VMware Server 1.0.2 on Ubuntu 6.10

Previously I documented installing VMware Workstation 6 Beta on my Thinkpad x60s. I decided to uninstall Workstation and install VMware Server 1.0.2. I should have used the vmware-uninstall.pl script but even without using it directly I managed to remove the old Workstation installation without real trouble.

Running Server on Ubuntu 6.10 (desktop) required me to add a few packages. I found Martti Kuparinen's installation guide very helpful. I had to add the following packages to ensure a smooth Server installation.

sudo apt-get install xinetd
sudo apt-get install libX11-dev
sudo apt-get install xlibs-dev

I did not have to install linux-kernel-headers.

I was really impressed that Martti provided a patch for two scripts that did not work correctly out of the box. When I applied the patch I was able to start VMware's Web server and access it via my browser.

richard@neely:/tmp$ wget http://users.piuha.net/martti/comp/ubuntu/httpd.vmware.diff
--13:52:24--  http://users.piuha.net/martti/comp/ubuntu/httpd.vmware.diff
           => `httpd.vmware.diff'
Resolving users.piuha.net... 193.234.218.130
Connecting to users.piuha.net|193.234.218.130|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2,973 (2.9K) [text/plain]

100%[====================================>] 2,973         --.--K/s             

13:52:25 (1.81 MB/s) - `httpd.vmware.diff' saved [2973/2973]

richard@neely:/tmp$ cd /
richard@neely:/$ sudo patch -b -p0 < /tmp/httpd.vmware.diff 
Password:
patching file /etc/init.d/httpd.vmware
patching file /usr/lib/vmware-mui/src/lib/httpd.vmware
richard@neely:/$ sudo netstat -natup | grep vm
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8333            0.0.0.0:*
               LISTEN     5205/httpd.vmware   
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8222            0.0.0.0:*
               LISTEN     5205/httpd.vmware  

Thanks to this guide I made this addition to /etc/xinetd.d/vmware-authd so the vmware console on port 902 TCP didn't listen on all interfaces:

    bind            = 127.0.0.1

To prevent the Web server from starting at boot and potentially listening on a hostile network, I removed the x bit from the script in /etc/init.d so it would not be started at boot. I can start it manually.

richard@neely:~$ sudo chmod -x /etc/init.d/httpd.vmware
richard@neely:~$ sudo sh /etc/init.d/httpd.vmware start
   Starting httpd.vmware:                                              done

I noticed while installing the packages the suggestion to run apt-get autoremove, so I did once everything was installed.

richard@neely:~$ sudo apt-get autoremove
Password:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libnl1-pre6 network-manager libnm-util0 dhcdbd
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  dhcdbd libnl1-pre6 libnm-util0 network-manager
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 1217kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 115360 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing network-manager ...
 * Stopping NetworkManager daemon                                        [ ok ] 
 * Stopping NetworkManager dispatcher                                    [ ok ] 
Removing dhcdbd ...
Removing libnl1-pre6 ...
Removing libnm-util0 ...

I have VMware Server running well on Ubuntu now.