VMware Server & Ubuntu 10.04

Sunday, May 9. 2010

VMware Server & Ubuntu 10.04

Wow, what a ride. Upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS worked flawlessy, as always (hint: use aptitude -V dist-upgrade this time, it's a bit more sophisticated than

apt-get). But VMware Server 2.0.2 (i386) didn't like the new 2.6.32-22-generic-pae kernel too much. Lot's of warnings and the compilation errors were enough to look for solutions elsewhere. Finally, after hours of searching and trying, I propose 4 patches to be applied:



00-vmware-2.6.32_functional.diff - this one fixes the actual compile errors and has been provided by drgr33n back in October 2009.



01-vmware-2.6.32_cosmetic.diff - this one fixes (hides?) all the warnings. The patch is not mandatory (the modules will compile without it) but it makes it a lot easier to catch real error messages when it's applied. This patch is basically just implementing what rbihlmeyer proposed back in September 2009.



02-vmnet-include.diff - while we're at it: I noticed that in vmnet.tar all the header- and source-files were in one directory, while they're located in include/ resp. linux/ for all the other modules. Again, not mandatory, but it's a nice cleanup, maybe the VMware guys will pick it up.



vmware-config.pl.diff - and finally, vmware-config.pl needs to be patched, so that the vsock.ko module can use the symbols from vmci it requires, otherwise the module fails to build. Thanks again, drgr33n!




With all these patches applied, running vmware-config.pl should look like this. You can use this script to do all the patching for you (be sure to alter the DIR and PATCHES variables to your needs).



A few more notes on the whole VMware shebang:


In my case it helped to boot both the host and the guest with clocksource=acpi_pm, otherwise the clock would skew away. YMMV though.



In the /var/log/vmware/hostd.log logfile, the following error message can be seen:
      An error occurred while loading configuration "../vmware-server/lib/vmware/settings",
   not all entries are being read. It is strongly encouraged that you manually 
   inspect the file and fix any corruptions.
   
However, /opt/vmware-server/lib/vmware/settings does not even exist. VMware Server and its guests continue to run. Don't know what to make of this error yet...



As the old VMware console GUI has been discontinued, one is left with a Web GUI (https://server:8333). To access the actual console, one must install either vmware-vmrc-win32-x86.exe  (for IE, but install-privileges are needed) resp. vmware-vmrc-{win32|linux}-x86.xpi (for Firefox, user rights sufficient). Of course, the VMware vSphere Client can also be used to access the VMware installation, but one has to pay for it, IIRC.



            
            
            
                Posted by Christian
                                   in bits                
                                    at
                 21:18

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                    There is a vSphere (VIC) Client available with eSX4i.
You can just use the client, don't need the whole vCenter solution.
One limitation with using vSphere is that you can only create VMs with HW version 4, were the Web GUI can create them with HW version 7.
                
        
            #1
            
                            derchris
                        
                        on
            2010-05-13 02:32

                                        (Reply)
                
                    
    
    
    
        
                    Thanks for a great job!

I'm wondering if you have issues with connecting to the vmware network from the host computer. Seems vmware machines in my nat network are working fine, they can connect to external connections. But the host (normally on ip .1) seems fail to connect. Route table and ifconfig looks good, yet the arp lookup seems to fail. 

Or maybe this is just my new setup.
                
        
            #2
            
                            Stefan
                        
                        on
            2010-05-24 00:57

                                        (Reply)
                
                    
    
    
    
        
                    No, networking is fine so far. I can connect from/to the VMs and the hostsystem just fine. I haven't put much thought into the networking setup though. vmware-config.pl did its things and then it "just" worked.


Lately the vmware install I described so proudly (hah!) above is kinda unstable (lockups, not even a backtrace there) and I strongly suspect all the vmware-cruft to be the cause. But since the box has only two VMs I think I'll just move them to some other solution pretty soon (Virtualbox? Xen? Even vserver would suffice in my case) if the lockups won't stop...
                
        
            #2.1
            
                            Christian
                        
                            (Homepage)
                        on
            2010-05-24 01:11

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                    Ok, my vmnet setup is simple but i have rolled ubuntu on new hardware. 

I will try virtualbox for a change instead.
                
        
            #2.1.1
            
                            Stefan
                        
                        on
            2010-05-24 01:25

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                    A bit out of topic, but my tests with VirtualBox has been splendid. Everything packaged and works just perfect. Feels nice to use an gui application too as I ran my machine locally.
                
        
            #2.1.1.1
            
                            Stefan
                        
                        on
            2010-06-04 11:12

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                    I had to look around a bit to find where the "[vmware-modules-source directory]" directory is that's passed as a parameter to your script. Here's the directory that I used with Ubuntu 10.04 2.6.32-22-generic and VMWare Server 2.0.2 

/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/
                
        
            #3
            
                            Gene Wood
                        
                        on
            2010-06-04 10:30

                                        (Reply)
                
                    
    
    
    
        
                    The [vmware-modules-source directory] is located under whereever you've installed VMware in the first place. Normally it's "/usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/" as you mentioned. I installed VMware under /opt, so the source would be in "/opt/vmware-server/lib/vmware/modules/source/" :-)
                
        
            #3.1
            
                            Christian
                        
                            (Homepage)
                        on
            2010-06-04 11:05

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                    I also encoutered problems since my vmware module tar files had already been patched in previous efforts. This caused the patches to error out.

I restored my vmware module tar files from the vmware server distribution package

cp /path/to/vmware-server-distrib/lib/modules/source/*.tar orig/
                
        
            #4
            
                            Gene Wood
                        
                        on
            2010-06-04 10:59

                                        (Reply)
                
                    
    


                                

                
                
                

                
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