Install VMware Server 1.0 on SuSE 10.2 x64

Ahh! One of my servers had a bad stick of RAM and caused all sorts of problems with VMWare ESX Server. At first, I thought ESX was too sensitive but later realized the stick was just super bad. Meanwhile, my evaluation version expired and so I decided to use VMware Server 1.0 (free) on top of SuSE 10.2 (also free).

Thankfully, this dude setup a really nice guide to get around some kernel issues in SuSE. It's pretty simple; before installing the VMware Server RPM, I ran the following:

# cd /usr/src/linux # make mrproper; make cloneconfig; make modules_prepare

After installing the RPM, I ran vmware-config.pl and VMWare complained that a few files were missing. As it turns out, I needed the x86 version of a few packages. I loaded up Yast -> Software -> Software Management -> Search -> [X] Provides -> [Missing Filename here]. I believe I ended up installing the following packages:

xorg-x11-libICE-32bit-7.2-13.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXau-32bit-7.2-8.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXdmcp-32bit-7.2-8.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libSM-32bit-7.2-12.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libX11-32bit-7.2-13.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXext-32bit-7.2-12.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXrender-32bit-7.2-12.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXt-32bit-7.2-13.x86_64.rpm expat-32bit-2.0.0-32.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXfixes-32bit-7.2-13.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXmu-32bit-7.2-13.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXp-32bit-7.2-8.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXpm-32bit-7.2-12.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXv-32bit-7.2-8.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libxkbfile-32bit-7.2-12.x86_64.rpm zlib-32bit-1.2.3-33.x86_64.rpm freetype2-32bit-2.2.1.20061027-11.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libXprintUtil-32bit-7.2-8.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libfontenc-32bit-7.2-12.x86_64.rpm fontconfig-32bit-2.4.1-19.x86_64.rpm xorg-x11-libs-32bit-7.2-19.x86_64.rpm audit-libs-32bit-1.2.6-20.x86_64.rpm cracklib-32bit-2.8.9-20.x86_64.rpm libstdc++41-32bit-4.1.2_20061115-5.x86_64.rpm libxcrypt-32bit-2.4-30.x86_64.rpm db-32bit-4.4.20-16.x86_64.rpm pam-32bit-0.99.6.3-24.x86_64.rpm

Next, used YaST to open up my firewall's port 902. Everything seemed to go well until I ran into PAM issues while attempting to remotely manage it using the VMWare Server Console (Windows). I received the error Permission denied: Login (username/password) incorrect. So I took a look at /var/log/messages and found this crappy news:

vmware-authd: PAM unable to dlopen(/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix2.so) vmware-authd: PAM [error: /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix2.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory]

After searching the web for a solution (thanks web!), I edited /etc/vmware/pam.d/vmware-authd and now it looks like the following:

#%PAM-1.0 #auth sufficient /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix2.so shadow nullok #auth required /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix_auth.so shadow nullok #account sufficient /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix2.so #account required /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix_acct.so auth sufficient /lib/security/pam_unix.so shadow nullok auth required /lib/security/pam_unix_auth.so shadow nullok account sufficient /lib/security/pam_unix.so account required /lib/security/pam_unix_acct.so

Once that was done, I created a symbolic link to make restarting VMWare more comfy (ln -s /etc/init.d/vmware /usr/sbin/rcvmware), then I restarted the vmware service (rcvmware restart) and connected successfully from my remote machine. Now I'm happily installing Windows Server 2008 RC0. Hooray!

And my procrastination paid off -- while I was waiting for the motivation to troubleshoot the RAM issue, the price of my server's RAM dropped drastically -- from $160 to $99. Niiiice! I'm buying 5 for a total of 8 Gigs :D