vmware wireless bridge together with any-any update broken?

Beninem · n00b Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 5

I have emerged vmware-server (1.0.2.39867) and succesfully installed Windows XP as a guest on gentoo under a 2.6.19 kernel (host). Wired bridged networking works like a champ but the wireless bridge is driving me insane. I would really like to get the wireless bridge to work especially since it is supposed to work according to vmware (a new feature since workstation 5.5). I really do not want to use NAT networking unless it is really the only choice.

I'm noticing a rather disoncerting message in dmesg:

vmnet: You are trying to use wireless bridged networking together with
vmnet: vmware-any-any-update. This is not supported configration, and
vmnet: your wireless bridge will probably not work.

And in the guest OS I get no response from the virtual NIC, it gets an autoassigned address. (BTW the wireless works fine in the host, and yes I am running the vmnet-bridge)

(I also tried the vmware-workstation 5.5.3.34685 and vmware-player 1.0.2.39867 with the same results)

I took a peek at the ebuilds and sure enough it applies the any-any update, and the Changelog there seems to indicate that it was done for kernel compatibility. Are there good vmware/kernel version combinations that are known to work with wireless? What happens if I install without the any-any update? I guess we'll find out because that is what I'm about to do... Should I try upgrading to the 2.6.20 kernel first?

Any ideas?

Beninem · n00b Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 5

update:

been looking at the any-any package and it seems it is used to fake out the binary kernel modules that are shipped with vmware so they load nice to into any other kernel, thus the "any". And I found the nastygram that I am seeing in the dmesg... *sigh*

Do I have to use one of the supported kernels to get wireless bridging to work? It seems that the latest kernel that they support is a 2.6.16.21-0.8 SUSE Linux Enterprise Server... Do I have to go back??? Does anyone out there have wireless bridging working?

Beninem · n00b Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 5

Bad news: I posted to the VMware forums and the bottom line is that any-any breaks wireless bridging. The options are to use a supported kernel or a Windows host (ugh). What a pain.

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=81371&messageID=627324#627324

Can I simply revert back to a supported kernel? Again, does anyone have any experience with this? There has to be a way to get it to work without going to SuSe, RHEL, or some other inferior distro.

eisenmann · n00b Joined: 08 Jan 2006 Posts: 31

hello, i have found this file on a server http://knihovny.cvut.cz/ftp/pub/vmware/vmnet-wireless-fix-for-ws55.tar.gz i apply this patch to the vmware server but the problem is still the same. So i think this patch is only for the Workstation not for the VMware server version. Or i have make something wrong but in the readme is a good discription.