vmware player won't run on CentOS due to missing /dev/vmmon, what could be the problem?

Question

So I've tried installing vmware player 3.1.4 and 3.1.3 and both times had the same problem, when I try to load a VM I get the error "Could not open /dev/vmmon". When I ls /dev/ I can see there is no "vmmon" device present. When I try running:

sudo /etc/init.d/vmware start

I get the output:

Starting VMware services:
  VMware USB Arbitrator                                   [  OK  ]
  Virtual machine monitor                                 [FAILED]
  Virtual machine communication interface                 [  OK  ]
  VM communication interface socket family                [  OK  ]
  Blocking file system                                    [  OK  ]
  Virtual ethernet                                        [FAILED]

which shows that the Virtual Machine Monitor fails to load. I tried following the advice on this site and ran

vmware-modconfig --console --install-all

I notice during the compilation there are no errors, but at the end I get the message:

Starting VMware services:
   VMware USB Arbitrator                                   [  OK  ]
   Virtual machine monitor                                 [FAILED]
   Virtual machine communication interface                 [  OK  ]
   VM communication interface socket family                [  OK  ]
   Blocking file system                                    [  OK  ]
   Virtual ethernet                                        [  OK  ]
Unable to start services

Out of curiousity I tried:

sudo /sbin/insmod /lib/modules/2.6.18-238.9.1.el5xen/misc/vmmod.ko

But got the error message:

insmod: error inserting 'vmmon.ko': -1 Invalid module format

I have a feeling this may be the root of the problem, but I don't know what could be causing it or how to fix it.

Answer 1

I run it on opensuse, you have to run this to build the kernel modules

/usr/bin/vmware-modconfig --icon=vmware-player --appname=VMware --gcc=/usr/bin/gcc --headers=/lib/modules/3.1.0-1.2-desktop/build/include --gcc-ignore-minor

you may need to adjust for your setup,

If remember correctly you need, Make, kernel-devel, gcc. maybe more, it will also tell you when you run the command that it has made a log file and that can be key to finding out what dependency's you need.

Answer 2

I can't speak for VMWare, but when installing VirtualBox you have to compile the kernel modules. If you, for instance, don't have the Linux Kernel Source on your CentOS system, or at least the headers IIRC, it won't be able to compile the module and you'll get exactly what you're seeing here.

Be sure you have the required CentOS packages installed, then download and reinstall Player and you should be good to go.

EDIT: also, you'll need the packages required to compile kernel modules, e.g. gcc, make.