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Siduction Forum => Experimental => Topic started by: dibl on 2012/07/28, 02:56:17

Title: VMware Player 4.0.4 upgrade -- How To
Post by: dibl on 2012/07/28, 02:56:17

The bad news -- the 4.0.4 upgrade installs replacement source files, and the kernel module build will fail for 2 modules.

The good news -- there's an easy workaround.

First, remove VMware Player 4.0.3 using the "vmware-installer -u vmware-player" utility, and manually go in to /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source and delete the remaining source files and directories. Then download and install VMware Player 4.0.4, but don't run it.  Copy the vmware802fixlinux320.tar.gz patch file (from here (http://weltall.heliohost.org/wordpress/2012/01/26/vmware-workstation-8-0-2-player-4-0-2-fix-for-linux-kernel-3-2-and-3-3/)) to /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source, and untar it.  You can delete the "patch-modules ...sh script -- you won't use it.

As root, at the /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source directory prompt, issue

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for i in ./*.tar; do tar -xvf $i; done
to untar the five .tar files. Each one will extract into a new directory with "-only" as the directory name suffix. When you are finished you should have, in addition to the original five .tar files, the following new directories:

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vmblock-only  vmci-only  vmmon-only  vmnet-only  vsock-only

Next, back up the original source .tar files with

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for i in ./*.tar; do mv $i $i.original; done

Next, patch vmware with

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patch -p1 < vmware3.2.0.patch

It should patch 3 files, with no error output.

Next, we need to fix a minor bug in one of the vmblock source files -- as described here (http://weltall.heliohost.org/wordpress/2012/04/01/vmware-workstation-8-0-2player-4-0-2-and-7-1-x3-1-x-fix-for-linux-kernel-3-4-0/), the fix is easy:

With your favorite text editor, open the file /usr/lib/vmware/module/source/vmblock-only/linux/filesystem.c for editing.  Go to line 528, and change d_alloc_root(rootInode) to read d_make_root(rootInode).

Finally, "tar cvf" all of the files in the vxxx-only subdirectories. So, for example,

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tar cvf vmblock.tar vmblock-only/*
and do this for each of the 5 vxxx-only directories.

You are done -- the modules will now build when you start VMware Player 4.0.4.

Title: RE: VMware Player 4.0.4 upgrade -- How To
Post by: hinto on 2012/07/30, 16:59:13

Thanks for being on top of things!!!
-Hinto