Building a custom Linux kernel causes VMware Tools to stop working

Question

I am compiling kernels for CentOS 6.10 in VMware Workstation. For some reason when I compile and boot a new kernel, VMware Tools stops working, or at least the shared folders feature does, which is the feature I am using to copy files between the VM and host machine.

CentOS is updated to the most recent updated kernel, which I am also compiling with rpmbuild as stock with no modifications other than defining buildid in kernel.spec to differentiate it.

I am installing the kernel RPM as well as the kernel-firmware RPM. The kernel boots perfectly fine and everything appears to work other than VMware Tools.

Does anyone know why VMware Tools stops working when building a custom (unmodified) stock kernel?

I have tried reinstalling VMware Tools. This makes no difference unless I am on some version of a stock kernel.

Answer 1

These tools, for vmware & virtualbox are built against the kernel source.

If you build a custom kernel, or upstream issues a new one, then these tools have to be rebuilt.

If you wish to run your custom kernel with vmware, then you will need to uninstall the upstream package, download the tools source from vmware, and then build & install it yourself.