VMWare player and Ubuntu 15.04: net driver does not compile anymore, how to fix?

Question

I use VMWare Player on Ubuntu and run a different number of virtual machines on it.

It worked fine until 14.10, when the kernel was upgraded I would be asked to recompile the modules etc; but it doesn't work with Ubuntu 15.04 anymore.

The problem is that it fails when trying to recompile the "virtual network adapter". How can I fix that?

Answer 1

Use this commands (need root access):

$ wget http://pastie.org/pastes/9934018/download -O /tmp/vmnet-3.19.patch
$ cd /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source
$ tar -xf vmnet.tar
$ patch -p0 -i /tmp/vmnet-3.19.patch
$ tar -cf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
$ rm -r *-only
$ vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

for vmware-player 9 you also need to change:

• vmnet-only/netif.c line 152 from:

  dev = alloc_netdev(sizeof *netIf, deviceName, VNetNetIfSetup);
  

  to

  dev = alloc_netdev(sizeof *netIf, deviceName, NET_NAME_UNKNOWN, VNetNetIfSetup);
  

• vmnet-only/filter.c line 207 from:

  VNetFilterHookFn(unsigned int hooknum, // IN:

  to:

  VNetFilterHookFn(const struct nf_hook_ops *ops, // IN:

• vmnet-only/filter.c line 255 from:

  transmit = (hooknum == VMW_NF_INET_POST_ROUTING);

  to:

  transmit = (ops->hooknum == VMW_NF_INET_POST_ROUTING);

Answer 2

This is because Ubuntu 15.04 uses Linux kernel 3.19, which brings changes to the networking API which VMWare player has not accounted for yet.

Note: version of VMWare Player used here is 7.1.x.

The solution is to apply the following patch to the vmnet driver:

diff --git a/driver.c b/driver.c
index 2e1e643..507a509 100644
--- a/driver.c
+++ b/driver.c
@@ -266,7 +266,7 @@ LinuxDriver_Ioctl32_Handler(unsigned int fd,     // IN: (unused)
    int ret = -ENOTTY;

    if (filp && filp->f_op && filp->f_op->ioctl == VNetFileOpIoctl) {
-      ret = VNetFileOpIoctl(filp->f_dentry->d_inode, filp, iocmd, ioarg);
+      ret = VNetFileOpIoctl(filp->f_path.dentry->d_inode, filp, iocmd, ioarg);
    }
    return ret;
 }
@@ -1191,8 +1191,8 @@ VNetFileOpUnlockedIoctl(struct file    *filp,  // IN:
    struct inode *inode = NULL;
    long err;

-   if (filp && filp->f_dentry) {
-      inode = filp->f_dentry->d_inode;
+   if (filp && filp->f_path.dentry) {
+      inode = filp->f_path.dentry->d_inode;
    }
    err = VNetFileOpIoctl(inode, filp, iocmd, ioarg);
    return err;
diff --git a/userif.c b/userif.c
index e68d4ce..b311f48 100644
--- a/userif.c
+++ b/userif.c
@@ -523,7 +523,9 @@ VNetCopyDatagram(const struct sk_buff *skb, // IN: skb to copy
       .iov_base = buf,
       .iov_len  = len,
    };
-   return skb_copy_datagram_iovec(skb, 0, &iov, len);
+   struct iov_iter to;
+   iov_iter_init(&to, READ, &iov, 1, len);
+   return skb_copy_datagram_iter(skb, 0, &to, len);
 }

For this:

• be root...
• make a backup copy of /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar somewhere;
• untar it in a temporary directory;
• apply the patch above (cd vmnet-only && patch -p1 <path/to/the.patch && cd ..);
• recreate the tar archive, overwriting the original (tar cf /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar vmnet-only).

You can then restart VMWare player; the driver will compile and install.