VMware and Kernel issues, how to fix with kernel >= 3.12

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NicCo
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VMware and Kernel issues, how to fix with kernel >= 3.12

Post by NicCo »

Nowdays the Virtualization is very used in the professional and programming / testing software areas.

VMware is the greatest virtualization software producer, with a lot of different applications.

In the user field the most used software are: the commercial vmware Workstation and the free VMware Player.
The most recent version are: VMware Workstation 10 (10.0.1), VMware Player 6 (6.0.1)



When a new kernel is prepared, I try to assure a full compatibility with these VMware products.

Since Kernel 3.12, I have noticed that something should be wrong, VMware does not build properly its modules.

Me and GvM use vmplayer for our testing VMs, so we started immediately to search for the culprit and a solution / workaround.



After some researches we found the culprit in a new kernel option that is present since 3.12:
when CONFIG_UIDGID_STRICT_TYPE_CHECKS is enabled, VMware can not build modules

and here there is a topic:
https://communities.vmware.com/message/2328693

We discovered that since 3.12 enabling NAMESPACES automatically enables, in a mandatory way: CONFIG_UIDGID_STRICT_TYPE_CHECKS key,
so it's not more possible to disable it without disabling also the important NAMESPACES features.

We did not find any official and/or unofficial patch, coming from the VMware Community...



The first workaround attempt is preparing proper kernel with NAMESPACES and UIDGID disabled

Kernel 3.12.6: test version with fixes for VMware / VBox
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4336

and from our test, this works, but so we must disable NAMESPACES,
and we prefer to search for a different viable approach...



Proposed MIB solution without any Kernel feature reduction
Finally GvM succeed to fix the problem directly into the VMware code:
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/MIB/rosa201 ... kernel312/

and here you could download and replace fixed vmci.tar and vsock.tar

the path where to replace is > /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
It's safer to make a backup of the original /source folder contents.

In our PCs, were we tested the patches, this solution works fine.

Try now to rebuild VMware modules, let us know if everything is fine also for You!

"the MIB solution should be fine also with other linux distros
because it applies the fixes directly to the vmware sources"



It seems that VirtuaBox should be already fine, at least related to CONFIG_UIDGID_STRICT_TYPE_CHECKS
https://blogs.oracle.com/bobn/entry/vir ... _4_2_12_is
Linux hosts / guests: fixed build errors on Linux 3.5 and newer kernels if the CONFIG_UIDGID_STRICT_TYPE_CHECKS config option is enabled
but something else seems stop the proper build
.
--- Professional experience ---
Kernel designer, engineer, maintainer and tester for ROSA Desktop and OpenMandriva Lx O.S.

--- currently I'm playing with ---
LTS Kernels > Linux 4.1.12-nrjQL <<< Linux 3.18.17-nrjQL <<< Linux 3.14.46-nrjQL
EOL Kernels > Linux 3.19.8-nrjQL <<< Linux 3.17.8-nrjQL <<< Linux 3.15.10-nrjQL

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