Bug in Latest VMware Server Beta Affects Sguil VM

A bug in the latest VMware Server Beta (22874) affects my newest Sguil VM. I like to deploy the VM so that VM management interface lnc0 is bridged to /dev/vmnet0, and the sniffing interface lnc1 is bridged to /dev/vmnet2. On Linux this means that /dev/vmnet0 corresponds to eth0 and /dev/vmnet2 corresponds to eth1.

You can see in the screen capture at right that my second interface is listed as a "custom" network associated with "VMnet2".

When I tried starting my VM today, I got an error message saying VMnet2 was not available. After some searching I found the following thread discussing the same problem.


The solution is simple. Rather than accept the listing that VMware provides, replace VMnet2 with /dev/vmnet2. The screen capture at left shows this configuration.

Now the VM boots without any problem. Remember to alter permissions on /dev/vmnet2 if you want to use it for promiscuous sniffing. Change permissions when the VM is not booted.