Chapter 9: Nshield Edge Windows Compatibility Issues And Considerations; Nshield Edge Very Slow In Vmware Virtual Machine - Entrust nShield Edge Installation Manual

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Table of Contents

Chapter 9: nShield Edge Windows

compatibility issues and

considerations

nShield Edge very slow in VMware virtual machine

In Windows installations nShield Edge can be very slow when used with a virtual machine under

VMware (Workstation or Player) leading to the COM port timing out and errors in the Event log.

The problem does not happen in all installations and is not consistent on specific hardware platforms.

The work-around for the problem involves using the USB Serial driver on the Host rather than on the

Guest, and mapping a serial port on the Guest to it (details below)

To apply the work-around to use the USB to serial driver on the Host rather than on the Guest, do the

following:

1. With the Guest running, use the VMware Workstation/Player menu to disconnect the

nShield Edge from the Guest and reconnect it to the Host. Now shut down the Guest.

2. Verify that the USB Serial Port now shows under Ports (COM & LPT) in Device Manager on

the Host. On recent versions of Windows, the driver will be installed automatically or can

be found via Window Update. If you are unable to find the drivers you may need to install

the Security World Software on the Host. If you do so, make sure to stop and disable the

nFast Server and nFast Edge services on the Host, so they do not prevent the Guest from

using of the unit. Make a note of the COM port number of the port.

3. Edit the settings of the Virtual machine in Workstation/Player. Disable the setting to

automatically connect to new USB devices to make sure the Guest will not connect to the

nShield Edge directly again. Add a serial port to the VM, specifying to use a physical serial

port, on the host, and selecting the USB serial port from the previous step. Save the

settings.

4. Start the Guest. Open the config file in a text editor - it is a plain text file named config (no

extension), located in %NFAST_KMDATA%\config. In the section [server_startup] add a

line: serial_dtpp_devices=COM2 specifying the COM port number of the new serial port

in the VM. Make sure this is the only line with serial_dtpp_devices in the section. Save the

file, and restart the nFast Server service to make the new configuration active.

You can now use the nShield Edge in the Guest without excessive time out errors.

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