VMware Server 1.0.8 on openSUSE 11.1

I decided to upgrade my laptop system from almost "prehistoric" openSuSE 10.1 to the newest version 11.1. It was quite successful but I had to resolve an issue with VMware Server 1.0.8 which I am used to using in my work a lot.

The whole configuration process crashed on vmware kernel modules compilation. The kernel version in new openSUSE is 2.6.27.7. As there aren't precompiled modules for it within version 1.0.8 they need to be recompiled at first. Don't forget to have installed kernel-source, make, gcc and patch packages. Secondly, you need to configure installed kernel sources with make cloneconfig to correspond with the running kernel and platform. Finally, configure VMware Server installation. Everything follows here:

zypper in -y kernel-source make gcc patch
cd /usr/src/linux
make mrproper; make cloneconfig
vmware-config.pl

But the last command produces these errors:

Building the vmmon module.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.27.7-9-pae/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9-obj/i386/pae'
make -C ../../../linux-2.6.27.7-9 O=/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9-obj/i386/pae/. modules
CC [M]  /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/x86.h:20,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/machine.h:24,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:15,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/x86apic.h:79:1: warning: "APIC_BASE_MSR" redefined
In file included from include2/asm/fixmap_32.h:29,
              from include2/asm/fixmap.h:5,
              from include2/asm/apic.h:9,
              from include2/asm/smp.h:13,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/smp.h:28,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/topology.h:33,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/mmzone.h:687,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/gfp.h:4,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/kmod.h:22,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/module.h:13,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:12:
include2/asm/apicdef.h:134:1: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/machine.h:24,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.h:15,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:49:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/x86.h:830:1: warning: "PTE_PFN_MASK" redefined
In file included from include2/asm/paravirt.h:7,
              from include2/asm/irqflags.h:55,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/irqflags.h:57,
              from include2/asm/system.h:11,
              from include2/asm/processor.h:17,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/prefetch.h:14,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/list.h:6,
              from /usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9/include/linux/module.h:9,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:12:
include2/asm/page.h:22:1: warning: this is the location of the previous definition
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/vmhost.h:13,
              from /tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:71:
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/./include/compat_semaphore.h:5:27: error: asm/semaphore.h: No such file or directory
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:146: error: unknown field 'nopage' specified in initializer
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:147: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:150: error: unknown field 'nopage' specified in initializer
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:151: warning: initialization from incompatible pointer type
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c: In function 'LinuxDriver_Ioctl':
/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:1670: error: too many arguments to function 'smp_call_function'
make[4]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only] Error 2
make[2]: *** [sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.27.7-9-obj/i386/pae'
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only'
Unable to build the vmmon module.

The compilation of vmmon module crashed because of incompatibility between the kernel version and available vmmon module. The solution is to download updated version of modules vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2 and update them:

wget http://www.insecure.ws/warehouse/vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2.tar.gz
tar zxfv vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2.tar.gz
cd vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2
./runme.pl

This update updates all required modules and configuration script vmware-config.pl. After that, the compilation of vmmon module is successful and you can finish the configuration. I hope it will help you.