VMWare Installation HOWTO on SUSE 9.3

Tedi Heriyanto

Jan 17, Apr 19 2005. Last update : December 24, 2005

Abstract:

In this article, I will describe detail steps I have taken during the process to install VMWare Workstation on SUSE 9.3 Pro. Other Linux distro may find the information contains here useful too.

ChangeLog

Dec 24, 2005

Add section "Reconfigure VMWare"
Change VMWare and its patch version
Change "SuSE" to "SUSE"
Several small grammatical changes

Installation

Requirements

Before we can install VMWare, we need to get the RPM package first.

We can download VMWare evaluation version from http://www.vmware.com. In this article we will use VMWare Workstation version VMwareWorkstation-5.0.0-13124

SUSE 9.3 is not yet supported by VMware version 5.0.0. In order to make VMWare 5.0.0 works ini SUSE 9.3 we need to compile vmmon modules.

Make sure we already have the following packages installed :

GCC Development Tools
Kernel Source Code

We can use YaST2 (Install and Remove Software), filter by Selections, to install those packages.

VMWare Installation

Please follow the steps outline below to install VMWare :

Become root and install the VMware RPM

$ su
Password:
# rpm -Uvh VMware-workstation-5.0.0-13124.i386.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:VMwareWorkstation      ########################################### [100%]

Change to the kernel directory /usr/src/linux and do the followings :
```
# cd /usr/src/linux
# make cloneconfig   
# make prepare
```
Download VMWare patch from ftp://platan.ut.cvut.cz/pub/vmware. The latest version is vmware-any-any-update93.tar.gz

Extract

$ tar xvzpf vmware-any-any-update93.tar.gz
vmware-any-any-update93/
vmware-any-any-update93/services.sh
vmware-any-any-update93/runme.pl
vmware-any-any-update93/vmmon.tar
vmware-any-any-update93/update
vmware-any-any-update93/update.c
vmware-any-any-update93/vmnet.tar

Patch

$ cd vmware-any-any-update93
$ su
# ./runme.pl

The file /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmmon.tar that this script was about to
install already exists. Overwrite? [yes] yes

The file /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar that this script was about to
install already exists. Overwrite? [yes] 

Updating /usr/bin/vmware ... Unknown version
Sorry, there is no binary patch available for your version of /usr/bin/vmware.
Updating /usr/bin/vmnet-bridge ... VMware Workstation 5.0.0 (build-13124) or VMware GSX Server 3.1.0 (build-9089), now patched
Updating /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx ... Unknown version
Sorry, there is no binary patch available for your version of /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx.
Updating /usr/lib/vmware/bin-debug/vmware-vmx ... Unknown version
Sorry, there is no binary patch available for your version of /usr/lib/vmware/bin-debug/vmware-vmx.
VMware modules in "/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source" has been updated.

Run vmware-config.pl

Making sure VMware Workstation's services are stopped.

Stopping VMware services:
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done

You must read and accept the End User License Agreement to continue.
Press enter to display it.

[ EULA ]

Do you accept? (yes/no) yes

Thank you.

Trying to find a suitable vmmon module for your running kernel.

None of VMware Workstation's pre-built vmmon modules is suitable for your
running kernel.  Do you want this program to try to build the vmmon module for
your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [yes]

Start the vmware configuration

# vmware-config.pl
Making sure VMware Workstation's services are stopped.

Stopping VMware services:
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done

You must read and accept the End User License Agreement to continue.
Press enter to display it.

[ EULA is snipped ]
Do you accept? (yes/no) yes 

Thank you.

Trying to find a suitable vmmon module for your running kernel.

None of VMware Workstation's pre-built vmmon modules is suitable for your
running kernel.  Do you want this program to try to build the vmmon module for
your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [yes]

Using compiler "/usr/bin/gcc". Use environment variable CC to override.

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include] 

Using compiler "/usr/bin/gcc". Use environment variable CC to override.

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include]

Extracting the sources of the vmmon module.

Building the vmmon module.

Building for VMware Workstation 5.0.0 or VMware GSX Server 3.0.0.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only'
make -C /usr/src/linux/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24'

WARNING: Symbol version dump /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24/Module.symvers is  missing, modules will have CONFIG_MODVERSIONS disabled.

  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/common/cpuid.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/common/hash.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/common/memtrack.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/common/phystrack.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/common/task.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/common/vmx86.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/vmcore/compat.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.o
  LD [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/vmmon.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST
  CC      /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/vmmon.mod.o
  LD [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only/vmmon.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24'
cp -f vmmon.ko ./../vmmon.o
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config1/vmmon-only'
The module loads perfectly in the running kernel.

Extracting the sources of the vmnet module.

Building the vmnet module.

Building for VMware Workstation 5.0.0 or VMware GSX Server 3.0.0.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only'
make -C /usr/src/linux/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24'

WARNING: Symbol version dump /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24/Module.symvers is  missing, modules will have CONFIG_MODVERSIONS disabled.

  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/driver.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/hub.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/userif.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/netif.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/bridge.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/procfs.o
  LD [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/vmnet.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST
  CC      /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/vmnet.mod.o
  LD [M]  /tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only/vmnet.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.8-24'
cp -f vmnet.ko ./../vmnet.o
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config1/vmnet-only'
The module loads perfectly in the running kernel.

Do you want networking for your virtual machines? (yes/no/help) [yes]

Configuring a bridged network for vmnet0.

Do you want to be able to use NAT networking in your virtual machines? [yes] no

Do you want to be able to use host-only networking in your virtual machines?
[no]

Do you want this program to automatically configure your system to allow your
virtual machines to access the host's filesystem? (yes/no/help) no

Starting VMware services:
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done
   Virtual ethernet                                                    done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0                                   done

The configuration of VMware Workstation 4.5.1 build-7568 for Linux for this
running kernel completed successfully.

You can now run VMware Workstation by invoking the following command:
"/usr/bin/vmware".

Enjoy,

--the VMware team

Starting VMWare for the first time

After successfully installing VMWare, now it's time to run it :

$ vmware

Reconfigure VMWare

Several days ago, I upgraded my kernel version. To make VMWare works I need to reconfigure it.

Here are the steps I did to reconfigure my VMWare :

Configure the Linux kernel sources :

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make cloneconfig
# make prepare

Run VMWare configure script :
```
# /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl
```
Just follow the instructions provided.

If there are no errors, you will see the following information :

Starting VMware services:
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done
   Virtual ethernet                                                    done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0                                   done
   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1 (background)                    done
   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet8 (background)                    done
   NAT service on /dev/vmnet8                                          done

The configuration of VMware Workstation 5.0.0 build-13124 for Linux for this
running kernel completed successfully.

You can now run VMware Workstation by invoking the following command:
"/usr/bin/vmware".

Enjoy,

--the VMware team

Tedi Heriyanto 2005-12-24