LIKEN Apuntes

Saturday, March 1, 2008

VMWARE en Linux Kernel 2.6.24 y con Wireless Bridge

liken wrote this at 17:30 :

(Translation into English below)

Los modulos VMWARE no compilan en el Kernel 2.6.24 (No esta aun soportado).

El patch oficial vmware-any-any-update115, ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/vmware, resuelve problemas con algunos kernels anteriores pero tampoco compila en el 2.6.24.

Peter Teoh ha creado el patch no oficial vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz que si compila en 2.6.24 modificando el modulo vmmon.tar, tomando como base el patch 115 anterior.

Pero los patch vmware-any-any-update no soportan el modo bridge con tarjetas de red wireless. Se puede leer en el source del modulo vmnet.tar, en smac_linux.x386.c:

KERN_WARNING vmnet: You are trying to use wireless bridged networking together with vmware-any-any-update. This is not supported configuration, and your wireless bridge will probably not work

Tras investigar un poco, el problema es que esta funcion solo la soporta el modulo vmnet.tar que viene con el vmware original, que incluye los binarios precompilados smac_linux.x386.o_shipped y smac_linux.x86_64.o_shipped que dan soporte a esta funcion. Pero los modulos originales no valen porque no funcionan en el kernel 2.6.24.

Tras investigar algo mas, hay una forma de conseguir que el vmware-any-any-update115 soporte esta funcion.

Las instrucciones son:

En /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/source/ estan los modulos originales tras instalar vmware.

tar xvf vmnet.tar  // El original de vmware
mv vmnet.tar vmnet.tar_orig
mv vmnet-only vmnet-only_orig
tar xvf vmnet.tar // El de vmware-any-any-update-115
mv vmnet.tar vmnet.tar_115
rm vmnet-only/smac_linux.x386.c
rm vmnet-only/smac_linux.x86_64.c
cp vmnet-only_orig/smac* vmnet-only   //Se pasan los binarios y las cabeceras
tar ccfs vmnet.tar vmnet-only

Con esto generamos el nuevo vmnet.tar con soporte Wireless. Y con el vmmon.tar modificado del 116 podemos regenerar el vmware-any-any-update115 con soporte para Kernel 2.6.24 y Wireles Bridge.

Se puede bajar aqui: vmware-any-any-update-115-K2.6.24-WirelessBridge.tar.gz

Otras consideraciones para instalar VMWARE en kernel nuevos:

nohz=off // Como opcion al kernel para desactivar tickless
/etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh // Descomentar #Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work

Testeado en Vmware Workstation 6.02, Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy)

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VMWARE Linux Kernel 2.6.24 and Wireless Bridge

VMware modules do not compile in the Kernel 2.6.24 (Not even supported).

The official patch vmware-any-any-update115, from ftp://platan.vc.cvut.cz/pub/vmware, solves problems with some earlier kernels, but it does not compile in 2.6.24.

Peter Teoh has created the unofficial patch vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz that compiles with 2.6.24 modifying the module vmmon.tar, based on the previous 115 patch.

But vmware-any-any-update patchs do not support bridge networking with wireless network cards. It can be read in the source of module vmnet.tar, smac_linux.x386.c:

KERN_WARNING vmnet: You are trying to use wireless networking bridged together with vmware-any-any-update. This configuration is not supported, and your wireless bridge will probably not work

After investigating a bit, the problem is this function is only supported in vmnet.tar module that comes with the original vmware, which includes precompiled binaries smac_linux.x386.o_shipped and smac_linux.x86_64.o_shipped which support this function. But the original modules are not worth because they do not compile in the kernel 2.6.24.

After investigating something more, there is a way to make the vmware-any-any-update115 support this function.

The instructions are:

In /usr/local/lib/vmware/modules/source/ are vmware original modules after install.

tar xvf vmnet.tar  // vmnet.tar original vmware
mv vmnet.tar vmnet.tar_orig
mv vmnet-only vmnet-only_orig
tar xvf vmnet.tar // vmnet.tar from vmware-any-any-update-115
mv vmnet.tar vmnet.tar_115
rm vmnet-only/smac_linux.x386.c
rm vmnet-only/smac_linux.x86_64.c
cp vmnet-only_orig/smac* vmnet-only   //copy smac binaries and headers
tar ccfs vmnet.tar vmnet-only

This generates the new vmnet.tar with wireless support. And with modified vmmon.tar from 116 we can regenerate the vmware-any-any-update115 with support for Kernel 2.6.24 and Wireless Bridge.

It can be downloaded here: vmware-any-any-update-115-K2.6.24-WirelessBridge.tar.gz

Other considerations to install VMware in new kernels: