Berk Ulsoy

I was trying out new VMWare Server 2.0 for some time. It really has some nice features which I really miss. Check here for the list.
However, it has one big nasty problem:

It is totally unusable.

Right. I am not exaggerating. I am not trying to smash it. I wish I could say something better but it is really hard.

Just like everybody complains, this version does not have a management console client. This would not be a problem if the proposed method was working ok. Now, vmware server users have to use web browsers to manage their guests.

During first connection attempt, VMWare tries to install a plugin to your favourite web browser to get the console. The problem is, sometimes it takes a minute to get in to the console. If you are lucky enough, you can click a couple ofthings. If you press ctrl+alt to exit, you may again wait some time.

This is totally unacceptable. I installed the software on 3 different systems and all of them behaved similar. Then I decided to return to 1.0.8.
My systems are running 64-bit Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex 8.10.

Due to the changes in 2.6.27, VMWare Server 1.0.8 does not install by itself. In order to do, followings steps should be taken:

• Install g++ build-essentials linux-source-2.6.27 linux-headers-2.6.27-11-server ia32-libs inetutils-inetd kernel-package packages
• Get the patch:
  wget http://www.insecure.ws/warehouse/vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2.tar.gz
• Untar the vmware server archive and start the installation with vmware-install.pl. Answer the questions as you like but when it asks to continue with vmware-config.pl, say no
• Untar the update. Change directory to it, and run runme.pl. It will patch kernel modules and continue with vmware-config.pl
• If the installation fails after printing “Generating SSL Certificates”, touch /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key and /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.crt files
• Installation should finish without an error now. However you will be surprised when you see that you can not login via console, even if you enter correct password
  Intrepid Ibex changed the default password hashing algorithm from md5 to sha512 and PAM clients used by VMWare Server does not use sha512. Open /etc/pam.d/common-passwd and change sha512 in the password line to md5. Do not forget to reset your password to make sure that shadow contains md5, not sha512 hashes.

This should be enough, normall. If the system is 32 bit, it is also possible to use the systems own pam libraries instead of VMWare’s to be able to use sha512 passwords.

I hear some of you saying “Why don’t you just use KVM and say goodbye to all those ?” If you have to share the administration of the system, it is better to use a software that everyone can easily use. It should be admitted that, even there are GUIs for KVM, it is not as easy as VMWare and VMWare makes more people happy using non-critical/non-production systems. (I do not want to be called at Sunday just because that I am the only one who can manage KVM. Yes, I am bad )