Comments on How To Install VMware Server 2 On An Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop

I found the step-by-step guidance to be excellent.  Sure saved my arse from a lot of grief!

Hi, don`t pay attention to that comments, these people are fanatics that do more harm to opensource than help, that kind of agressive attitude scare potential new user, that kind of attitude make that companies like adobe don`t port their app like CS 2 to linux, offensive and unobjetive comments, that is what this fanatics do, and they are the responsibles that linux is relegated to advanced users only.

I would like to see these fanatics working for free? and do go telling people to stop using linux.

Opensource can and must work hand to hand with commercial software.

Excellent how to, keep going

Actually these guys, that work with Linux, make pretty good money. Where do you usually do your salary research? I guess you have old sources only.

 And, please, if you don't like Linux, don't come to this great source of information.

Best regards,

Gui

Did anyone read the EULA that they make you agree to before you can download Vmware Server 2.0? ... Guess not.

-- The "license key" has an expiration date.

--  It is for an "evaluation license".

That alone is reason to use VirtualBox instead.

JMHO, YMMV, VWToP

The license key is limited in time only for the beta/RC releases ! No problem with the GA version.

I use vmware server 2 since beta2,  and I never had any license problem. You just need to upgrade after each new release and everything is fine.

Hi ! I have installed VMWare server on Ubuntu 8.04 and I have created a Virtual Machine but I cannot see no console, no VMWare button, button 'play' above doesn't work ... what can I do to start Virtual machine ?

But, Virtualbox is hecka slow. At least with a Windows 98 client. Which is why I'm glad this guide is here.

No, It's people like you that need to grow up.  Cracks me up that people go to their job, complain that they don't make enough then complain that other proprietary company's shouldn't charge for their software.  Try working for free and see how you like it.

you said VMware Server 2 does not have a desktop application for managing virtual machines.

did you know you can use  VMWare Infrastructure Client to connect to your vmware web server?

 thats what I am doing.

yes just use als host Server-IP:8333 then it works with the Infrastructure Client 2.5 --> this is downloadable on every Server 2.0 installation via this link https://Server-IP:8333/client/VMware-viclient.exe

In fact, thanks to vmware server, people who wants to work with open source OS but has to work with propietary OS like Windows can do it now without having to renounce to their loved free system. I don't see the problem in using a propietary application if you have to run a propietary system anyway.

I'm so tired of these howtos that show people how to bastardize their freedom-granting operating system with proprietary bits. Get a clue please

Guess what....some us use the VM's to run other Linux distros or new versions of distros! Imagine that I am using it to test out Debian 5.0, Linux KMint Felicia, CentOS.... Some times you have to bite the bullet and understand that some companies will never ever create a linux version till there is a single linux distro they can say is Linux, just like another OS.

Thanks so much for these instructions. I was struggling to get this new VMware Server 2 working, but I followed the instructions here and it worked. Keep up the good work!

And to those who say that how-to pages are wasted, just remember, everyone needs to learn how to do something. Just imagine if your parents had never taught you how to do a poo.

I'm very glad that there are people like that,who can share their knowledge with others for nothing. I think that they deserve to earn money for commercial support and adds (hope they don't get to commercial tho). I'd like to thank You all for the big help You are giving others. Thanks to You Linux is getting more popular and stronger by the minute.

If you don't want a root password like the Ubuntu default, you can run sudo vmware-config.pl and just specify your username as the administrator when it gets to that part

Despite some of the negative comments posted, I would like to say thanks for the current and helpful howto. As a Windows administrator looking to broaden my horizons it is really good to see excellent content such as this to assist with the transition.

Many Thanks and keep up the great work :)

Por si os interesa tengo el manual de “Instalación de VMware Server 2 en Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex”, es similar a este y aunque trae un detalle adicional.
http://www.elleonplateadodeojosrojos.es/blog/vmware-server-2

Hi ! I have create Virtual machine, but cannot enter to its console and there isn't shortcut to VMware on Ubuntu desktop and menues. What can I do ?

I'm trying a slightly different approach. I'm testing out VMware with several distributions. I've installed it on a Centos 5.2 machine with no problem, but where I've come across a problem is with Ubuntu 8.04 server. I've downloaded the tar, extracted it and run the vmware-installer. At a certain point it runs the vmware-config and it tells me the following

None of the pre-built vmmon modules for VMware Server is suitable for your
running kernel.  Do you want this program to try to build the vmmon module for
your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [no] yes

Using compiler "/usr/bin/gcc". Use environment variable CC to override.

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]

With an earlier installation I said yes. It compiled properly, but when I created a vm of CENTOS 5.2, the installation went flawlessly, but when it rebooted, it go stuck running udev on the boot up. I let it run all night (it was late and I figured it might just be slow), it remained stuck.

When I installed on Centos 5.2, I had no problem, created various vm's, Window xp, Windows Vista, Centos and Ubuntu, and all installed and ran perfectly.

My system is a 64 quad, and I installed ubuntu 8.04 64bit along with Vmware 2 64 bit 

It's

linux-headers-`uname -r`

not

linux-headers-'uname -r'

I found that linux-headers-'uname -r' didn't work on my server but linux-headers-$(uname -r) did.

I was able to follow the tutorial with hardly any problems. The pictures  are excellent.

The only problem I had was with the console. I accepted the certification. But I got a blank vmware console; so, I just used HTTP insteade of HTTPS and everything showed up. I will use some of the time saved using the tutorial to find out why HTTPS did not fully function. Thanks!

My server was working fine until I rebooted it...  Spent a day trying to work out why my samba shares, webmin, vmware console, fuppes apps  all stopped being accessible from my local network PCs.

Turns out it was ufw (guess it's Ubuntu Firewall).

 Googling an answer for hours gave me this:

If your firewall is disabled, your output would look like this:

$ sudo ufw status
Firewall not loaded

If your firewall is enabled but has no rules, it might look like this:

$ sudo ufw status
Firewall loaded

It’s possible, though, that your firewall is set to deny all packets by default even if it doesn’t list any rules. A good way to test whether a firewall is in the way is to simply disable ufw temporarily if it is enabled and see if you can connect:

$ sudo ufw disable

On the other hand, if you had a firewall rule that blocked port 80, it might look like this:

$ sudo ufw status
Firewall loaded

To           Action   From
--           ------   ----
80:tcp       DENY     Anywhere

 I turned off the Firewall with sudo ufw disable and HEY PRESTO! everything works...  Don't actually remember installing ufw - but hey ho - I will now work out how to enable it and allow all my programs to work behind it.  Good luck...

Thank you very much for this tutorial! 

Your instructions are perfect I am just getting into ubuntu and the step by step procedures are great.

Thank you 

Thank you for this excellent howto.

I followed it, as others for different versions of VMware server and Linux Kernels (Debian and Ubuntu versions), but there is still one problem :

If I add another datastore that's not located in the default location (/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines) but let's say pointing to "/vm" (having drwxrwxrwx rights for root/root, and root beeing the VMware admin), it gets impossible to browse this datastore for iso files (to simulate CDROM drive), and also impossible to create a VM in it.

When browsing to this other datastore, the webadmin keeps searching for a while, and then crashes with an "http 0" error ...

I wonder if anyone did ever try to put his VM's in another location with success ?

Had this trouble in Debian 5.0.3 (kernel 2.6.26-2-686) and Debian 4.0r8 etch'n'halt (kernel 2.6.24-etchnhalf.1-686) ...

Also, I ever tried that on a clean fresh OS install, in order to not have other software causing incompatibility ...

cannot login from https://ip:8333 and http://ip:8222 no page is diplay. using http://ip works fine.

 Vmware2 is install:

 Starting VMware services:

   Virtual machine monitor                                             done

   Virtual machine communication interface                             done

   VM communication interface socket family:                           done

   Virtual ethernet                                                    done

   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0                                   done

   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1 (background)                    done

   DHCP server on /dev/vmnet1                                          done

   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet8 (background)                    done

   DHCP server on /dev/vmnet8                                          done

   NAT service on /dev/vmnet8                                          done

   VMware Server Authentication Daemon (background)                    done

   Shared Memory Available                                             done

Starting VMware management services:

   VMware Server Host Agent (background)                               done

   VMware Virtual Infrastructure Web Access

Starting VMware autostart virtual machines:

   Virtual machines                                                    done

The configuration of VMware Server 2.0.2 build-203138 for Linux for this

running kernel completed successfully.