VMware Tools Uninstaller in Ubuntu Guest Does Not Remove vmxnet Module

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When you run the vmware-uninstall-tools.pl script to uninstall VMware Tools from an Ubuntu guest operating system, the script might fail to remove the vmxnet module. The failure exhibits no symptom at the time of the uninstallation, but if you try to install VMware Tools again, the installer will be unable to install the vmxnet module. A second attempt to install VMware Tools gives the following error message:

None of the pre-built vmxnet modules for VMware Tools is suitable for your running kernel. Do you want this program to try to build the vmxnet module for your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [yes]

Environment

VMware ESXi 3.5.x Embedded
VMware ESX Server 3.5.x
VMware ESXi 3.5.x Installable

Resolution

As a workaround, use the following command to remove the vmxnet module manually after running vmware-uninstall-tools.pl :

 

rmmod vmxnet

Note: To make this change persistent across reboots. Append "rmmod vmxnet" to /etc/rc.local script.