January 18, 2009: Radu Cotescu integrated this patch to the latest version of his script, that now applies the patch automatically in Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE. The script is available here.
It has been a while since VMware updates VMware Server to add support for newer versions of the Linux kernel. This is a problem for users of newer distributions such as Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) and Fedora 12 (Constantine) who want to use VMware Server.
To resolve this, some unofficial patches that update VMware Server to add support for newer versions of the Linux kernel have been released. However, these patches do not properly add support and have several problems, some of them even require the Linux kernel to be recompiled.
I released a patch for VMware Server 2.0.2 that properly add support for newer versions of the Linux kernel and does not require it to be recompiled. This patch was tested on Ubuntu 9.10 and Fedora 12.
The patch has the following features:
- Add support for versions of the Linux Kernel that implement COW credentials.
- Add support for net_device_ops structure.
- Remove references to init_mm structure by removing APIC support for 2.6.25 and later (APIC code currently uses the macro pgd_offset_k).
- Remove references to dev->priv by using netdev_priv().
- Suppress GCC warnings.
- Fix other known issues.
The following are instructions on how to apply the patch:
Download the VMware Server:
$ wget -N http://downloads.vmware.com/d/info/datacenter_downloads/vmware_server/2_0
Download the VMware Server update patch:
$ wget -N http://risesecurity.org/~rcvalle/VMware-server-2.0.2-203138-update.patch
Extract VMware Server:
$ tar -xzf VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.i386.tar.gz
Extract VMware Server modules:
Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/ $ tar -xf vmci.tar $ tar -xf vmmon.tar $ tar -xf vmnet.tar $ tar -xf vsock.tar
Apply the patch:
Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/ patch -p1 < ../VMware-server-2.0.2-203138-update.patch
Archive VMware Server modules again:
Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/ $ rm -f vmci.tar $ rm -f vmmon.tar $ rm -f vmnet.tar $ rm -f vsock.tar $ tar -cf vmci.tar vmci-only/ $ tar -cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only/ $ tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only/ $ tar -cf vsock.tar vsock-only/
Run installer script as root:
Change working directory to vmware-server-distrib/ $ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
Note for Ubuntu users:
When asked for the current administrative user for VMware Server, specify your user as a different administrator.
Note about VMware Remote Console Plug-in:
The VMware Remote Console Plug-in does not work properly on Ubuntu 9.10, Fedora 12 and other newer distributions. A workaround for this is to set the environment variable VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK before running the VMware Remote Console Plug-in. To set this environment variable at login time, add the following line to your ~/.profile:
export VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK=yes
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This does not seem to work on an openSUSE 11.2 machine running linux 2.5.31
2.6.31 not 2.5.31
What about Radu Cotescu patches? They seem to work?
Thank you for this. My vmware 2.0.1 mysteriously refused to work yesterday and I tried to install 2.0.2. It is always a nightmare to get vmware to install and run, but with this patch it went through cleanly first time on my fedora 11 system. Excellent.
Hi, the patch you have provided is working with a little more vsock patching for ubuntu 9.10 server 64.
my uname -a
2.6.31-16-server #53-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 8 05:08:02 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
When installing it report that vsock can not be insmod correctly.
The patch fix can be found here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=975084&page=2
Make sure you remove the modules before re-running vmware-config.pl again.
sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/
Also make sure no modules are running, if they are, you need to rmmod moduleName. If the module is in use, you have to reboot.
lsmod|grep vm
Awesome job! Your work is greatly appreciated.
Thanks for this it seemed to work fine on my Fedora 12 host. At least for the installation and setup of vmware. However, I copied a xp vm guest from my fedora 11 setup.
The machine started OK in the new environment but I had 2 problems.
1) The mouse wasn’t working properly (unable to close application without lots of clicking)
upgrading vmtools had no effect on this
2) The VM also froze at 95% when shutting down
I have seen the shutting down problem before but can’t remember the solution.
Any help would be appreciated.
Boyd Lynn: What problems do you see when you try it with openSUSE 11.2? Radu integrated this patch to the latest version of his script, that now applies the patch automatically in Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE. The script is available here.
DTAdmin: Thanks for letting me know. I’ll take a look at it as soon as I have a chance.
gavin: For the mouse problem, try to set the environment variable VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_GTK before running the VMware Remote Console Plug-in, as written in the post. For the freeze problem, it has not happened to me yet.
does this patch also work with vmware server 1.0.10?
Thanks!
Cyber: Unfortunately not. I started working on a patch for VMware Server 1.0.10, but I have not had time to finish it.
Hi Ramon,
thanks for this information – it was a great help for me
I’ve done on SUSE 11.2 with 2.6.31.8-0.1-desktop i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux. It work fine.
Thanks and greeting
rudolf
For Information there are 4 warnings:
WARNING: “VMCIDatagram_CreateHnd” [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
WARNING: “VMCIDatagram_DestroyHnd” [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
WARNING: “VMCI_GetContextID” [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
WARNING: “VMCIDatagram_Send” [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
rudolf: This is due to the fact that the vsock module has dependencies on some vmci module symbols. More information is available here.
This saved my LIFE.
Every time I do a kernel update, VMware gets ugly. Following Ramon’s instructions here, plus patching vmware-config.pl for the vsock problem as suggested above by DTAdmin, BEFORE running the standard vmware-install.pl for VMWare server 2.0.2, worked perfectly on Ubuntu 9.10 running kernel 2.6.31-17-generic on my AMD64 workstation.
Thanks everybody!
*sigh* Update manager says its ready with kernel .19 update. No way! Not now that I have my VMWare working again!
I have it working on this configuration
Linux Opensuse 11.2 kernel 2.6.31.12-0.1
Vmware Server 2.0.2 build 203138
Thanks a lot!
you save my life…
i have been 2 days around the vmmon module problem..
finally im free lol
your solution works great on my ubuntu 9.10 kernel 2.6.31-19-server at 64bits, i using vmware server 2.0.2 build 203138
thanks a lot
keep the good work
thx a lot! This patch ends an odyssee of misleading information in the net!
I worked it out for opensuse 11.2 with the newest kernel 2.6.31-12.0 X64
14.2.2010
Thank you so much.
Was looking for a patch for this for days. Running Debian Squeeze 2.6.32-trunk kernel and tried more than 15 patches and this finally worked. Very much appreciated!
Google please index this page for other Debian users wandering the net!!
-dtwo
This does not work under Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit. I get the following:
Unable to make a vsock module that can be loaded in the running kernel:
insmod: error inserting ‘/tmp/vmware-config2/vsock.o’: -1 Unknown symbol in module
matley: How did you get it to build? vmmon builds just fine, but I always and only have problems building vsock. Furthermore, I am using the exact same kernel as you are.
Works on opensuse 11.2 2.6.31.12-0.1 32 bit. Great job!
It works (guest machines can get to the network fine) except I cannot ping (nor make any connection to) my vmnet8 addresses from the host computer.
Warren: This problem will be resolved in the next patch. Thanks.
Dear Sir,
Thanks to you, your patch works.
Thanks again and again
Patch works, only got the same problem Warren has, cannot ping (nor make any connection to) the guest.
It only works when I set up NAT and forward the necessary ports…
Any news on the next patch btw?
Gavin reported:
2) The VM also froze at 95% when shutting down
I am having the same problem. Has anyone found a solution?
I still am having this problem and haven’t found a solution. I am running fully patch Fedora 12 and latest version of vmware server with this great patch and startup script. The shutdown problem happens with all 4 of my VMs. One other problem that I have found is that I get inconsistent startup of VMware when I reboot. Sometimes the Virtual ethernet and Bridged network fail to start, it appears that these are trying to start before the network is ready. Haven’t been able to solve this one either.
Steven: I will release a new patch for the next version of VMware Server 2.
Jim and Gavin: This problem has not happened to me yet. However, I’m using Ubuntu 9.10. I’ll try to reproduce it on Fedora 12 and resolve it in the next patch.
Sadlyit will not start any of my clients. It comes up and acts like it may be working but I am unable to view any of my clients. It just errors off. I am unable to even create a new instance. This was all working in openSUSE 11.1. Now I am on 11.2 the patches apear to work but really don;t. I hear of some thianks to your patches are work while thier is a smal group of us that all have the same problme no clients show up and there fore do not get started.I even put the mount point on a new drive with 1.5 TB and could not get it to create new clients. I am at a loss as to how to make or geet this to see clients regardless of where they are. Even the default location.
I am willing to provide you root access to figure it out if you would be interested. I would need your gpg key to setup your account then you coulld on the machine use ssh to become root, use sodo, or what ever you may or want to investigate this problem. I know of 6 of us with this issue. Most do work with your current patches.
Sorry, if I may not be as with it as I normally would be, but I had some thing like a stroke and I am having a hard time recovering. All I realll can do is speak some what, write some what and confuse everything a bit.
Ramon Thanks for your great support with these patches. The startup issue has something to do with Fedora 12’s rapid start issues and the startup priority of vmware. On reboot of Fedora 12 I get vmware network startup failures, I think because it tries to start before the network is ready. On cold boot the vmware starts OK.
The shutdown issue has me beat, the xp VM for example hangs during the shutdown process with “WIndows is shutting down…” on the screen. If you try and power off the vm it hangs at 95%. If i use vnc to access the xp vm on shutdown the vnc sessions goes away but the vm has not finishing shutting down. The only way to clear this mess is to reboot of the host, then tidy up the lck files and do a vmconfig again(don’t ask me why this is needed but this is the only way I can set the server to work again). A pretty frustrating position.
All this is on kernel 2.6.31.12-174.2.22.fc12.i686.PAE
To complicate things even more the latest update to kernel 2.6.32.9-67.fc12.i686.PAE
results in a failure to build the module vmnet.
Vmplayer seems to work fine on this kernel.
If I could get a stable environment, I will resist ever touching it again.
Thanks for the patch and detailed install instructions.
All working until I updated F12 and now have 2.6.32.9-67.fc12.x86_64.
When running /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl again I must be need to do something to the vmmon, vmnet, vmci and vsock modules before it will work.
Should I copy them from your install procedure into a new location? What it it? which ones. I don’t really want to reinstall everytime there’s an update.
Boyd Lynn: Sorry, but probably I will not have time to help you by accessing your server. Are you trying to use a NFS share as a datastore?
Gavin: Thank you for all the information. Once I have time, I will release a new patch that corrects the network problems and build problems in newer kernels.
kev: Thank you for all the information. However, this patch was not made for this version of the kernel. I will release a new patch for newer kernels soon.
No NFS all disks on the system.
Ramon/Jim Just a quick update on the shutdown hang at 95% problem. I have found that if I remove USB support from the VM the VMs shutdown without a problem. I noticed the last entry in the vm log was Poweroff MKS when the shutdown hung. Could this be some sort of conflict between the drivers for the keyboard and mouse and the fact I am using a USB keyboard and mouse?? Anyway a workaround for now but I cannot use USB.