Need help installing Workstation Pro on Rocky 8.4

I’m new to Rocky Linux (CentOS 8), after happily using CentOS 7 for as long as it has existed.

I’ve just installed the 8.4 dvd iso on my brand-new Dell XPS-8940. That’s it’s own interesting thread.

I’m seeing a failure that is perhaps similar to “How to install VMPlayer on Rocky 8.4”. In my case, I’m attempting to install WorkstationPro 16 (the premium version of VMPlayer).

Workstation Pro 16 must build two modules, “vmmon” and “vmnet”, before it can launch. It attempts to do this the first time it is launched. When I attempt this, I see a relatively unhelpful complaint (from the VMWare installer) that says that the attempted install failed and refers me to the logs.

I’ve sorted through the various logs, and I think there are two of interest, each in /tmp and each created on each attempt to start Workstation Pro. The app creates two subdirectories when launched, /tmp/vmware-root and /tmp/vmware-tms (tms is my username during all this). It puts several log files in each of these two subdirectories.

I’m going to call the logs in /tmp/vmware-root the “root log” and the other “user Log”. Each logfile name is formed by appended “-” to a base name, in this case “vmware”.

So the two logfiles of interest are the root log (\tmp\vmware-root\vmware-4353.log) and the user log (\tmp\vmware-tms\vmware-4314.log). Each of these was created during the same launch attempt.

In addition, I captured stdin and stderr into my own log during a subsequent launch attempt.

It appears to me, from reading these logs, that VMWare installer is unable to successfully build vmmon. I see what appear to be complaints about syntax errors and variable miss-spellings. I’m hoping that this community can shed some light on how I can get this working on Rocky 8.4.

I have two specific questions:

  1. Is this an issue with Rocky Linux v8.4, VMWare Workstation Pro 16, or both?
  2. Is there a reasonable work-around or fix?

The relevant log files make this post too large. The file upload button in the editor refuses to allow me to attach the relevant logs. I’ll come back here if I find a way to make those logs available.

1 Like

Hello @SomervilleTom

check this one https://computingforgeeks.com/install-vmware-workstation-on-centos/

Indeed, the recipe in the link you posted is essentially what I’ve been doing.

The problem I’m seeing is that the attempt to build – not sign, but build – vmmon is failing.

Here is an excerpt from the complaint to the command line:

At top level:
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:680:1: warning: always_inline function might not be inlinable [-Wattributes]
 LinuxDriverSyncReadTSCs(uint64 *delta) // OUT: TSC max - TSC min
 ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c: In function \u2018HostIF_EstimateLockedPageLimit\u2019:
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:1683:25: error: \u2018totalram_pages\u2019 redeclared as different kind of symbol
    extern unsigned long totalram_pages;
                         ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In file included from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:42:
./include/linux/mm.h:56:29: note: previous definition of \u2018totalram_pages\u2019 was here
 static inline unsigned long totalram_pages(void)
                             ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:1714:42: error: \u2018NR_SLAB_UNRECLAIMABLE\u2019 undeclared (first use in this function); did you mean \u2018NR_SLAB_UNRECLAIMABLE_B\u2019?
    lockedPages += global_node_page_state(NR_SLAB_UNRECLAIMABLE);
                                          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                          NR_SLAB_UNRECLAIMABLE_B
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.c:1714:42: note: each undeclared identifier is reported only once for each function it appears in
In file included from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./common/vmx86.h:32,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:35:
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./include/x86msr.h:127: warning: "MSR_TEST_CTRL" redefined
 #define MSR_TEST_CTRL                        0x33
 
In file included from ./arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h:11,
                 from ./arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:9,
                 from ./include/linux/irqflags.h:16,
                 from ./include/linux/rcupdate.h:39,
                 from ./include/linux/rculist.h:11,
                 from ./include/linux/pid.h:5,
                 from ./include/linux/sched.h:14,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:31:
./arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h:44: note: this is the location of the previous definition
 #define MSR_TEST_CTRL    0x00000033
 
In file included from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./common/vmx86.h:32,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:35:
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./include/x86msr.h:128: warning: "MSR_TEST_CTRL_SPLIT_LOCK_DETECT" redefined
 #define MSR_TEST_CTRL_SPLIT_LOCK_DETECT           (1ULL << 29)
 
In file included from ./arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h:11,
                 from ./arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:9,
                 from ./include/linux/irqflags.h:16,
                 from ./include/linux/rcupdate.h:39,
                 from ./include/linux/rculist.h:11,
                 from ./include/linux/pid.h:5,
                 from ./include/linux/sched.h:14,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:31:
./arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h:46: note: this is the location of the previous definition
 #define MSR_TEST_CTRL_SPLIT_LOCK_DETECT  BIT(MSR_TEST_CTRL_SPLIT_LOCK_DETECT_BIT)
 
In file included from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./common/vmx86.h:32,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:35:
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./include/x86msr.h:154: warning: "MSR_MISC_FEATURES_ENABLES" redefined
 #define MSR_MISC_FEATURES_ENABLES            0x140
 
In file included from ./arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h:11,
                 from ./arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:9,
                 from ./include/linux/irqflags.h:16,
                 from ./include/linux/rcupdate.h:39,
                 from ./include/linux/rculist.h:11,
                 from ./include/linux/pid.h:5,
                 from ./include/linux/sched.h:14,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:31:
./arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h:754: note: this is the location of the previous definition
 #define MSR_MISC_FEATURES_ENABLES 0x00000140
 
In file included from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./common/vmx86.h:32,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:35:
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./include/x86msr.h:489: warning: "MSR_K7_HWCR_SMMLOCK" redefined
 #define MSR_K7_HWCR_SMMLOCK        0x00000001ULL // Lock SMM environment
 
In file included from ./arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h:11,
                 from ./arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:9,
                 from ./include/linux/irqflags.h:16,
                 from ./include/linux/rcupdate.h:39,
                 from ./include/linux/rculist.h:11,
                 from ./include/linux/pid.h:5,
                 from ./include/linux/sched.h:14,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:31:
./arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h:551: note: this is the location of the previous definition
 #define MSR_K7_HWCR_SMMLOCK  BIT_ULL(MSR_K7_HWCR_SMMLOCK_BIT)
 
In file included from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./common/vmx86.h:32,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:35:
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/./include/x86msr.h:661: warning: "MSR_TSX_FORCE_ABORT" redefined
 #define MSR_TSX_FORCE_ABORT                      0x0000010f
 
In file included from ./arch/x86/include/asm/nospec-branch.h:11,
                 from ./arch/x86/include/asm/irqflags.h:9,
                 from ./include/linux/irqflags.h:16,
                 from ./include/linux/rcupdate.h:39,
                 from ./include/linux/rculist.h:11,
                 from ./include/linux/pid.h:5,
                 from ./include/linux/sched.h:14,
                 from /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/vmcore/moduleloop.c:31:
./arch/x86/include/asm/msr-index.h:763: note: this is the location of the previous definition
 #define MSR_TSX_FORCE_ABORT  0x0000010F
 
make[2]: *** [scripts/Makefile.build:315: /tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/linux/hostif.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only/common/.tmp_task.o: warning: objtool: .text: unexpected end of section
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1563: _module_/tmp/modconfig-iJbZMt/vmmon-only] Error 2
make: *** [Makefile:117: vmmon.ko] Error 2

At first blush, these look like issues with the source/include files.

that what i found on rhel VMware Workstation on RHEL 8.4 - Red Hat Customer Portal
so looks like it common issue

Interestingly, that RHEL link describes an issue building/installing the vmnet module.

It appears to me that Rocky Linux 8.4 is getting that part done, but is failing while trying build the companion vmmon module.

Both vmmon and vmnet are needed for the product to work.

I’m still not sure whether this issue belongs here with the Rocky Linux community or over at the VMWare community, where they claim that Workstation Pro 16 works on “all” the major Linux distributions.

Of course, VMWare wants me to pay $200 for Workstation Pro 16 before I can even open a support ticket with them.

I have to have some Linux on the iron of the several machines we have here, and I have to some hypervisor running Windows 10 Pro as a guestVM on each of those. So far as I know, VMWare is the only hypervisor game in town, and Rocky Linux is far and away my preferred choice of Linux distributions.

At the end of the day, I need something that works. If I have to choose a different distro or hypervisor, then that’s what I’ll need to do.

You can use kvm in Linux with virt-console so there are other hypervisors available. I have Windows VM’s under kvm.

1 Like

Awesome and way cool!

you can try https://www.virtualbox.org/ also