ovt-wayland

open-vm-tools 13.1.0 rebuilt so that copy and paste and drag and drop work in a VMware guest under Wayland, in both directions, for text, RTF, PNG images, files and file contents. It comes as RPMs for Fedora 43, 44 and 45, .debs for Debian and Ubuntu, an Arch Linux package, and bootc images based on Bazzite and Fedora COSMIC Atomic. It tracks open-vm-tools #792 and #510.

G is the guest and H is the host. docs/testing.md says how each row was tested.

You need this in a Wayland session. In an X11 session stock open-vm-tools handles GNOME and KDE, and this build adds file copy and file drags on other desktops such as Xfce, input checks and staging cleanup. The guest needs:

• open-vm-tools 13.1.0 built with GTK4. The patches target that release.
• Xwayland. vmusr loads upstream's desktopEvents plugin, which needs an X display to start at all, and drag and drop runs through Xwayland.
• run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount active, for lazy file paste and host to guest file drags.
• vmtoolsd -n vmusr started through vmware-user-suid-wrapper, which hands it the vmblock and uinput descriptors. Drag and drop under Wayland needs uinput.
• For copy and paste outside GNOME, a compositor with ext-data-control-v1. How it works shows what each compositor gets.

Packages are assets of the GitHub releases. There is no dnf repository. Building lists every target.

sudo bootc switch ghcr.io/goproslowyo/bazzite-ovt:latest
# or
sudo bootc switch ghcr.io/goproslowyo/fedora-cosmic-ovt:latest
systemctl reboot

sudo bootc upgrade and a reboot pick up new builds. To roll back, run sudo bootc rollback, or bootc switch back to the base image, ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite:stable or quay.io/fedora-ostree-desktops/cosmic-atomic:45. Remove a local rpm-ostree override replace of open-vm-tools first with sudo rpm-ostree override reset open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop. With local rpm-ostree install changes, bootc upgrade refuses to run until rpm-ostree reset. Customise an image in its Containerfile under images/. The Fedora COSMIC image also enables vmtoolsd.service and run-vmblock\x2dfuse.mount.

Download open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop for your Fedora release. Other subpackages such as open-vm-tools-sdmp require the same version and are not in the release, so remove them first or build them from this repository.

rel=$(rpm -E %fedora)
base=https://github.com/goproslowyo/ovt-wayland/releases/latest/download
curl -LO "$base/open-vm-tools-13.1.0-100.fc$rel.clipway.x86_64.rpm"
curl -LO "$base/open-vm-tools-desktop-13.1.0-100.fc$rel.clipway.x86_64.rpm"
curl -LO "$base/SHA256SUMS"
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS

On an atomic desktop such as Silverblue, Kinoite or Bazzite, replace the base image's packages and reboot. sudo rpm-ostree override reset open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop undoes it.

sudo rpm-ostree override replace \
    ./open-vm-tools-13.1.0-100.fc$rel.clipway.x86_64.rpm \
    ./open-vm-tools-desktop-13.1.0-100.fc$rel.clipway.x86_64.rpm
systemctl reboot

On Fedora Workstation and other dnf systems, install over the stock packages, restart the service, and log out and back in. A newer Fedora open-vm-tools replaces this build on a normal update. sudo dnf distro-sync open-vm-tools open-vm-tools-desktop goes back to Fedora's build.

sudo dnf install \
    ./open-vm-tools-13.1.0-100.fc$rel.clipway.x86_64.rpm \
    ./open-vm-tools-desktop-13.1.0-100.fc$rel.clipway.x86_64.rpm
sudo systemctl restart vmtoolsd

Download the open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop .debs for your release and run sudo apt install ./open-vm-tools_*.deb ./open-vm-tools-desktop_*.deb. builders/debian-deb/README.md has the full steps.

Download open-vm-tools-wayland-*-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst and install it. It replaces open-vm-tools, so answer yes when pacman asks to remove it.

sudo pacman -U ./open-vm-tools-wayland-*-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
sudo systemctl enable --now vmtoolsd.service vmware-vmblock-fuse.service

Log out and back in so vmtoolsd -n vmusr starts with the new plugin. The vmblock service mounts /run/vmblock-fuse, which file paste and host to guest file drags need. pacman does not upgrade the package from the Arch repositories, so install each new release the same way. sudo pacman -S open-vm-tools goes back.

• If you let go of a drag within about 100 ms of entering the VM, the host cancels it before the guest learns the pointer position.
• On GNOME a host to guest drag starts about half a second after the pointer enters the VM. A sooner drop waits for it.
• On GNOME, after a guest to host drag, move the pointer over the guest once before dragging from the host. Until then the host holds the guest mouse button down and the drag fails.
• A host copy with only RTF, as AbiWord's, pastes only into applications that accept RTF.
• PCManFM (libfm 1.4.1) can crash when a drag leaves it before the data arrives. This is a libfm bug.
• If the VMware window scales the guest display, host to guest drags land beside the host pointer. Use a guest resolution that fits the window, such as View, Autosize, Autofit Guest.
• The host changes a file name it cannot use. Windows does not allow :, so the host writes it as ^%.
• An application that reads a dropped file more than two minutes after the drop, such as a browser upload form, finds it gone. Drop into a file manager first.
• Pasted files keep the permissions the host reports, so a read-only Windows file arrives read-only. That is upstream behaviour.
• A tiling compositor that tiles the detection window stretches it over the drop target. Sway floats it on its own. Elsewhere float it in the compositor's configuration, for example in sway syntax for_window [title="vmware-user"] floating enable.
• The host sends its clipboard a moment after the VM gets focus, so an instant paste can get the previous clip.
• COSMIC Files can paste a stale clipboard. Reopen the window.
• On niri, vmusr can start before X is ready and exit. Log in again.
• On niri, set gestures { dnd-edge-view-scroll { trigger-width 0; }; }. Its edge scrolling can stop guest to host drags.

Fifteen patches against open-vm-tools 13.1.0-25218885, applied in order and numbered by group. Each builds on its own and explains its reasoning in its commit message. The 01 group changes only upstream code, applies to X11 sessions as well and could go upstream on its own.

• How it works covers the clipboard, file transfer, drag and drop, and use of the patches in other builds.
• Testing says how each desktop was tested.
• Building covers local builds, CI, releases and adding an image.
• Verifying signatures explains the cosign policy in the images.
• Debugging shows how to turn on the log and what to look for.
• builders/debian-deb/README.md and packaging/arch/README.md explain how the .debs and the Arch package are built.

The clipboard backend is derived from clipway by Krisztián Fekete, which provided the original text-only version. LGPL-2.1, inherited from open-vm-tools.