ovftool

To make an OVA file from a VMware virtual machine, use the following command:

$ /usr/bin/ovftool /path/to/*.vmx /path/to/*.ova

Troubleshooting

Log files are located in:

/var/log/vmware/
/tmp/vmware-(username)/

Issues

VMware complaining gcc4 9.3 was not found

I'm using Debian testing (stretch/sid). When I recently reinstalled VMware Workstation, I had an error message that said gcc-4.9.3 was not found:

If you list gcc installations available in /usr/bin/, you will notice that gcc-4.9 exists but the default gcc command is a symbolic link to gcc-5:

All you need to do is to temporarily change the pointer to gcc-4.9:

$ sudo ln -s -f /usr/bin/gcc-4.9 /usr/bin/gcc

Then proceed with the VMware installation and recreate the symbolic link to make it point to gcc-5:

$ sudo ln -s -f /usr/bin/gcc-5 /usr/bin/gcc

Failed to load module "atk-bridge"

If you have the following error:

$ vmware-installer -l
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "atk-bridge": /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libatspi.so.0: undefined symbol: g_type_class_adjust_private_offset
Product Name         Product Version     
==================== ====================
vmware-workstation   12.0.0.2985596

Try this:

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libatspi.so.0:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

To make the change permanent, the best is to add the above line to /usr/bin/vmware-installer.

libvmwareui.so: undefined symbol

If you have a similar log in {{menuitem|/tmp/vmware-{username}/}}:

2015-10-27T18:48:56.121+01:00| appLoader| W115: Unable to load libvmwareui.so from /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmwareui.so/libvmwareui.so: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmwareui.so/libvmwareui.so: undefined symbol: _ZN4Glib10spawn_syncERKSsRKNS_11ArrayHandleISsNS_17Container_Helpers10TypeTraitsISsEEEENS_10SpawnFlagsERKN4sigc4slotIvNSA_3nilESC_SC_SC_SC_SC_SC_EEPSsSG_Pi
2015-10-27T18:48:56.121+01:00| appLoader| W115: Unable to load dependencies for /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libvmware-modconfig.so/libvmware-modconfig.so
2015-10-27T18:48:56.121+01:00| appLoader| W115: Unable to execute /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-modconfig.

Here is how you can fix it:

$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

To make this permanent, add the above line to /usr/bin/vmware.

You should also apply this change to /usr/bin/vmware-netcfg, the network configuration panel.

"Failed to build vmnet. Failed to execute the build command."

Issue affecting following environments:

kernel 4.6.0-1 on Debian Stretch
kernel 4.6.1-2 on Archlinux

Symptoms: compilation fails:

# tail /tmp/vmware-root/vmware-5015.log 
2016-07-23T08:02:21.659+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Setting destination path for vmmon to "/lib/modules/4.6.0-1-amd64/misc/vmmon.ko".
2016-07-23T08:02:21.659+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Extracting the vmmon source from "/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmmon.tar".
2016-07-23T08:02:21.663+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Successfully extracted the vmmon source.
2016-07-23T08:02:21.663+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Building module with command "/usr/bin/make -j8 -C /tmp/modconfig-gTY5OH/vmmon-only auto-build HEADER_DIR=/lib/modules/4.6.0-1-amd64/build/include CC=/usr/bin/gcc IS_GCC_3=no"
2016-07-23T08:02:22.628+02:00| vthread-4| W115: Failed to build vmmon.  Failed to execute the build command.
2016-07-23T08:02:22.629+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Setting destination path for vmnet to "/lib/modules/4.6.0-1-amd64/misc/vmnet.ko".
2016-07-23T08:02:22.629+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Extracting the vmnet source from "/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar".
2016-07-23T08:02:22.632+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Successfully extracted the vmnet source.
2016-07-23T08:02:22.632+02:00| vthread-4| I125: Building module with command "/usr/bin/make -j8 -C /tmp/modconfig-gTY5OH/vmnet-only auto-build HEADER_DIR=/lib/modules/4.6.0-1-amd64/build/include CC=/usr/bin/gcc IS_GCC_3=no"
2016-07-23T08:02:23.821+02:00| vthread-4| W115: Failed to build vmnet.  Failed to execute the build command.

When manually trying to compile, we notice that this is due to the get_user_pages function:

root@unknown:/tmp/modconfig-gTY5OH/vmmon-only# /usr/bin/make -j8 -C /tmp/modconfig-gTY5OH/vmmon-only auto-build HEADER_DIR=/lib/modules/4.6.0-1-amd64/build/include CC=/usr/bin/gcc IS_GCC_3=no
[SNIP]
 long get_user_pages(unsigned long start, unsigned long nr_pages,
      ^
/tmp/modconfig-gTY5OH/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:1165:13: error: too many arguments to function ‘get_user_pages’
    retval = get_user_pages(current, current->mm, (unsigned long)uvAddr,
[SNIP]

Fix:

It fails to compile because there has been a change in the get_user_pages function. To fix that, do as follows (scripted from this post):

# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# tar xf vmmon.tar
# sed -i "s/get_user_pages/get_user_pages_remote/g" vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c
# tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
# rm -fR vmmon-only

Then

# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# tar xf vmnet.tar
# sed -i "s/get_user_pages/get_user_pages_remote/g" vmnet-only/userif.c
# sed -i -e 's/dev->trans_start = jiffies/netif_trans_update(dev)/g' vmnet-only/netif.c
# tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
# rm -fR vmnet-only

Fedora specific installation procedure

(Source: http://vcojot.blogspot.fr/2015/11/vmware-worksation-12-on-fedora-core-23.html)

$ sudo dnf install kernel-headers kernel-devel gcc glibc-headers  
$ sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all  
$ cd /tmp/
$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ElCoyote27/krynn-tools/master/Update_VMW.sh
$ sudo ./Update_VMW.sh 
$ VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS=force vmware

Compilation issue VMWare 12.5.2 with Kernel 4.9.5

Inspired from this post

# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# tar xf vmnet.tar
# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sebastiendamaye/public/master/patch/vmware-12.5.2-kernel-4.9.5/userif.patch -O /tmp/userif.patch
# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet-only/
# patch -p0 < /tmp/userif.patch
# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# tar cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
# rm -fR vmnet-only

# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# tar xf vmmon.tar
# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sebastiendamaye/public/master/patch/vmware-12.5.2-kernel-4.9.5/hostif.patch -O /tmp/hostif.patch
# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmmon-only/linux/
# patch -p0 < /tmp/hostif.patch
# cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
# tar cf vmmon.tar vmmon-only
# rm -fR vmmon-only

build environment error! a required application is missing and modconfig can not continue. xzcheck the log for more details

If you have the following error message on Fedora:

build environment error! a required application is missing and modconfig can not continue. xzcheck the log for more details

Install the following dependencies:

sudo dnf install gcc make kernel-header kernel-devel

Can't open OVA

If you are not able to open OVA files (nothing happens), check the errors reported by ovftool:

$ ovftool 
/usr/lib/vmware-ovftool/ovftool.bin: error while loading shared libraries: libnsl.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
$ dnf whatprovides libnsl.so.1
Last metadata expiration check: 23:24:40 ago on Thu 21 May 2020 10:08:32 PM CEST.
libnsl-2.31-2.fc32.i686 : Legacy support library for NIS
Repo        : fedora
Matched from:
Provide    : libnsl.so.1

$ sudo dnf install libnsl

stddef.h and stdarg.h files not found while compiling VMware Workstation 16.2.1 with Kernel 5.16.0-1

If you have compilation issues claiming that stddef.h and stdarg.h are not found, try this:

# CPATH=/usr/src/linux-headers-5.16.0-1-common/include/linux vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

Compilation error with VMware Workstation 16.2.3 and kernel 5.18.0-2

If you have the following compilation error with kernel 5.18.0.2 and VMware Workstation 16.2.3:

/tmp/modconfig-5DhCLa/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:2363:4: error: unknown type name ‘mm_segment_t’
 2363 |    mm_segment_t old_fs;
      |    ^~~~~~~~~~~~
/tmp/modconfig-5DhCLa/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:2365:13: error: implicit declaration of function ‘get_fs’; did you mean ‘sget_fc’? [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
 2365 |    old_fs = get_fs();
      |             ^~~~~~
      |             sget_fc
/tmp/modconfig-5DhCLa/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:2366:4: error: implicit declaration of function ‘set_fs’; did you mean ‘sget_fc’? [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
 2366 |    set_fs(KERNEL_DS);
      |    ^~~~~~
      |    sget_fc
/tmp/modconfig-5DhCLa/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:2366:11: error: ‘KERNEL_DS’ undeclared (first use in this function); did you mean ‘KERNEL_2_1’?
 2366 |    set_fs(KERNEL_DS);
      |           ^~~~~~~~~
      |           KERNEL_2_1

You can fix as follows:

$ git clone https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/archive/workstation-16.2.3.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf vmware-host-modules-workstation-16.2.3.tar.gz
$ cd vmware-host-modules-workstation-16.2.3/
$ make
$ 'sudo make install
$ sudo systemctl restart vmware.service

Compilation error with VMware Workstation 16.2.4 and kernel 5.19.0-1

If you have compilation errors while trying to build VMWare Workstation 16.2.4 and kernel 5.19.0-1, like the one below:

make[2]: *** [/usr/src/linux-headers-5.19.0-1-common/scripts/Makefile.build:254: /tmp/modconfig-Wevtez/vmnet-only/netif.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
/tmp/modconfig-Wevtez/vmnet-only/bridge.c: In function ‘VNetBridgeReceiveFromVNet’:
/tmp/modconfig-Wevtez/vmnet-only/bridge.c:694:10: error: implicit declaration of function ‘netif_rx_ni’; did you mean ‘netif_rx’? [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
  694 |          netif_rx_ni(clone);
      |          ^07:43, 11 September 2022 (CEST)07:43, 11 September 2022 (CEST)
      |          netif_rx

Then try this:

$ git clone https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules/archive/workstation-16.2.4.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf vmware-host-modules-workstation-16.2.4.tar.gz
$ cd vmware-host-modules-workstation-16.2.4/
$ make
$ 'sudo make install
$ sudo systemctl restart vmware.service

VMware

Contents

ovftool

Troubleshooting

Issues

VMware complaining gcc4 9.3 was not found

Failed to load module "atk-bridge"

libvmwareui.so: undefined symbol

"Failed to build vmnet. Failed to execute the build command."

Fedora specific installation procedure

Compilation issue VMWare 12.5.2 with Kernel 4.9.5

build environment error! a required application is missing and modconfig can not continue. xzcheck the log for more details

Can't open OVA

stddef.h and stdarg.h files not found while compiling VMware Workstation 16.2.1 with Kernel 5.16.0-1

Compilation error with VMware Workstation 16.2.3 and kernel 5.18.0-2

Compilation error with VMware Workstation 16.2.4 and kernel 5.19.0-1

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VMware

ovftool

Troubleshooting

Issues

VMware complaining gcc4 9.3 was not found

Failed to load module "atk-bridge"

libvmwareui.so: undefined symbol

"Failed to build vmnet. Failed to execute the build command."

Fedora specific installation procedure

Compilation issue VMWare 12.5.2 with Kernel 4.9.5

build environment error! a required application is missing and modconfig can not continue. xzcheck the log for more details

Can't open OVA

stddef.h and stdarg.h files not found while compiling VMware Workstation 16.2.1 with Kernel 5.16.0-1

Compilation error with VMware Workstation 16.2.3 and kernel 5.18.0-2

Compilation error with VMware Workstation 16.2.4 and kernel 5.19.0-1

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