Install open-vm-tools on Debian 4.0 (Etch)

Sep 182008

VMware Inc. released an OpenSource version of their VMware-Tools, called open-vm-tools. While they're quite easy to install on Gentoo (emerge open-vm-tools), it's not that easy having them installed on a Debian Etch (4.0) if you want to go the proper way.

Note: It is important to keep the order of this steps as written below – otherwise your network will be disabled! Make sure you’re executing this steps locally and not via an SSH session, as the network connection will be interrupted at the end when loading the modules!

Add the etch-backports repository to your sources.list

#echo "deb http://www.backports.org/debian etch-backports main contrib non-free" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

Update your local repository cache using the following command

#apt-get update

Install some prerequisites for building the kernel modules provided by open-vm-source

#apt-get install build-essential autotools-dev libdumbnet-dev libgtk2.0-dev libicu36-dev libpam0g-dev libproc-dev libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxtst-dev linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Install open-vm-source

#apt-get install open-vm-source

Run the package build process using ‘modules assistant’

#m-a open-vm

Install the generated modules

#m-a install open-vm-source

Now install the open-vm-tools

#apt-get install open-vm-tools

Restart your network interface(s)

#/etc/init.d/networking restart

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arcimboldo

Actually you need to install just module-assistant (apt-get install module-assistant) and then run m-a a-i open-vm
Module-assistant will install all the needed software and will build the required modules.

It could be useful, also, to install the repository GPG key by issuing the command

apt-get install debian-backports-keyring
Chris

This procedure is not working on my debian 5, i get, and still get the same err on stage2:

Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST 1 modules
CC /usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmhgfs/vmhgfs.mod.o
LD [M] /usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmhgfs/vmhgfs.ko
make[4]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.26-1-amd64′
cp -f vmhgfs.ko ./../vmhgfs.o
make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmhgfs’
/usr/bin/make -C modules/linux/vmmemctl
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make[3]: Entering directory `/usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl’
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.26-1-amd64/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[4]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.26-1-amd64′
CC [M] /usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl/backdoorGcc64.o
CC [M] /usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl/os.o
/usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl/os.c: In function ‘os_init’:
/usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl/os.c:553: error: ‘struct proc_dir_entry’ has no member named ‘get_info’
make[5]: *** [/usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl/os.o] Error 1
make[4]: *** [_module_/usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl] Error 2
make[4]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.26-1-amd64′
make[3]: *** [vmmemctl.ko] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/modules/open-vm/modules/linux/vmmemctl’
make[2]: *** [build] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/modules/open-vm’
make[1]: *** [binary-modules] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/modules/open-vm’
make: *** [kdist_build] Error 2
http://dimmeria.com chris hiestand

Run a m-a clean open-vm