random neuron misfires

Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 at 6:14 pm | 9,671 views | trackback url

If you run a current version of VMware Workstation, VMware Server, ESXi or VMware Fusion with a recent Linux kernel as a guest, you’ve most-likely run into this already.

UPDATE: If you’re using Linux kernel 3.11.0, see my updated blog post for the patch and fix for that revision.

 
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only'
/usr/bin/make -C /lib/modules/3.8.0-19-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. \
	  MODULEBUILDDIR= modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.8.0-19-generic'
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/vmciKernelIf.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.o
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:127:4: error: implicit declaration of function ‘__devexit_p’ [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:127:4: error: initializer element is not constant
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:127:4: error: (near initialization for ‘vmci_driver.remove’)
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:1754:1: error: expected ‘=’, ‘,’, ‘;’, ‘asm’ or ‘__attribute__’ before ‘vmci_probe_device’
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:1982:1: error: expected ‘=’, ‘,’, ‘;’, ‘asm’ or ‘__attribute__’ before ‘vmci_remove_device’
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:119:12: warning: ‘vmci_probe_device’ used but never defined [enabled by default]
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:121:13: warning: ‘vmci_remove_device’ used but never defined [enabled by default]
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:2063:1: warning: ‘vmci_interrupt’ defined but not used [-Wunused-function]
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:2137:1: warning: ‘vmci_interrupt_bm’ defined but not used [-Wunused-function]
/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.c:1717:1: warning: ‘vmci_enable_msix’ defined but not used [-Wunused-function]
cc1: some warnings being treated as errors
make[2]: *** [/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.8.0-19-generic'
make: *** [vmci.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/modconfig-N9AMbf/vmci-only'

Here’s the patch to fix it. Either cut-and-paste the code snippet below and save it to a file, or you can download it here.

--- vmci-only/linux/driver.c	2012-11-01 16:22:03.000000000 +0900
+++ vmci-only/linux/driver.c.patched	2013-03-01 04:21:08.402942111 +0900
@@ -124,7 +124,11 @@ static struct pci_driver vmci_driver = {
    .name     = "vmci",
    .id_table = vmci_ids,
    .probe = vmci_probe_device,
+#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(3,8,0)
    .remove = __devexit_p(vmci_remove_device),
+#else
+   .remove = vmci_remove_device,
+#endif
 };
 
 #if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(2, 6, 19)
@@ -1750,7 +1754,11 @@ vmci_enable_msix(struct pci_dev *pdev) /
  *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  */
 
-static int __devinit
+#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(3,8,0)
+ static int __devinit
+#else
+ static int 
+#endif
 vmci_probe_device(struct pci_dev *pdev,           // IN: vmci PCI device
                   const struct pci_device_id *id) // IN: matching device ID
 {
@@ -1978,7 +1986,11 @@ vmci_probe_device(struct pci_dev *pdev,
  *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  */
 
-static void __devexit
+#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(3,8,0)
+ static void __devexit
+#else
+ static void
+#endif
 vmci_remove_device(struct pci_dev* pdev)
 {
    struct vmci_device *dev = pci_get_drvdata(pdev);

And here's how to apply it and fix the problem:

1. Mount your VMware Tools ISO somewhere

   # mkdir /tmp/cdrom
   # mount /dev/sr0 /tmp/cdrom

2. Extract the tarball to /tmp/

   # cd /tmp/cdrom
   # tar zxvf VMwareTools-9.0.5-1065307.tar.gz -C /tmp/

3. Change into the VMware Tools directory that was just created

   # cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/

4. Patch the tree with the above patch

   # cd lib/modules/source/
   # tar -xvf vmci.tar
   # patch -p0 < /tmp/vmware-tools-linux-kernel-3.8_vmci_pci_hotplug_struct.patch

5. Tar up the patched source so we can rebuild using the new tarball

   # tar -cf vmci.tar vmci-only/

6. Now let's rebuild it!

   # cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib/
   # ./vmware-install.pl

If you've done it right, it will build cleanly:

Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only'
/usr/bin/make -C /lib/modules/3.8.0-19-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. \
	  MODULEBUILDDIR= modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.8.0-19-generic'
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/linux/driver.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/linux/vmciKernelIf.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciContext.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciDatagram.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciDoorbell.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciDriver.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciEvent.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciHashtable.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciQPair.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciQueuePair.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciResource.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/common/vmciRoute.o
  CC [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/driverLog.o
  LD [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/vmci.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST 1 modules
  CC      /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/vmci.mod.o
  LD [M]  /tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only/vmci.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-3.8.0-19-generic'
/usr/bin/make -C $PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. \
	  MODULEBUILDDIR= postbuild
make[1]: Entering directory `/tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only'
make[1]: `postbuild' is up to date.
make[1]: Leaving directory `/tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only'
cp -f vmci.ko ./../vmci.o
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/modconfig-qs1htj/vmci-only'

That's it! This same patch will work with all previous kernels, as well as those up to the most current 3.8 kernels.

If you're rebuilding your kernel modules using the command vmware-install.pl from the VMware Tools package, remember to use the following, to force a module rebuild:

vmware-install.pl --clobber-kernel-modules=vmci    \
                  --clobber-kernel-modules=vsock   \
                  --clobber-kernel-modules=vmxnet3 \
                  --clobber-kernel-modules=pvscsi  \
                  --clobber-kernel-modules=vmmemctl

Note: I haven't tested Linux kernel 3.10.9 or later yet, but I will shortly and update this post to reflect those results (see here for the fix for the 3.11.0 kernel).

Good luck!

Last Modified: Thursday, November 28th, 2013 @ 00:41

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013 at 6:14 pm and is filed under Linux, Technology, VMware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.