Fix for vmmon and vmnet problems in Arch and Debian based systems.

fix.md

Easiest way

• Disable Secure Boot
• And after rebooting, run the following:

sudo vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

Building and signing the kernel modules manually

• Generate key pair using openssl to authorize vmmon and vmnet modules:

# You can change MOK to your preferred name, although if you do make sure to type the same name at every step.

openssl req -new -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout MOK.priv -outform DER -out MOK.der -nodes -days 36500 -subj "/CN=VMware/"

• Now to sign the keys:

sudo /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/scripts/sign-file sha256 ./MOK.priv ./MOK.der $(modinfo -n vmmon)

sudo /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/scripts/sign-file sha256 ./MOK.priv ./MOK.der $(modinfo -n vmnet)

• Import the key into the kernel's module library:

mokutil --import MOK.der

# choose a password for the module enrolment

If previous method doesn't work

• Clone this github repo (switch version number to your vmware package versions)

git clone https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules.git
cd vmware-host-modules
git checkout -b workstation-17.5.0 origin/workstation-17.5.0
sudo make
sudo make install

• You might need to update the kernel and kernel headers before running sudo make install, so run the following commands

Arch:

yes | sudo pacman -S linux linux-headers
sudo reboot

Debian Based OSes:

sudo apt-get install linux linux-headers -y
sudo reboot

• After rebooting, run the following (from the cloned repo's directory):

sudo make install

• Reboot and it should be fixed.