Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

TrickyStumpy · 2013-08-05 21:45:52

I'm new to Arch Linux and Linux in general, so please bear with me. I'm trying to install Arch Linux in a VMware virtual machine before messing around with some real hardware and I'm stuck at how to get open-vm-tools installed. The only up-to-date reference I was able to google out about this topic is the official wiki page.
There they suggest installing a patch in order to get open-vm-tools running in the current kernel 3.10 (in fact, the packages open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-dkms are both marked as out-of-date).
The problem is I cannot figure out how to install the patch. I've tried

patch -i procfs.patch

but that didn't work, as it cannot find the files to patch. Obviously, I'm missing some necessary downloads, or I'm not targeting the right file or maybe I'm just using the wrong syntax. Could someone please provide a link to more detailed instructions on how to install a patch, or explain what I'm doing wrong? Probably an absolute beginners' mistake, but I just can't seem to find any online help.

MartinN · 2013-08-05 21:58:02

that's what I was wondering too - the files that procfs.patch seems to want to patch aren't in open-vm-tools-dkms... nothing in the AUR either. I would appreciate any feedback on this too.

Trilby · 2013-08-05 22:04:24

I don't use this, but from just reading the wiki page it seems clear enough to me - you need to choose to either A) use the LTS kernel, or B) Patch the 3.10 kernel with that patch file.

You claim you tried to use the patch, but are you recompiling the 3.10 kernel? Are you using ABS or an AUR PKGBUILD? If these questions don't make sense, then the answer is definitely a 'no' and you should go with option A: use the LTS kernel rather than 3.10.

TrickyStumpy · 2013-08-05 22:20:51

I tried recompiling the kernel using the ABS, I run

pacman -S abs base-devel

and then

ABSROOT=. abs core/linux

but still no luck. The patch is referencing a source file called bridge.c that is missing. I haven't tried the LTS kernel yet.

Scimmia · 2013-08-05 22:24:06

Look at the pkgbuild, you'll see how patches are applied when building packages. Add it there.

TrickyStumpy · 2013-08-05 22:43:35

Look at the pkgbuild, you'll see how patches are applied when building packages. Add it there.

That's and idea, where can I find an example of a pkgbuild for the kernel?

Scimmia · 2013-08-05 22:47:38

Um, what? What were you getting with the ABS?

Trilby · 2013-08-05 22:53:11

Actually - there was some confusion here.

While it seems you haven't done the needed steps to patch and compile the kernel, it's rather a good thing. That is not a patch for the kernel. That is a patch for vmware - that is what you need to rebuild.

EDIT: ok, I'm not so sure about this either. The patch doesn't seem to match anything in the kernel source or any source of open-vm-tools{,-dkms}. Perhaps it is only for vmware not open-vms, this seems to be confirmed by looking at aur/vmware-patch which has similar function calls. Do you have vmware?

Last edited by Trilby (2013-08-05 23:04:50)

TrickyStumpy · 2013-08-05 23:04:23

I'm following the steps I found here, but I've stopped before mkpkg, that obviously doesn't work because I have no pkgbuild. This example is the only one I found, but I don't see any patches there.

Trilby · 2013-08-05 23:06:31

FYI, that is taking you down the wrong path, but if you did the commands you claimed to have done above, that downloaded the PKGBUILD: that's what the abs command does. Whatever directory you issued that command from now has a subdirectory called "core" which in turn has a subdirectory called "linux", which holds the PKGBUILD.

To answer your original question - it looks like open-vms will not work with recent kernels, but might with LTS. Vmware, in contrast, can be patched to work with more recent kernels.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-08-05 23:08:03)

Scimmia · 2013-08-05 23:07:50

The last command you ran from that page is what downloaded the PKGBUILD file.

Doesn't matter, though, from what Trilby's saying.

TrickyStumpy · 2013-08-05 23:07:56

@Trilby, yes I was wondering too. I have no real clue how to use that patch. It's frustrating.

Trilby · 2013-08-05 23:12:49

It seems vmware is a downloadable free of charge for personal use from vmware's website here. I gather the license restricts redistribution, which is why the AUR packages do not contain that source tarball.

But if you download the tarball from there, you should be able to use the aur pacakge vmware-patch which seems to include the patch you are discussing.

From you replies so far in this thread, however, I suspect you'll have to do some reading on how the AUR works and how to build and install AUR packages.

EDIT: wait - arch will be the guest OS, right? What is the host system? I suspect you'll have to get a package for the host OS, right?

Last edited by Trilby (2013-08-05 23:14:49)

TrickyStumpy · 2013-08-05 23:15:22

Ok, I found PKGBUILD now, I was just searching for pkgbuild with the wrong case. But there's no file called bridge.c to patch.

TrickyStumpy · 2013-08-05 23:25:14

@Trilby thanks, the patch should be for the guest, not for the host. The open-vm-tools is an optional software that runs on the guest OS. They are developed independently from VMware and they also have a different license from what I can tell. There's also an official version called VMware tools, but it doesn't support Arch

Last edited by TrickyStumpy (2013-08-05 23:27:38)

Scimmia · 2013-08-05 23:34:08

TrickyStumpy wrote:

Ok, I found PKGBUILD now, I was just searching for pkgbuild with the wrong case. But there's no file called bridge.c to patch.

1: There wouldn't be until you run makepkg to download the actual source. You just add the patch file to the PKGBUILD so that it gets patched after being downloaded, but
2: It sounds like you're going down the completely wrong path, anyway. You don't need to patch the kernel.

Trilby · 2013-08-06 00:08:02

What do you mean vmware tools doesn't support arch? There is a section in the wiki page about installing it. It doesn't use a license that allows it to be in the repos, but that doesn't mean you can't use it on your system.

I don't know enough about all of this to make productive edits, but the section of that wiki page you are following seems clearly flawed. The patch they link to is for vmware, not open-vms.

eilenbeb · 2013-08-10 11:47:55

I just found a hackish 'workaround' for the patching of vmware installer.
Sry, but the vmware tools, I haven't gotten that far yet.

Download & run the 'installer' from vmware. Launch it in a terminal, but it will fail to install.
When the installer asked if I wanted to remove the configurations, I killed the terminal.

You see, the vmware player installer is a bash script with a compressed archive stuck to the end of it.
By killing the terminal, the source files no one could find are -not- getting deleted after a failed install.

Sry, I don't remember the exact path for where they were extracted, but I downloaded and applied the patches there.
The method I used was as described in the vmware wiki directions.
(also, all the vmware binaries were still on the system)

Then I ran the vmware-modconfig line (as per the wiki) and vmplayer launched.

Only problem, the EULA didn't get installed where vmplayer expected it to be.
I had already agreed to it during the installation process, so I just created a dummy file and vmplayer works fine.

Hope that helps.

ps. 'man makepkg' There's a switch to download & extract so you can patch, and another to build without re-downloading.
...Or you could modify the PKGBUILD to add the patches on the fly.

Last edited by eilenbeb (2013-08-10 11:54:47)

oscillik · 2013-09-29 16:46:44

eilenbeb wrote:

I just found a hackish 'workaround' for the patching of vmware installer.
Sry, but the vmware tools, I haven't gotten that far yet.
Download & run the 'installer' from vmware. Launch it in a terminal, but it will fail to install.
When the installer asked if I wanted to remove the configurations, I killed the terminal.
You see, the vmware player installer is a bash script with a compressed archive stuck to the end of it.
By killing the terminal, the source files no one could find are -not- getting deleted after a failed install.
Sry, I don't remember the exact path for where they were extracted, but I downloaded and applied the patches there.
The method I used was as described in the vmware wiki directions.
(also, all the vmware binaries were still on the system)
Then I ran the vmware-modconfig line (as per the wiki) and vmplayer launched.
Only problem, the EULA didn't get installed where vmplayer expected it to be.
I had already agreed to it during the installation process, so I just created a dummy file and vmplayer works fine.
Hope that helps.
ps. 'man makepkg' There's a switch to download & extract so you can patch, and another to build without re-downloading.
...Or you could modify the PKGBUILD to add the patches on the fly.

I think you, along with many people in this thread so far, are getting confused.

This thread is not about getting VMware Workstation or VMware Player to run on an Arch Linux host machine, it is about getting open-vm-tools working in an Arch Linux guest that is running within a VMware virtual machine.

There is an open bug relating to open-vm-tools-dkms at the moment, but only 3 votes for it. If you can put your vote towards it, hopefully this issue will be resolved, since open-vm-tools seems to be dependent on open-vm-tools.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-08-05 21:45:52

Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#2 2013-08-05 21:58:02

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#3 2013-08-05 22:04:24

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#4 2013-08-05 22:20:51

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#5 2013-08-05 22:24:06

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#6 2013-08-05 22:43:35

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#7 2013-08-05 22:47:38

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#8 2013-08-05 22:53:11

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#9 2013-08-05 23:04:23

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#10 2013-08-05 23:06:31

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#11 2013-08-05 23:07:50

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#12 2013-08-05 23:07:56

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#13 2013-08-05 23:12:49

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#14 2013-08-05 23:15:22

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#15 2013-08-05 23:25:14

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#16 2013-08-05 23:34:08

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#17 2013-08-06 00:08:02

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#18 2013-08-10 11:47:55

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

#19 2013-09-29 16:46:44

Re: Is open-vm-tools no longer supported?

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