Category Archives: Vmware

VMWARE Tools install on Fedora

February 21, 2012 6:49 pm /

If you encounter the following error while installing vmware-tools in Fedora:

Searching for a valid kernel header path…

The path “” is not valid.

You will need the following packages installed:

gcc make kernel-headers kernel-devel

The trick is that you will need to perform at least two reboots before the vmware installer will actually find the kernel header package. You can verify the kernel install using “rpm -qa kernel*”

  1. yum install gcc make kernel-headers kernel-devel
  2. yum update
  3. Reboot (shutdown -r now)
  4. Run vmware-install.pl (Ex. /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib)
  5. It will probably not find the kernel header path this time around. Cancel the installer if its unable to find it again.
  6. Reboot (shutdown -r now)
  7. Run vmware-install.pl again. I’m usually able to install vmware-tools after the second reboot

DISCLAIMER: This is for informational purposes only. We are providing absolutely no warranty for this information. Use this information at your own risk. Always perform upgrades on a test server before production and always have a full backup of the system.

Posted in: Fedora, Linux, VMWARE / Tagged:

Fix: VMWARE guest host with no network connectivity using re-allocated IP address

June 27, 2011 1:57 pm /

If you are migrating from one guest host to another using VMWARE and have problems with reusing the IP address from the old host, VMWARE may be binding the IP address to a MAC address.  Even with the old server off, I was unable to get the new server to bind with the original IP address.

The fix is to create/set a network adapter on the new server with the MAC address of the old server. After setting the MAC address on the new box to the original NIC MAC address, I was able to get full connectivity with the old IP address.

This will only work if both hosts are on the same VLAN, the original host was using a flexible network adapter, and on the same VMWARE server cluster.

Posted in: VMWARE / Tagged:

VMWARE Server 2.02 Update

November 13, 2009 2:29 pm /

VMWARE Server 2.02 has been released October 27, 2009. It includes a few important security updates for VMWARE Server. If you are running a Linux server with VMWARE server 2.01, I strongly suggest to upgrade due to the “Directory Traversal Vulnerability” — which may allow for remote retrieval of any file from the host system.

Security Fixes with VMWARE 2.02

  • New: Exception handling privilege escalation on Guest Operating System This release addresses a security vulnerability in exception handling. Improper setting of the exception code on page faults might allow for local privilege escalation on the guest. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2009-2267 to this issue.

  • New: Directory Traversal Vulnerability on Linux-based hosts This release addresses a directory traversal vulnerability that is present on host systems and that may allow for remote retrieval of any file from the host system. In order to send a malicious request, the attacker will need to have access to the network on which the host resides. The issue is present on Linux-based hosts only, not on Windows-based hosts. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project (cve.mitre.org) has assigned the name CVE-2009-3733 to this issue.

There’s a number of workarounds listed in the VMWARE Server 2.02 Release notes

Download the latest version of VMware Server 2

Posted in: VMWARE / Tagged: ,

VMWARE Server vs. ESXi

September 14, 2009 8:15 pm /

VMWARE has two “free” options to get started into virtualization. VMWARE Server 2.0 and VMWARE ESXi. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. Notably, VMWARE server will run on many different operating systems (Windows/Linux/etc.) while the VMWARE ESXi is limited to certain hardware since it runs on bare metal (has its own hypervisor). No OS is required to run ESXi.

TIP: From personal experience, I recommend only using local storage as opposed to a home built SAN when dealing with VMs. Do not go cheap on storage. If you can, purchase a Sun SAN or equivalent for maximum uptime. Reliable storage will save lots of unnecessary headaches.

VMWARE ESXi for performance

So, whats the main advantages and disadvantages? Well, first of all, if you want to manage your VM server remotely then ESXi isn’t the best choice. They lock down all the remote administration settings on each of the VMs (including remote console).  Some scenarios that may require console — you can’t SSH into your VM since the service went down or you did an OS upgrade that hosed your network. If this is an issue, then you need to consider purchasing VMWARE ESX.

However, VMWARE ESXi does have significant performance benefit since you don’t have to dedicate memory to the host operating system (e.g. Windows Server 2008, Linux, etc) and it runs on a lean kernel system. Memory is the main bottleneck  since you have to dedicate RAM for each VM.  If Windows Server needs at least 1GB to run and you have only 2GB of RAM, then ESXi would be a better choice. ESXi only uses 32 MB. There are some minor drawbacks to the ESXi system. The VM disk files are locked in ESXi, which can be a liability if your VMX files somehow get corrupted. There is also no support for software RAID, so you need to have a hardware RAID based configuration thats supported by VMWARE. This also means ESXi does not support LVM (common w/ RedHat installs) See my link at the end of the post for more information. In conclusion, ESXi is a great way to start learning how to use enterprise VMWARE. They intentionally removed a lot of the features so you can eventually upgrade to a paid version of VMWARE.

VMWARE Server for remote administration

If you want to remotely administer the VM, then either upgrade to the vCenter or take the performance hit and use VMWARE Server instead. In one of my production environments, I have a VMWARE Server 2.0 running on a Windows Server. Its rock solid. VMWARE Server supports a lot more hardware compared to ESXi, so thats something to consider as well. I can control a lot of settings with VMWARE server such as migrating VMX files between multiple servers, console access to all my VMs, and excellent GUI user interface. They made huge upgrades in version 2! My VMWARE server has 16GB of RAM, so I’m willing to take some performance/memory overhead for convenience.

VMWARE hardware compatibility guide
http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

Posted in: VMWARE / Tagged: ,

Debian on VMWARE: Installing VMWare Tools

May 15, 2009 4:54 pm /

Why install VMWARE Tools?
Improved display support with SVGA driver
Cut and paste from host onto the VMWare guest
Automation of guest operating system commands
Sync time
Shrinking disk space
Startup and shutdown scripts

In order to install VMWARE tools on Debian, you will need to make sure you have the package “linux-headers-[kernel version]” installed.

If not, you will get a prompt during the configuration asking for the path of the C header files.

To find the version of your kernel, type in:
uname -a

It should say something like Linux infomine 2.6.26-2-amd64 (with your current CPU architecture at the end)

****
NOTE: Do this at your own risk. If you put the wrong version of the kernel header files, things will break.
****

After identifying what kernel you are using, then add the linux header files
apt-get install linux-headers-[kernel version]
For instance,  apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.26-2-amd64

Then follow the Vmware documentation on installing VMWARE Tools:
http://www.vmware.com/support/gsx3/doc/tools_install_lin_gsx.html

Posted in: Linux, VMWARE / Tagged: , ,

Post Navigation

← Older Posts