Bug 1215075

Summary: Kernel 6.4.12 breaks build of vmware modules
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE Tumbleweed Reporter: Markus Koßmann <markus.kossmann>
Component: KernelAssignee: openSUSE Kernel Bugs <kernel-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX QA Contact: E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 - None CC: tiwai
Version: Current   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: Other   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description Markus Koßmann 2023-09-06 15:00:34 UTC
The vmware modules from https://github.com/mkubecek/vmware-host-modules build fine with 6.4.9
But with 6.4.12 the build fails with 
tmp/modconfig-7XKYCP/vmnet-only/bridge.c:1413:11: error: implicit declaration of function ‘skb_gso_segment’; did you mean ‘tcp_gso_segment’? [-Werror=implicit-function-declaration]
1413 | segs = skb_gso_segment(skb, 0);
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
| tcp_gso_segment
/tmp/modconfig-7XKYCP/vmnet-only/bridge.c:1413:9: warning: assignment to ‘struct sk_buff *’ from ‘int’ makes pointer from integer without a cast [-Wint-conversion]
1413 | segs = skb_gso_segment(skb, 0);
| ^

The reason seems to be that 6.4.12 includes a backport of 
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/d457a0e329b0bfd3a1450e0b1a18cd2b47a25a08
which moves some declarations to a new net/gso.h header.

I don't think that such a change is appropiate for a stable kernel.

Of course it's OK for 6.5. And mkubeceks modules for 6.5 include the fix allready ( with an check for kernel 6.5 so that it doesn't work with 6.4 kernels) 
See also discussion on vmware communities :
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/Cannot-compile-vmnet-kernel-module-on-kernel-6-4-10/td-p/2982156
Comment 1 Takashi Iwai 2023-09-11 15:05:32 UTC
It's how the upstream stable tree is managed, and you have a different definition of "stable", as it seems...

TW kernel has already moved to 6.5.x, I suppose this is no longer relevant, and close the bug.  Feel free to reopen if the problem persists with 6.5.x kernel.