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 …
   

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 …

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.

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. Read more to see the comparison review.

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)

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NOTE: Do this at your own risk. If you put the …