:

00:0f.0 VGA compatible controller: VMware SVGA II Adapter


   *-display
         description: VGA compatible controller
         product: SVGA II Adapter
         vendor: VMware
         physical id: f
         bus info: pci@0000:00:0f.0
         version: 00
         width: 32 bits
         clock: 33MHz
         capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
         configuration: driver=vmwgfx latency=64
         resources: irq:16 ioport:1140(size=16) memory:f4000000-f7ffffff memory:f8000000-f87fffff memory:80000000-80007fff

I also uncommented the /etc/defaults/grub line "GRUB_TERMINAL=console".

Any suggestions on getting the VMWare console login screen to come up?

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  • I'm having this problem now. Did you ever find a solution?
    – BenK
    Sep 19, 2017 at 16:21

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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ubuntu 16.04 uses systemd instead of upstart. to configure systemd for serial console, you only need to update grub2 to use the serial console, and systemd will also be configured for serial console.

all you need to do is, modify the lines in the /etc/default/grub file

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200n8"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
GRUB_TERMINAL=serial
GRUB_SERIAL_COMMAND="serial --speed=115200 --unit=0 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1"

then execute update-grub

make sure you use ttyS0 ... it's case-sensitive ... otherwise you'll only see the grub boot menu, and you won't get an actual console

see also: http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/serial-console.html

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  • I'm not talking about the serial console. I'm talking about the VMWare console.
    – flickerfly
    Apr 28, 2016 at 18:54
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I didn't have this exact problem but generally issues with the serial console and 16.04. I found this helped, and perhaps it would help your case as well. Remembering that 16.04 introduces systemd, either

systemctl start getty@ttyS0.service

should help or:

ln -s /usr/lib/systemd/system/getty@.service  /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/getty@ttyS0.service

Followed by a reboot. (The latter worked for me.)

Found this at https://www.it-hure.de/2012/04/enable-serial-console-with-systemd/

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  • Unfortunately, this did not work for me. Thanks for sharing though. It looked promising. :-)
    – flickerfly
    Apr 27, 2016 at 22:34
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    Aw shoot! Frustrating, for sure.
    – BEG
    Apr 27, 2016 at 22:35
  • Well, I have SSH so it isn't the end of the world, but it isn't going into production any time soon. :-)
    – flickerfly
    Apr 27, 2016 at 22:37
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Had the same problem, fixed it by setting the grub screen resolution and then restarting.

sudo vi /etc/default/grub
GRUB_GFXMODE=800x600
sudo update-grub
sudo shutdown -r now

You can also do this once at boot if you can see the grub boot menu by pressing 'e' and changing the setting like so:

gfxmode "800x600"

then press control+X to boot.

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