Note:

I’ve searched over the net many setup articles about vmware and Debian Etch, but unfortunately I haven’t found any good tutorial for me. I’m sure that your question is: “Why you haven’t found any good tutorial? Entire internet talks about Vmware products installation!” If you are in this page you are an unfortunately user as me. You have to know that Hetzner have a limitation in his IP addresses. In fact, to block IP Spoofing, Hetzner don’t allow IP address sharing and Bridged configuration don’t works with Vmware. There are limitations also when you try to install Xen and others virtualization solutions with bridged network configuration except for OpenVZ. At the moment I’ve seen that OpenVZ have many bugs and there isn’t an updated frontend to manage simply the virtual servers configured. VMware Server is free and give you a Console to manage remotely VPS from Linux or Windows system. I’ve personally tested VMware Server 1.04 on RootServer DS7000 with AMD Athlon X2 6000+ and 6gb of RAM. It runs fine, but I think that if you want a very performant system, virtualization not is very well.

On Hetzner you have to ask the free additional subnet of IPs. With these additional IPs you can configure up to 6 IPs. Unfortunately, one of these IPs will must be used for the host system, and another one to make a gateway and solve the problem of bridge network configuration. In fact you have to configure the first of the additional IP on the system host where you will install VMware Server.

I’ve this subnet of IPs from 78.47.XXX.1 to 78.47.XXX.6 where 78.47.XXX.7 will be the broadcast. So, you have to configure in /etc/network/interfaces:

auto eth0:1
iface eth0:1 inet static
address 78.47.XXX.1
broadcast 78.47.XXX.7
netmask 255.255.255.248

To reolad configuration of network you can use “/etc/init.d/networking restart” or if you want load only the new interface added “ifup eth0:1″. To ensure if your network setup is correct you have to see “ifconfig” and try to PING from another PC the ip just configured.

Before to proceed with the installation of VMware you must use enable IPv4 Forwarding simply open /etc/sysctl.conf and uncomment this line:

# Uncomment the next line to enable packet forwarding for IPv4
net.ipv4.conf.default.forwarding=1

or:

net.ipv4.ip_forward=1

Reboot your system NOW!

Now you can proceed with the pre installation of packages and kernel headers to run VMware Server installation.

apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` libx11-6 libx11-dev x-window-system-core x-window-system xspecs libxtst6 psmisc build-essential

Now you must download VMware Server from http://www.vmware.com/download/server/ and to obtain a free license code click on “Register Now” and follow the steps.

You must obtain the URL to download Vmware and related tools and proceed with wget:

wget [URL of the VMware Server for linux binary tar.gz package]
wget [URL of the Management Interface binary tar.gz package]

Unpack downloaded files

tar xvfz VMware-server-*.tar.gz
tar xvfz VMware-mui-*.tar.gz

You can run now the installer script and just hit enter to keep default values.

VMware Server installation Script:

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

VMware WebGUI installation Script:

./vmware-mui-distrib/vmware-install.pl

Now you can login on the WebGUI and download the VMware console: https://SERVER_IP:8333 using root user and password.

When you create a New Virtual Machine you have to setup the Network Card as Bridged and in the Operative System installed on the virtual machine you have to configure one of the additional IPs with the first IP configured in the host system as gateway.
For Example, if you have installed Debian in the new virtual machine you have to setup the /etc/network/interfaces as:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 78.47.XXX.2
broadcast 78.47.XXX.7
netmask 255.255.255.248
gateway 78.47.XXX.1

Reload your network configuration (/etc/init.d/networking restart) and you have your VMware installed with bridged Network working in the vritual machine also if you are using Hetzner RootServer.

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When you try to run vmplayer:
/usr/bin/vmplayer: 166: cannot open /etc/vmware/locations: No such file
exec: 180: /lib/wrapper-gtk24.sh: not found

When you try to run vmware-config.pl:
Unable to find the database file (/etc/vmware/locations)

The best way is to download the tar.gz package from VMware website. First of all, you have to see how kernel you are using on your Linux PC.

uname -r
2.6.22-14-generic

I have 2.6.22-14-generic, so I have to install thet linux headers files for my kernel version:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.22-14-generic

Now you can download VMware Player tar.gz package from VMware website. At this time the last package is: VMware-player-2.0.2-59824.i386.tar.gz.

tar xzvf VMware-player-2.0.2-59824.i386.tar.gz
cd vmware-player-distrib

The tar.gz package is extracted and you can run installation script of VMware Player:

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

During installation process you must answer some questions. For a standard installation you can keep suggested answers hitting ENTER.

In which directory do you want to install the binary files?
[/usr/bin]
What is the directory that contains the init directories (rc0.d/ to rc6.d/)?
[/etc]
What is the directory that contains the init scripts?
[/etc/init.d]
In which directory do you want to install the daemon files?
[/usr/sbin]
In which directory do you want to install the library files?
[/usr/lib/vmware]
The path “/usr/lib/vmware” does not exist currently. This program is going to
create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
[yes]
In which directory do you want to install the documentation files?
[/usr/share/doc/vmware]
The path “/usr/share/doc/vmware” does not exist currently. This program is
going to create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
[yes]
Before running VMware Player for the first time, you need to configure it by
invoking the following command: “/usr/bin/vmware-config.pl”. Do you want this
program to invoke the command for you now? [yes]
In which directory do you want to install the theme icons?
[/usr/share/icons]
What directory contains your desktop menu entry files? These files have a
.desktop file extension. [/usr/share/applications]
In which directory do you want to install the application’s icon?
[/usr/share/pixmaps]
None of the pre-built vmmon modules for VMware Player 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]
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]
None of the pre-built vmblock modules for VMware Player is suitable for your
running kernel. Do you want this program to try to build the vmblock module
for your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)?
[yes]
Do you want networking for your virtual machines? (yes/no/help) [yes]
Do you want to be able to use NAT networking in your virtual machines? (yes/no)
[yes]
Do you want this program to probe for an unused private subnet? (yes/no/help)
[yes]
Do you wish to configure another NAT network? (yes/no) [no]
Do you want to be able to use host-only networking in your virtual machines?
[yes]
Do you want this program to probe for an unused private subnet? (yes/no/help)
[yes]
Do you wish to configure another host-only network? (yes/no) [no]
None of the pre-built vmnet modules for VMware Player is suitable for your
running kernel. Do you want this program to try to build the vmnet module for
your system (you need to have a C compiler installed on your system)? [yes]

Installation process is now finished and you can start VMware Player from your Application Menù.

I’ve attached some screenshot of the first time that you run VMware Player. You must accept EULA and then choose to open an image. I’ve downloaded Debian Etch image to test VMware Player performance and features. You can download VMware Images from HERE.

Eula – End User License Agreement

Open VMware Image

Select a downloaded Image (Debian Etch Netinst)

Run Debian Etch with VMware Player

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WMware server could be more complicated for personal use, so you can choose WMware player to run Windows XP on Ubuntu Gutsy.

You have to download and install RPM package from www.vmware.com (then you have to convert it as DEB package)

fakeroot alien -scripts VMware-player-2.0.2-59824.i386.rpm
sudo dpkg -i VMware-player-2.0.2-59824.i386.deb
sudo vmware-config.pl

You have to create a custom Windows XP image for your Virtual Machine, but first you have to install qemu.

sudo apt-get install qemu
qemu-img create -f vmdk WinXP.vmdk 6G

Now you have to create a config file for Disk Image just made with qemu with “nano WinXP.vmx“.

config.version = “8″
virtualHW.version = “3″
ide0:0.present = “TRUE”
ide0:0.filename = “WinXP.vmdk”
memsize = “128″
MemAllowAutoScaleDown = “FALSE”
ide1:0.present = “TRUE”
ide1:0.fileName = “auto detect”
ide1:0.deviceType = “cdrom-raw”
ide1:0.autodetect = “TRUE”
floppy0.present = “FALSE”
ethernet0.present = “TRUE”
usb.present = “TRUE”
sound.present = “TRUE”
sound.virtualDev = “es1371″
displayName = “Windows XP Pro”
guestOS = “winXPPro”
nvram = “WinXP.nvram”
MemTrimRate = “-1″

ide0:0.redo = “”
ethernet0.addressType = “generated”
uuid.location = “56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58″
uuid.bios = “56 4d 5c cc 3d 4a 43 29-55 89 5c 28 1e 7e 06 58″
ethernet0.generatedAddress = “00:0c:29:7e:06:58″
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = “0″

tools.syncTime = “TRUE”
ide1:0.startConnected = “TRUE”
uuid.action = “create”
checkpoint.vmState = “”

To make this step more easy you can download WinXP.vmx from here:

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