Mostly Harmless

VMWare workstation allows user to run multiple operating systems on one machine. I decided to try the eval version on my newly installed SUSE 10.1 box. The installation however was not as smooth as I would have liked. Installation fails while compiling vmmon module for my kernel version (2.6.16.13-4-bigsmp, SuSE 10.1). Fortunately, there is a workaround as mentioned in this forum, but it took me considerable time to figure out what to do in order to make vmmon compile. Hence, I am posting what exactly needs to be done.

I downloaded the tarball for evaluation version of VMWare workstation from their website and tried to install it using the provided installation script.

tar zxvf VMware-workstation-5.5.1-19175.tar.gz
cd /vmware-distrib/
./vmware-install.pl

I answered all the questions with their default answers. The script after installation executed vmware-config.pl, which exited with the following error while compiling vmmon.

Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.16.13-4-bigsmp/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.16.13-4-obj/i386/bigsmp'
make -C ../../../linux-2.6.16.13-4 O=../linux-2.6.16.13-4-obj/i386/bigsmp modules
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:20,
                 from /tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:37:5: warning: "VMW_HAVE_EPOLL" is not defined
/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:43:5: warning: "VMW_HAVE_EPOLL" is not defined
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:20,
                 from /tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/./include/compat_wait.h:60: error: conflicting types for ‘poll_initwait’
/usr/src/linux-2.6.16.13-4/include/linux/poll.h:45: error: previous declaration of ‘poll_initwait’ was here
/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:145: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:149: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
make[4]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only] Error 2
make[2]: *** [modules] Error 2
make[1]: *** [modules] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.16.13-4-obj/i386/bigsmp'
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config3/vmmon-only'
Unable to build the vmmon module.

For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please
visit our Web site at "http://www.vmware.com/download/modules/modules.html" and
"http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/linux/prebuilt_modules_linux.html".

The workaround is to modify the Makefile.kernel, by adding -DKBUILD_BASENAME=\"$(DRIVER)\" just after -Iinclude2/asm/mach-default (on the same line). Do the following step by step.

cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
tar xf vmmon.tar
tar xf vmnet.tar
vim vmmon-only/Makefile.kernel #EDIT as mentioned above
vim vmnet-only/Makefile.kernel #EDIT as mentioned above
mv vmmon.tar vmmon.tar.save
mv vmnet.tar vmnet.tar.save
tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only

After modification, first few lines of vmnet-only/Makefile.kernel looks like

and that of vmmon-only/Makefile.kernel looks like

After modifying both the Makefile.kernel files, execute /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl again. The compilation should go fine this time.

# posted by nileshbansal @ 6:08 pm - -   -bookmark at -del.icio.us   -