VMware install and maintenance

How to install and maintain VMware Server. Typical tasks and solutions.

VMware Server 2 install on Ubuntu 8.10

How to install VMware Server 2 on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).

Go to the VMware download page. Make the registration for the free download, It provides two license keys: one for install on Linux host, the other one for MS. Download the TAR file for The core application needed to run VMware Server 2.

Then we need to install some Ubuntu packages in order to be able to compile the VMware code:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential xinetd

So we can untar and compile now:

tar xvfz VMware-server-*.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

It also uninstalls any prevoius version of VMware, if any.

During this process, say yes to accept defaults, except to this point:


The current administrative user for VMware Server is ''. Would you like
to specify a different administrator? [no]

Here says yes, and type one Ubuntu user, who has the sudo rights.

There is a VMware module, where we need to apply a path. Otherwise you get these warnings:

WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_CreateHnd" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_DestroyHnd" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
WARNING: "VMCI_GetContextID" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!
WARNING: "VMCIDatagram_Send" [/tmp/vmware-config0/vsock-only/vsock.ko] undefined!

Download this patch, apply it, then run the configurator once again.
vmware-config.pl.patch.txt

sudo patch /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl /home/doka/desktop/vmware-config.pl.patch.txt
sudo vmware-config.pl

Then open your browser, type: http://127.0.0.1:8222/, and you can log in with the user specified above.

Good luck!

VMware Server 2 install on Ubuntu 8.04

How to install VMware Server 2 on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS host server.

Go to the VMware download page. Make the registration for the free download, It provides two license keys: one for install on Linux host, the other one for MS. Download the TAR file for The core application needed to run VMware Server 2.

tar xvfz VMware-server-*.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

First, it uninstalls any prevoius version of VMware. Say yes to accept defaults, except to this point:

Your kernel was built with "gcc" version "4.2.3", while you are trying to use
"/usr/bin/gcc" version "4.2.4". This configuration is not recommended and
VMware Server may crash if you'll continue. Please try to use exactly same
compiler as one used for building your kernel. Do you want to go with compiler
"/usr/bin/gcc" version "4.2.4" anyway? [no]

Here answer yes!

The second point not to take the default is here:

The current administrative user for VMware Server is ''. Would you like
to specify a different administrator? [no]

Here says also yes, and type one Ubuntu user name with sudo rights.

Then open your browser, type: http://127.0.0.1:8222/, and you can log in with the user specified above.

Good luck!

VMware server install and configuration

How to install VMware Server 1.0 on Ubuntu, there are a lot's of good stuff out there:

You will need to have an Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition Live CD or an image file. Go to Ubuntu download section for download mirrors.

So after the install procedure of VMware, start your VMWare Server Console, and connect to your localhost. Go through the wizard of creating typical virtual machines. As guest operating system, take Linux and search for Ubuntu in the drop-down list.
NewVM-1.png

Name your system as appropriate (lamp would be a good choice, I'll call it 804Server). In the networking page, take the bridged networking, if you want to have internet access for the virtual machine with own IP address. Other options are also working fine, but some reading at VMware user manuals might be required. For the disk size, I used to change the default 8 GB to 4 GBs. It is the only change to the defaults during the install.

The disk creation takes some time, and then here we have a fresh virtual machine. Before firing it up, you can change the CD-ROM settings to point it to the Ubuntu 8.04 Server ISO image. Double click in the devices list on the CD-ROM, and browse for the ISO image. You can also delete the floppy drive here, we won't need it.
NewVM-4.png

And finally, power on the virtual machine. It will start the installation procedure of Ubuntu.

Click on the Server Console with your mouse, with CTR-ALT you can the cursor back from virtual machine. CTRL-ALT-Enter switches it to full screen mode, CTR-ALT brings you back.

VMware maintenance tasks

Some hints to VMware maintenance upgrades, new kernel versions, and so on.

Last update on 21.06.2008.

  1. Maintenance after Linux kernel upgrade

    2. There was an upgrade of Linux kernel to "2.6.22-15-generic", and after that my VMware has not been started. The reason is whenever a new kernel version comes along, like 2.6.22, VMware can have some trouble. Either you can dive in and resolve changes in includes,
    etc., or wait until the community reacts. In that case watch the vmkernelnewbies, where an update script has been maintained.

    So I downloaded the http://vmkernelnewbies.googlegroups.com/web/vmware-any-any-update-116.tgz script, unpacked and run. It really helps! For detailed command see: http://howtoforge.com/vmware-server-on-ubuntu8.04.
    It is written for Ubuntu 8.04, but worked me on Ubuntu 7.10.

  2. VMware server upgrade

    3. In my case it was from VMware Server 1.0.4. to 1.0.6 on Ubuntu Feisty. It runs as expected, but:

    1. Do not forget to cd to the install directory before running vmware-install.pl. This script does not run with absolute path.
    2. It uninstalls smoothly the previous version of VMware server, but keeps your old virtual machines
    3. For me works fine with all the default settings during the install, except networking, where I'm going only for bridged networking, so have set no for NAT and the other one

script to start and stop VM guests on VMware server

Even VMware server 2.0 has a nice web GUI on https://localhost:8333/, you can use scripts to start and stop VM guest directly from your terminal.

Before use, you have to set some hard coded parameters, like HOST_USER.


#!/bin/bash
# This script will start/stop/status VMware machine
#
# Written by Ez-Aton
# http://www.tournament.org.il/run
#
# Modified for VMware server 2.0 by doka@wepoca.net
# http://www.wepoca.net
#
#

# Hardcoded. Change to match your own settings!
# the VMware storage name
VMSTORAGE="[standard]"

# the VM guest to be started/stopped
VMGUEST="YOUR_GUEST_VM/YOUR_GUEST_VM.vmx"

# the URL of the VMware host
HOST="https://URL_OF_VMWARE_HOST:8333/sdk"

# admin user on VMware host
HOST_USER="YOUR_ADMIN"
HOST_PWD="ADMIN_PWD"

# the VMware script
VMRUN="/usr/bin/vmrun"
TIMEOUT=60

function status () {
# This function will return success if the VM is up
$VMRUN -T server -h $HOST -u $HOST_USER -p $HOST_PWD list | grep "$VMGUEST" &>/dev/null
if [[ "$?" -eq "0" ]]
then
echo "VM $VMGUEST is up"
return 0
else
echo "VM $VMGUEST is down"
return 1
fi
}

function start () {
# This function will start the VM
$VMRUN -T server -h $HOST -u $HOST_USER -p $HOST_PWD start "$VMSTORAGE $VMGUEST"

if [[ "$?" -eq "0" ]]
then
echo "VM $VMGUEST is starting"
return 0
else
echo "$VMGUEST VM failed"
return 1
fi
}

function stop () {
# This function will stop the VM
$VMRUN -T server -h $HOST -u $HOST_USER -p $HOST_PWD suspend "$VMSTORAGE $VMGUEST"
for i in `seq 1 $TIMEOUT`
do
if status
then
echo
else
echo "VM $VMGUEST Stopped"
return 0
fi
sleep 1
done
# $VMRUN stop "$VMGUEST" soft
$VMRUN -T server -h $HOST -u $HOST_USER -p $HOST_PWD stop "$VMSTORAGE $VMGUEST" soft
}

case "$1" in
start) start
;;
stop) stop
;;
status) status
;;
esac
RET=$?

exit $RET

The original script were found on http://www.tournament.org.il/run/?p=503