How to install VMware Server on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon
I recently upgraded my laptop to Ubuntu 7.10 ‘Gutsy Gibbon’ from 7.04 ‘Feisty Fawn’ and needed to install VMware Server again. Since my previous post was very popular in helping people get VMware Server installed on Feisty, I thought I would do the same for Gutsy for those who are interested.
There are several prerequisites before we get started. We’ll need the following packages installed first:
- build-essential
- linux-headers-`uname -r`
- xinetd
Some people report having to have installed xorg-dev as well, but my system did not require it. Those who have needed to install it, says it fixed an issue with the installer failing to accept the serial number. I do not see the correlation between the two, since xorg-dev is the development libraries for Xorg X Windows system.
Anyways, we’ll need VMware Server (version 1.0.4) which you can download from VMware’s download site. Go ahead and grab the tar.gz or if you want, the VMware Server Linux client package that contains an additional Perl scripting and programming API’s. I just downloaded the VMware Server for Linux.
Extract the tar.gz and do as follows:
marcin@thinker:/vmware$ tar xfz VMware-server-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz
marcin@thinker:/vmware$ ls
VMware-server-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz vmware-server-distrib
marcin@thinker:/vmware$ cd vmware-server-distrib/
marcin@thinker:/vmware/vmware-server-distrib$ ls
bin doc etc FILES installer lib man sbin vmware-install.pl vmware-vix
vmware-install.pl is the installation script we will need to run with root privileges.
marcin@thinker:/vmware/vmware-server-distrib/$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
From here on, you can go ahead and accept the defaults for all options. You can view the output of the entire installation script as it went for me here. I did not run into any problems with installation except for the following, which is pretty obvious since if you read the paragraph earlier.
******** The VMware VmPerl Scripting API was not installed. Errors encountered during compilation and installation of the module can be found here: /tmp/vmware-config0 You will not be able to use the "vmware-cmd" program. Errors can be found in the log file: '/tmp/vmware-config0/control-only/make.log' ********
If everything installed correctly, you should see this (always welcome) message:
Starting VMware services: Virtual machine monitor done Virtual ethernet done Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0 done Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet2 done Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet8 (background) done NAT service on /dev/vmnet8 done The configuration of VMware Server 1.0.4 build-56528 for Linux for this running kernel completed successfully.
That’s all for now.. You can now run vmware from the terminal or from ‘the application launcher. If you have any questions or comments, please post a comment. If you’ve found this post useful and informative, Digg it!
it works,thx
Excellent tut. Worked like a charm. Thank you!
Glad it worked out for you two. If anyone is still having trouble or getting any errors, post a comment! Even if you didn’t have trouble and the install was successful, let others know. :)
I am getting an error when I try to install… I think it has to do with the headers. I could not find the linux-headers-`uname -r` but I installed all the other headers I saw. Still a no go. Here is the output at the error:
——————————————————————————————————-
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)? [yes]
Using compiler “/usr/bin/gcc”. Use environment variable CC to override.
What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/build/include]
Extracting the sources of the vmmon module.
Building the vmmon module.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only’
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic’
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o
In file included from /tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only/linux/driver.c:80:
/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘…’ before ‘compat_exit’
/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: error: expected declaration specifiers or ‘…’ before ‘exit_code’
/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only/./include/compat_kernel.h:21: warning: type defaults to ‘int’ in declaration of ‘_syscall1’
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only/linux/driver.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic’
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config4/vmmon-only’
Unable to build the vmmon module.
For more information on how to troubleshoot module-related problems, please
visit our Web site at “http://www.vmware.com/download/modules/modules.html” and
“http://www.vmware.com/support/reference/linux/prebuilt_modules_linux.html”.
Execution aborted.
——————————————————————————————————-
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
John
Did you go to VMware Knowledge Base, and get the “unsupported any-any patch?”
Give that a try. I ran into this problem with Feisty and by placing vmmon.tar and vmmnet.tar into /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/ and re-running vmware-install.pl fixed my problem.
See my Feisty VMware install post for more information as well.
I saw various people say you don’t need to install that…
You don’t need to if vmware-install.pl doesn’t encounter any errors while building the modules. This information is coming straight from VMware and worked to fix the exact same error when I encountered it while running Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.
I ran the patch, it completed successfully but it still does not work. I even tried saying no to building the vmmon module?? What to do now?
Works fine ;) I had a problem with the script detecting a previous install but I got rid of the problem by deleting /etc/vmware
Thanks
@Johnnyp, is the install script still returning the same error?
Oh, you don’t install linux-headers-`uname -r`. What that is, is when you run the following command
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
it installs the linux-headers for your kernel version. Open up a terminal and run
uname -r
On a default Ubuntu 7.10 install, it should return 2.6.22-14-generic. Thus, when you install the linux-headers, it should tack that onto your apt-get install command. In this instance, the command would return:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic
It didn’t do anything. Here is the output:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Any other ideas?
Okay, so I fixed it… Here is what I did:
Since the patch seemed to work fine, I ran it again and actually read the output… Gasp! Then I read the output from the VMware install script… Gasp X2! Anyway, it seemed like the VMware install was removing what the patch was doing so I ran vmware-install.py and when it got one step after it recreated the file structure at: /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/, I copied the three tar files from the patch to that source directory. Then I continued on with the vmware-install.py script and all went well!
I got the idea to do that from looking at your tutorial Marcin. The only difference I guess is that I had to wait for the install script to recreate the directory structure since it deletes what the patch creates??
Dont know what all of that stuff does but I know it works now! I am not completely new to Linux but I plan on using Ubuntu as my main OS now that I took the time to get the wireless card working. That and now I should be able to run Windows from the safety of Linux lol. Gutsy Gibbon has sucked me in! Thanks for your help Marcin!
John
Awesome dude, glad to hear it! Definitely take it slow when things aren’t working and take the time to check, double check and read through what’s happening.
At least you’ve probably learned more from this troubleshooting experience than who had no problems :)
Very true, I hate not knowing how things work so now I need to go get a book ;) Thanks again!
John
For a book on Linux, I would recommend A Practical Guide to Linux(R) Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming. I’ve been using Linux for several years now, and I learned a lot from reading that book earlier this year.
I will look into it, thanks. :)
I got vmware-server to install but I cannot get bridged networking to work. Anybody got any ideas where to look?
Thanks! The install went fine.
But I still can’t start vmware. There’s just no reaction at all.
Anyone has a solution for this?
@Anthony, what is the output from the install? Did setting up bridged networking go okay during installation? Have you tried setting an interface to bridged within the VMware Console?
@flip, start vmware from the terminal, what’s the output?
The output in the terminal is that vmware is installed, but it isn’t configured the right way. So I ran through the configuration again. At the end I saw what may have caused the problem. Because after this config I still wasn’t able to start vmware … same message.
After running the config VMware service are started. But Bridged networking failed.
vmnet0 is my bridged network and it is configured on my wireless nic. Is that a problem?
Install o.k. Thanks!
Just an update… I recently installed VMware on my desktop computer and I did not have to use the patch. Either they fixed that in the new version or something just worked right this time!
John
Has anyone run into vmware not launching after the install? All the steps in the installation ran fine for me but upon trying to launch it I see it in the app tray at the bottom and it then disappears. I’ve used VMWare Server on OpenSUSE and seen this happen at least once before. I thought it happened after updating the kernel and that I needed to re-run the install.pl but that didn’t fix it.
Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated.
Jason
My mistake… after taking a closer look I’m encountering the following error at the end of the install/config:
“Unable to get the last modification timestamp of the destination file /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key. Execution aborted.”
I’ve only found one forum where someone encountered this error and they were able to fix it by typing:
sudo touch /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.key
sudo touch /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.crt
Running this and then vmware-config.pl gets me further but upon the prompt for a serial number, none of my serial numbers work. I went ahead and requested additional new ones from vmware but had the same results.
kernal 2.6.22-14 VMware-server-1.0.4-56528
install fine but
running vmware server console crashes vmware-cmd errors any ideas?
Can you guys run vmware from the terminal? Post here what is outputted to the terminal when you run it.
e.g.
user@localhost:~$ vmware/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0: no version information available (required by /usr/lib/libcairo.so.2)
Same problem as Jason.
Touched the 2 files, now no serial numbers work at all.
I have the same problem as Jason. Any ideas?
Worked perfect! Thanks!
Umm…guys? There’s a commercial repository you can enable. Then it’s a simple matter or
sudo apt-get install vmware-server
or
sudo aptitude install vmware-server
Hey everyone when I try to install VMWare server on 7.10, I get this message in the terminal:
i ran the comand sudo apt get insatll xinetd but i get a message like ‘installation candidate missing’..
can anyone fix this? pls help me..
Same problem as Jason. Using version 1.0.5 of vmware server on a new install of Ubuntu 7.10 upgraded to the latest modules. vmware-config.pl failed when it could not stat the date of the /etc/vmware/ssl/rui.crt & rui.key files. So I touched them to get further. But no serial numbers are accepted in the config script…. tried installing xorg-dev and re-running vmware-config.pl. No Joy: It did not help. So I skipped adding the serial number in the PERL script. Started the Xconsole without a serial number from the Applications menu. Failed to start. Bah.
After installation I can’t launch to VMware:
I got the errors:
# vmware
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_3.4′ not found (required by /usr/lib32/libcairo.so.2)
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0′ not found (required by /usr/lib32/libstdc++.so.6)
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_3.4′ not found (required by /usr/lib32/libcairo.so.2)
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0′ not found (required by /usr/lib32/libstdc++.so.6)
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_3.4′ not found (required by /usr/lib32/libcairo.so.2)
/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1: version `GCC_4.2.0′ not found (required by /usr/lib32/libstdc++.so.6)
something missed?
as you can read
/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1
is needed by libcairo.so.2 and libstdc++.so.6.
I just copy /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 to folder vmware /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/
so that’s simple as can. ;)
my distro is Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy amd64