VMWare path to kernel issue

Dawid Laszuk published on June 03, 2013

2 min, 244 words

There is an issue with proper configuring of the VMWare on newer linux kernels. While running 'vmware-config.tools.pl', it may ask you for exact path to the kernel's headers as its default path is empty. The problem is that even though you pass the correct path it still cannot find it. The query looks like this:

Searching for a valid kernel header path... The path "" is not a valid path to the 3.8.0-23-generic kernel headers. Would you like to change it? [yes]

The solution depends on what linux distro (and version) you are using. For Ubuntu I've used commands like (source: link):

cd /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build/include/linux
sudo ln -s ../generated/utsrelease.h
sudo ln -s ../generated/autoconf.h
sudo ln -s ../generated/uapi/linux/version.h

Whereas for Fedora apparently it is (source: link):

Firstly, do a uname -a to see if your kernel version (the number, and PAE/not PAE) matches the kernel-devel installed. If not, that is where the problem lies.
 
 Do a YUM install for the kernel[.PAE] again to bring it up to the same version as the kernel-devel[.PAE].