Solved: F10 Snap 3, VMware Workstation 6.5, and ThinkPad T400

[Christopher A. Williams]

On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 07:02 -0600, Christopher A. Williams wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 09:00 +0100, Denis Leroy wrote:
> > Matthew Saltzman wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2008-10-26 at 15:35 -0600, Christopher A. Williams wrote:
> > >> On Sun, 2008-10-26 at 19:57 +0100, Denis Leroy wrote:
> > >>> Christopher A. Williams wrote:
> > >>>> kills X. Hopefully the accelerated drivers will work better...
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I'm trying now to get VMware Workstation 6.5 up and running. It installs
> > >>>> without incident from the Bundle file. The RPM doesn't. In both cases,
> > >>>> Workstation simply refuses to start. Trying from the command line, I get
> > >>>> messages back that several modules and services are not running. Does
> > >>>> anybody have this working??? This is the next critical piece for me to
> > >>>> solve...
> > >>> You need to run vmware as root the first time, so it can compile its 
> > >>> host-side kernel modules. Once that's done, quit and restart it.
> > >> No dice. I reinstalled and then ran as root the first time. Here's what
> > >> I get as error messages back:
> > >>
> > >> Logging to /tmp/vmware-root/setup-5583.log
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmmon
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmnet
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmblock
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmci
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vsock
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmmon
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmnet
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmblock
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vmci
> > >> modinfo: could not find module vsock
> > >>
> > >> I don't seen an other errors at all. the old vmware-config.pl file is
> > >> also not present.
> > > 
> > > vmware-config.pl is no longer part of Workstation in 6.5.  It should
> > > reconfigure automatically when run as root after booting a new kernel.
> > > 
> > >> Still searching for answers...
> > > 
> > > Do you have compilers installed?
> > 
> > Right that's most likely it. Make sure you have 'kernel-devel' present, 
> > and 'gcc'. Also,  is this Workstations 6.5 build 118166 ?
> 
> OK - I'll come clean on a little more with this:
> 
> * Linux Version: F10 Snap 3 x86_64 with latest rawhide patches (adding
> more as I write this)
> * VMware Version: VMware Workstation 6.5, 64-bit, build 118166 (the
> production version), installed using the new .bundle package since
> VMware now prefers this to the RPM according to the beta communities,
> release notes, and other documentation
> * Relevant Packages installed: kernel-devel, kernel-headers, all
> standard development tools and libraries (which includes all of the gcc
> stuff)

Problem fixed. The answer is in the VMware Communities discussion lists.
It was the segmentation fault problem that has cropped up in VMware
Workstation 6.5 when running on F10 Beta and later. Basically,
Workstation 6.5 segfaults when configuring modules. But, because of the
way I was launching VMware (either via the menu entry or just "vmware"
from the command prompt), the actual segmentation fault error was being
suppressed.

Since the modules weren't loading, I had to assume they weren't being
compiled and installed. I knew there had to be a way to force configure
them. VMware wouldn't remove vmware-config.pl without replacing its
functionality with something else. That turns out to be the case.

There is a specific command you can use to force-reconfigure and install
all of the modules in Workstation 6.5:
# vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

This command allows the actual segfault error to show up (and also is
what then put me on the right track).

The post resolving the problem says:

> Guys, same problem here with rawhide, put a strace on it, it bombs out
> on enumerating binary modules dir, so I did:
> 
> 
> mv /usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary /usr/lib/vmware/modules/binary.old
> 
> 
> And voila, no more segfaults...

The full thread can be found at:
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/172023

Cheers,

Chris

--
====================================
"Ninety-nine percent of the failures
come from people who have the habit
of making excuses."

--George Washington Carver