Ubuntu Tips (beta)

When going through the install process for WS 5.5.3 on feisty, one runs into the problem of not being able to build the vmmon kernel driver, same output as this VMware community discussion post. The standard any-any patch doesn't work either.

The solution is to use Feisty's built-in vmware modules, in combination with a modified install script.

There are a few required steps:

• Install Feisty's pre-built vmware kernel modules.
• Symlink the modules into the place that 5.5.3's startup scripts expect them
• Hack vmware-config.pl so that it doesn't try to build vmmon and vmnet

First step is easy:

% sudo apt-get install vmware-player-kernel-modules

Second step is relatively easy too:

% cd /lib/modules/2.6.20-15-generic
% sudo mkdir misc
% cd misc
% sudo ln -s ../vmware-player/vmmon.ko vmmon.o
% sudo ln -s ../vmware-player/vmnet.ko vmnet.o

Just a few notes: 2.6.20-15 is what Feisty released with. If you're reading this by the time that Feisty has released an update kernel, then use the directory that it appropriate for your kernel.

Also, make sure that your module symlinks have the extension .o instead of .ko. This is what the /etc/init.d/vmware script looks for.

Finally, the last step is to modify your vmware-config.pl. Here's the diff for my modified version:

--- vmware-config.pl.backup     2007-04-21 18:05:58.000000000 -0700
+++ vmware-config.pl    2007-04-21 18:14:33.000000000 -0700
@@ -3649,9 +3649,9 @@
 
 # Configuration related to the monitor
 sub configure_mon {
-  if (configure_module('vmmon') eq 'no') {
-    module_error();
-  }
+  #if (configure_module('vmmon') eq 'no') {
+  #  module_error();
+  #}
 
   if (-e '/dev/.devfs' || -e '/dev/.udev.tdb' || -e '/dev/.udevdb' ) {
     # Either the devfs" or "udev" filesystem is mounted on the "/dev" directory,
@@ -8955,7 +8955,7 @@
     configure_mon();
     configure_pp();
     configure_net();
-    build_vmnet();
+    #build_vmnet();
   }
 
   # Create the directory for the UNIX domain sockets

Essentially you just have to comment out a few lines as the diff indicates. Then run vmware-config.pl as you normally would and you should be good to go.