Vmware Workstation 10.0.1 will not compile with kernel 3.13.2-200.fc

[Dan Mossor]

On 02/17/2014 10:32 PM, Jonathan Calloway wrote:
> Dan,
>
> You may want to dump that into a shell script, as all kernel updates moving forward will “break” VMWare workstation again.
>
> <JC>
>
>
> On Feb 17, 2014, at 8:41 PM, Dan Mossor <dan.mossor at outlook.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 02/14/2014 07:56 PM, Jonathan Calloway wrote:
>>> Lawrence,
>>>
>>> You know, now that I think about it, I used to run VMWare Player in Fedora.  I always had trouble getting it to compile.  I found a thread somewhere that provided a way of modifying a config file so that it thought the version of Fedora it was running on was an older version, or something along those lines.  I got it to work for a little while, but updating always seemed to break it.  It has to do with the the kernel updates, which tend to cause VMWare Player and Workstation not to be able to compile on launch.
>>>
>>> Honestly (and this is probably not the place to say this!) I would suggest not running VMWare Workstaiton inside Fedora.  Peronally, I’m running Fedora VM’s in ESXi.  It’s free, but a separate piece of hardware will require an investment.
>>>
>>> Hope this helps!
>>>
>>> <JC>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Feb 14, 2014, at 8:38 PM, Lawrence E Graves <lgraves95 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 2014-02-14T18:30:08.415-07:00| vthread-3| I120: Invoking modinfo on "vmnet".
>>>> 2014-02-14T18:30:08.420-07:00| vthread-3| I120: "/sbin/modinfo" exited with status 256.
>>>> 2014-02-14T18:30:08.573-07:00| vthread-3| I120: Setting destination path for vmnet to "/lib/modules/3.13.2-200.fc20.x86_64/misc/vmnet.ko".
>>>> 2014-02-14T18:30:08.573-07:00| vthread-3| I120: Extracting the vmnet source from "/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar".
>>>> 2014-02-14T18:30:08.603-07:00| vthread-3| I120: Successfully extracted the vmnet source.
>>>> 2014-02-14T18:30:08.603-07:00| vthread-3| I120: Building module with command "/usr/bin/make -j2 -C /tmp/modconfig-hjL5Vs/vmnet-only auto-build HEADER_DIR=/lib/modules/3.13.2-200.fc20.x86_64/build/include CC=/usr/lib64/ccache/gcc IS_GCC_3=no"
>>>> 2014-02-14T18:30:14.215-07:00| vthread-3| W110: Failed to build vmnet.  Failed to execute the build command.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> All things are workable but don't all things work.
>>>> Prov. 3:5 & 6
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> test mailing list
>>>> test at lists.fedoraproject.org
>>>> To unsubscribe:
>>>> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
>>>
>>
>> I snipped the original message to only include the pertinent bits ;)
>>
>> I ran into this issue this evening, and it took me a while to get it sorted out. It turns out the problem isn't with Kernel 3.13 per se, but with the netfilter hooks compiled into it. My first forays out into the world wild web this afternoon to solve it were less than productive. but I finally found the complete, full answer over on the Arch Wiki,
>>
>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/VMware
>>
>> That page goes into much more detail than what we need, so here's the cut and paste of the important part:
>>
>> sudo su -
>> curl http://pastie.org/pastes/8672356/download -o /tmp/vmware-netfilter.patch
>> cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
>> tar -xvf vmnet.tar
>> patch -p0 -i /tmp/vmware-netfilter.patch
>> tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
>> rm -r vmnet-only
>> vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
>>
>> That little snippit above will solve the VMware module compilation errors on F20 with a 3.13 kernel.
>>
>> --
>> Dan Mossor
>> Systems Engineer at Large
>> Fedora QA Team Volunteer FAS: dmossor IRC: danofsatx
>> San Antonio, Texas, USA
>> --
>> test mailing list
>> test at lists.fedoraproject.org
>> To unsubscribe:
>> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/test
>
>

This shouldn't break with future kernel updates - like I said, the 
problem wasn't with the kernel itself, it was with the fact the 
netfilter was compiled into the kernel. The change I noted above updates 
the vmnet compiler to take that into account.

At least VMware works with netfilter - I was just reading on the 
xenproject website, and they say that netfilter has to be disabled for xen.

However, everything would be much simpler if virt-manager wouldn't wig 
out on us when trying to create a bridge with it...

-- 
Dan Mossor
Systems Engineer at Large
Fedora QA Team Volunteer FAS: dmossor IRC: danofsatx
San Antonio, Texas, USA