I started with an HP DL380 G4 – dual 3.4GHz Xeon single core 533MHz bus, 4GB RAM, 6x 36.4GB SCSI in RAID5 (182GB available), 2U server. I then went on to install Debian 5.0 Server x32. If I ever want to run Wine or another program it’s generally still easier to run 32bit software. That and I only have 4GB RAM anyway.
So then I wanted to install VMWare Server 2.0.1 for Linux. The exact file name and version: 2.0.1-156745.i386.tar.gz. Why not ESXi? While ESXi is also free and a hyperadvisor, there seems to be a lot more overhead in terms of administration and setup – that and I can’t figure out how to speed up the transfer of virtual machines over the network. AND we already have several other servers running VMWare Server so we can still use the linux side for internal sites.
I knew it would be a challenge so I was ready for whatever I needed to do. Running this same setup on CentOS took less than half the time. However, CentOS has a much larger footprint and takes noticeably longer to install. And now that I have the steps required, I think I shall use Debian more often. Apt-get > Yum. Nano > vi.
I’m assuming that you have a fully installed Debian server here and you have at least a little knowledge of linux. Most of the steps do not require me to let you know what’s going on. I always run the install as the root user (su), so you can add sudo to all the commands if you so desire.
I’m also assuming that you went to www.vmware.com, clicked on Products, then on Server (Free). You’ll have to sign up for an account before you can download, but that’s easy enough. Download the appropriate file, in my case it’s 2.0.1 32bit linux server NON-RPM.
First gunzip and de-tar our file:
tar xzvf VMware-server-2.0.1-156745.i386.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
Then we need to grab the prerequisites:
apt-get install libx11-6 libx11-dev libxtst6 xinetd wget
Notice that these are NOT quotes or apostrophes. Very important step BTW.
apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential
apt-get install binutils-doc make manpages-dev autoconf automake1.9 libtool flex bison gdb
apt-get install gcc
This will remove a “setup is unable to find the ‘killall’ program” error.
apt-get install psmisc
Might as well do some housecleaning and make sure everything is up to date.
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
Now you can run the installer:
./vmware-install.pl
If the installer complains about the gcc kernel version:
Your kernel was built with “gcc” version “4.1.3”, while you are trying to use “/usr/bin/gcc” version “4.3.2”. This configuration is not recommended and VMware Server may crash if you’ll continue.
Blah blah blah.
First, show all the installed versions of GCC:
ls -l /usr/bin/gcc*
Which spits out the following:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 2009-05-06 09:17 /usr/bin/gcc -> gcc-4.3
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 196996 2009-01-18 09:39 /usr/bin/gcc-4.1
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 207648 2008-12-31 06:52 /usr/bin/gcc-4.3
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16288 2009-01-18 09:37 /usr/bin/gccbug-4.1
You can see that the gcc command is linked to version 4.3. Let’s link it back to 4.1 so vmware can stop complaining.
su -
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.1
Then rerun vmware-config.pl
You will see that the compiler will now use GCC 4.1, which just so happens to be the same version that was used to compile the kernel. No more complaints! Yay!
Basically follow the wizard the remaining steps and you should be fine. The above should save you quite a bit of time, frustration, and … if you’re a consultant it’ll make you look good.
https://IP_OF_SERVER:8333/ui will then allow you to login using the information provided during setup of the server/setup of VMWare.