VMHGFS not compiling with VMware Workstation 10.0.6 under Ubuntu 14.04

Question

I've got the current Ubuntu desktop installation from the website and installed it within my VMware Workstation 10.0.6 build-2700073 with the VMware Tools version 9.6.5-2700074. Every time I try to install the tool, I get the following compilation error from within the vmhgfs files:

Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only'
/usr/bin/make -C /lib/modules/3.16.0-30-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. \
      MODULEBUILDDIR= modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.16.0-30-generic'
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/backdoor.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/backdoorGcc32.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/bdhandler.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/cpName.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/cpNameLinux.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/cpNameLite.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/dentry.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/dir.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/file.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/filesystem.o
/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/file.c: In function ‘HgfsAioRead’:
/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/file.c:791:4: error: implicit declaration of function ‘generic_file_aio_read’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
    result = generic_file_aio_read(iocb, iov, numSegs, offset);
    ^
/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/file.c: In function ‘HgfsAioWrite’:
/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/file.c:863:4: error: implicit declaration of function ‘generic_file_aio_write’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
    result = generic_file_aio_write(iocb, iov, numSegs, offset);
    ^
cc1: some warnings being treated as errors
make[2]: *** [/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only/file.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.16.0-30-generic'
make: *** [vmhgfs.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/modconfig-z3saoF/vmhgfs-only'

Is there any workaround to use the shared folders option or any kind of update for the VMware Tools?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

This appears to be the issue - generic_file_aio_(read|write) was deprecated after kernel 3.16.2. VMware has known about it since last October but they're still shipping unpatched VMware Guest Tools ISOs with many of their products. I don't know why, or when they'll finally propagate fixes for this issue.

https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/2