Note: If you want VMWare Player to perform the update automatically, I don't think it's possible via sudoers
; that's because VMWare uses its own graphical sudo front-end to check if the user has unrestricted sudo privileges...
A trace shows that this is how the GUI update is called when you start VMWare Player and it detects a new kernel:
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-gksu --sudo-mode --message=Please enter your password to proceed. '/usr/bin/vmware-modconfig' --icon='vmware-player' --appname='VMware' --gcc='/usr/bin/gcc' --headers='/lib/modules/3.2.0-27-generic/build/include'
As you've already tried, even simply adding /usr/bin/vmware-modconfig
doesn't work.
We'll assume your spouse's username is guijunkette. The script to manage the VMWare kernel modules is /usr/bin/vmware-modconfig
; in light of the note above, it's best to explicitly invoke this from the terminal; to make life easier for your wife, I have included a desktop shortcut so that she needn't even open the terminal.
sudo visudo
Around line 25, below the line %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
, insert:
guijunkette ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
Exit the editor
To rebuild the modules, she can now run sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
without being asked for a password.
Desktop Shortcut
What you can do is create the following desktop file in your wife's ~/Desktop
folder, and whenever VMWare Player flashes the "You must..." message, ask her to click Cancel, run this shortcut, and then start VMware Player (successfully) again:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Update VMWare Modules
GenericName=VMWare Updater
Comment=Update VMWare modules for a new kernel (console mode)
Exec=sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all
Terminal=true
Icon=/usr/lib/vmware/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/actions/vm-upload.png
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true
Paste this into, e.g. /home/guijunkette/Desktop/vmwareupdater.desktop
, and remember to chmod +x
it.
Here's a demo:
open-vm-dkms
package - maybe this does what you need?