VMware Server 1.0.7 on Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid” (2.6.27-7-generic)

By | 2008/11/01

UPDATE: These instructions should work for VMware Server 1.0.8 an the 2.6.27-8 kernel as well.

Based on a request in the Ubuntu Tutorials Forum I spent some time this morning researching VMware Server on the new Ubuntu 8.10 release.  Google was quickly helpful, and I was able to get VMware Server 1.0.7 running on a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid”.  Here are the steps I took toward getting this installed and working.

Download the dependencies and components

You’ll need to, of course, download the VMware Server .tar.gz file.  This can be done using this command:

wget -c http://download3.vmware.com/software/vmserver/VMware-server-1.0.7-108231.tar.gz

There is also a patch to get this to compile properly.  VMware has regularly been guilty of not keeping up with the latest kernels.  This patch will help correct this problem:

wget -c http://www.insecure.ws/warehouse/vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2.tar.gz

And the one last thing we’ll need are the compiler tools, which can be installed using this command (or click the package name to use aptURL):

sudo aptitude install build-essential linux-kernel-headers xinetd

Now that we have all of the dependencies and archives downloaded we can unpack them.  In the same location where you downloaded the .tar.gz files (likely your home folder or Desktop), run the following command:

tar xf vmware-update*.tar.gz
tar xf VMware-server*.tar.gz

Installing VMware Server 1.0.7 + patch

We’ll now start the installation.  First we need to install the core vmware application.  We’ll then patch the configuration script, and configure the system.

cd vmware-server-distrib/
sudo ./vmware-install.pl

On my installation I used the defaults until it asked me if I’d like to run the vmware-config.pl configuration script.  At this point select [no].

Once this has finished and you’ve quit at the configuration option, use these commands to patch the config:

cd ../vmware-update*/
sudo ./runme.pl

This script will patch the configuration and then again ask you to run the vmware-config.pl configuration script.  This time around select [yes].  On my installation I selected the defaults for the remaining questions and my installation works fine.

Good luck.  Any issues, give the Ubuntu Tutorials Forum a try.

49 thoughts on “VMware Server 1.0.7 on Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid” (2.6.27-7-generic)

  1. ubu-fan

    Does anyone knows if this tutorial works for VMWARE SERVER 1.0.6
    I’d rather use 1.0.6 because i hate the Browers UI in 1.0.7 an 1.0.6 works better with my PC.

  2. Christer Edwards Post author

    @ubu-fan – The UI in 1.0.7 is the same as 1.0.6. The major UI change took place in 2.x, which I agree is not my favorite.

  3. Aguba

    I Followed the steps and everything was going well until this happened.

    gcc: error trying to exec ‘cc1plus’: execvp: No existe el fichero ó directorio
    make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/common/task.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only] Error 2
    make[1]: se sale del directorio `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic’
    make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
    make: se sale del directorio `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only’
    Unable to build the vmmon module.

    For more information …

    Execution aborted.

  4. ubu-fan

    @ chris edwards
    Guess i got a bit mixed up with the versions;
    thnx for the info, i will be upgrading to 1.0.7

  5. DannO

    @ubu-fan – It looks like the patch worked fine with my VMware 1.0.6. Just in case you didn’t want to upgrade yet.

  6. Straps

    Worked for me without changes, thanks

  7. fatpunk2

    Super tutorial, 1.0.7 works fine for me (except my “fingers bug” when entering serial lol)

  8. Sam

    I followed these instructions with clean install of Ubuntu 8.10. Vmware Server 1.0.7 was installed and I can open it and run VMs unfortunately the only nagging glitch is that my Control-Alt-Delete-Super keys and Up/Down/Left/Right keys have been mismatched somehow. The keyboard mapping is NOT correct. However the QWERTY alphabet keys seem OK. This presents an issue when logging at the Windows login prompt. I can still use the Menu option for “Send Ctrl+Alt+Del”, but trying to use keyboard shortcuts inside the Guest VM is subsequently affected. How to get around this? Did a websearch but did not find solution. HELP! Please email me if you have suggestions.

  9. Sam

    Forgot to mention in previous post. My email is:
    [email protected]

    Please email with suggestions or feedback. No spam please!

  10. Ian Weydert

    YES, thank you so much! This worked perfectly with VMware Server 1.0.8 on my end. Thank you thank you thank you!

  11. Art

    I just upgraded from 8.04 to 8.10 and had to fix vmware.

    This tutorial worked great, thanks!

  12. Lee

    thanks a lot. The tutorial is perfect. Installed Vmware1.07 without any glitches –
    One query though –
    I get a message on the bottom left bar saying -You have not installed vmware tools

    – any idea how to install these

  13. Bruno Gonçalves

    Thanks for this guide, now it works fine.

  14. Willie

    Thank you -simple straightforward instructiuons – and they worked perfectly:-)

  15. rlsimpso

    This worked for me. Thanks for the instructions and the explanation.

  16. Fishstick

    This worked for me, but I am getting kernel panics (total freeze, flashing capslock/scroll lock) after a while of running vmware in the background, seemingly for no reason.

  17. bart

    I did follow the setup in the same manner and the complete installation went fine. It was a perfect walk through but when I tried to start Vmware I got the following message.

    /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libgio-2.0.so.0: undefined symbol: g_thread_gettime

    Its trouble cause there is only little that I can do sitting 1000 miles away and controlling a Headless Remote linux server. Is there anything that I could do to get this error fixed and VM working??
    Appreciate all the help

  18. cherryjello

    For any experiencing the issue posted by Aguba on November 3rd, 2008 as I was:
    ===========
    gcc: error trying to exec ‘cc1plus’: execvp: No existe el fichero ó directorio
    make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/common/task.o] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only] Error 2
    make[1]: se sale del directorio `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic’
    make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
    make: se sale del directorio `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only’
    Unable to build the vmmon module.

    For more information …

    Execution aborted.
    =============
    comments from: http://www.insecure.ws/2008/10/20/vmware-specific-specific-55x-and-kernel-2627

    indicate to run
    sudo apt-get install g++ build-essential

    to grab the compiler. This resolved my issues.

  19. Isaac

    Hello,

    Great tutorial, even though there Still have a little problem, let me explain my situation, I have a dual boot with Ubuntu 8.10 and Windows XP Pro since I use the same virtual machine, In both systems, I have the virtual machine in a NTFS partition, now here is my problem, every time I try to start the VM from Ubuntu I get a black screen for like 5 seconds and then it shuts down, I believe is the same problem since Ubuntu 7.10 that VMware tries to use shared writeable map for paging files but it can’t detect that because is not yet supported. the work around I been using is:

    mainMem.useNamedFile=FALSE

    And so far is been working for me, Until I upgrade to 8.10, I think I’ll be going back to 8.04 but before I do that, I really want to make sure there is not a workaround for this, any way, thank you for your time, bye bye.

  20. Steve

    FWIW – This procedure works fine using VMware Server 1.0.8 on x86-64. The only difference was that I fetched VMware-server-1.0.8-126538.tar.gz instead of the 1.0.7 tarball. I used the same patch.

  21. Graham

    I got an error following this that says it has to rebuild the vmon module for my system.

    It then can’t find the C header files.

    And when I try to install the linux-headers, I get this:

    Couldn’t find package linux-headers-2.6.27-4-server

  22. Phoenix

    Very good.
    I am here with the Ubuntu FF and worked perfectly.

    Tks!

  23. kazoolist

    This was extremely helpful in getting VMWare Server 1.0.8 running under Intrepid (8.10). After doing this, like Sam, I had problems with my key mappings and couldn’t use control-alt-delete and after enough random key pressing VMWare Console would actually randomly close on me.

    Following this guide: http://nthrbldyblg.blogspot.com/2008/06/vmware-and-fubar-keyboard-effect.html resolved my key mapping issues. I had to use “Solution 2”, but now all is well.

    Thanks!

  24. Paul Terry Walhus

    Well it almost worked till I got this error message

    What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
    kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include]

    The path “/usr/src/linux/include” is not an existing directory

  25. Pascal van Doorn

    Paul Terry, you must install the linux headers.

  26. Dimitri

    I’m trying to install VMware Server 1.0.7 on a fresh install of Ubuntu 8.10.
    I Followed the steps and everything was going well until this happened :

    Before running VMware for the first time after update, you need to configure it
    for your running kernel by invoking the following command:
    “/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl”. Do you want this script to invoke the command for
    you now? [no] yes

    The correct version of one or more libraries needed to run VMware Server may be
    missing. This is the output of ldd /usr/bin/vmware:
    linux-gate.so.1 => (0xb7fb9000)
    libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libm.so.6 (0xb7f73000)
    libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libdl.so.2 (0xb7f6f000)
    libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0 (0xb7f55000)
    libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb7e66000)
    libXtst.so.6 => not found
    libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb7e57000)
    libXt.so.6 => not found
    libICE.so.6 => not found
    libSM.so.6 => not found
    libXrender.so.1 => not found
    libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0xb7e40000)
    libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb7ce2000)
    /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7f9f000)
    libxcb-xlib.so.0 => /usr/lib/libxcb-xlib.so.0 (0xb7cde000)
    libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0xb7cc5000)
    libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0xb7cc2000)
    libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb7cbd000)

    This program cannot tell for sure, but you may need to upgrade libc5 to glibc
    before you can run VMware Server.

    Hit enter to continue.

    Can some one help please.

  27. Alfredo

    Dimitri, what don’t you understand of that log? It is showing the problem and giving you the solution…

  28. rcaballe

    All was good up to:
    In which directory do you want to install the documentation files?
    [/usr/bin/doc/vmware] /usr/bin/doc

    The path “/usr/bin/doc” does not exist currently. This program is going to
    create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
    [yes] y

    Unable to get the access rights of source file “./vmware-vix/bin”.

    Execution aborted.

    can anybody help me?

  29. Jakub

    execution aborted…

    the same error like like user Aguba and others…

  30. Mateus Menezes

    Some cases to follow error: This program cannot tell for sure, but you may need to upgrade libc5 to glibc
    before you can run VMware Server.

    You need to use this: apt-get install libx11-6 libxtst6 libxext6 libsm6 libxrender1 libxt6

    And

    apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

  31. Kord Campbell

    For those of you missing your header files:

    sudo aptitude -y install xinetd build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` ia32-libs libc6-i386

  32. Martin

    This tutorial is excellent…thank you so much!!!

  33. nine

    This also works with 8.10 / 1.0.8

  34. Lalit

    Thanks..
    It works fine for me.
    I appreciate it.

  35. carlos seara

    works on 2.6.27.11 64 bits

    uname -a
    Linux carlos2-pk5se 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Thu Jan 29 19:28:32 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

    tanks

  36. Mark

    Fantastic. Thanks.

    Works with VMware Server 1.0.9 and Linux kernel 2.6.27-11-server too.

    If you are interested in getting MUI going you need to edit httpd.vmware and fix a problem with trap (due to bash vs. dash) issues.

    Line 226:
    From:
    (trap '' SIGHUP; "$func" "$@") >/dev/null 2>&1
    To:
    (trap '' 1; "$func" "$@") >/dev/null 2>&1

  37. Newbie

    Hello to everybody. I cant add serial number in /help/eneter seria lnumber
    The programm return message: You do not have permission to enter a serial number. Please try again using system administrator account-

    Please help. May i add serial number in Terminal ?
    Many 10x in advance=

  38. Newbie

    Fixed. I just rerun instalattion and put the seria l number 🙂

  39. Streetbiker

    There is some problem with using this patch vmware-update-2.6.27-5.5.7-2.tar.gz with vmware server. The patch was apparently designed for vmware workstation 5.5. My experience was that when I successfully installed vmware 1.0.9 server on my ubuntu 9.04 jaunty it installed "ok" (though not by any means a normal install – many warnings) but moreover the key mappings are messed up somehow: when I went to create a Centos 4.7 vm in the vmware server 1.0.9 it got caught in an endless loop at media check – the buttons "pressing themselve" (heh it was pretty funny) no way to stop it…I verified that my centos .iso files were ok by doing the same vm install on Virtual Box. Beware of using this patch for vmware server. There are things in it that are not fully working right. G

  40. nutznboltz

    DId you run the "runme.pl" script a second time like you have to? The first time some binary doesn't have the version number yet and guesses wrong.

  41. Von

    This patch worked for me for both 1.0.8 and 1.0.9 on Ubuntu 9.0.4: Linux ubuntu-laptop 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

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