VMware Server Beta on Debian Status Report

I previously reported running FreeBSD 6.0 on my Hacom Lex Twister VIA 1 GHz Nehemiah. Today I decided to install Debian on it. I will warn you now that the majority of this post is documentation for my own reference, and the hope it might help someone else. If you're looking for short, pithy security insights, today is not your day.

I used a USB-connected external CD burner as my installation source. The Hacom is very temperamental with it. I had to disable all booting sources except the USB-CD. Next I booted the Hacom with the USB-CD off. Once I got an error from the BIOS about a lack of bootable devices, I then turn on the USB-CD and press to try booting again.

Installing Debian on the Hacom was fairly painless. I did not add any packages with aptitude during the installation. That meant the following packages were installed.

hacom:~# dpkg --list
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version        Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii  adduser        3.63           Add and remove users and groups
ii  apt            0.5.28.6       Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii  apt-utils      0.5.28.6       APT utility programs
ii  aptitude       0.2.15.9-2     terminal-based apt frontend
ii  at             3.1.8-11       Delayed job execution and batch processing
ii  base-config    2.53.10        Debian base system configurator
ii  base-files     3.1.2          Debian base system miscellaneous files
ii  base-passwd    3.5.9          Debian base system master password and group
ii  bash           2.05b-26       The GNU Bourne Again SHell
ii  bsdmainutils   6.0.17         collection of more utilities from FreeBSD
ii  bsdutils       2.12p-4sarge1  Basic utilities from 4.4BSD-Lite
ii  console-common 0.7.49         Basic infrastructure for text console config
ii  console-data   2002.12.04dbs- Keymaps, fonts, charset maps, fallback table
ii  console-tools  0.2.3dbs-56    Linux console and font utilities
ii  coreutils      5.2.1-2        The GNU core utilities
ii  cpio           2.5-1.3        GNU cpio -- a program to manage archives of
ii  cramfsprogs    1.1-6          Tools for CramFs (Compressed ROM File System
ii  cron           3.0pl1-86      management of regular background processing
ii  dash           0.5.2-5        The Debian Almquist Shell
ii  debconf        1.4.30.13      Debian configuration management system
ii  debconf-i18n   1.4.30.13      full internationalization support for debcon
ii  debianutils    2.8.4          Miscellaneous utilities specific to Debian
ii  dhcp-client    2.0pl5-19.1    DHCP Client
ii  diff           2.8.1-11       File comparison utilities
ii  discover1      1.7.7          hardware identification system
ii  discover1-data 1.2005.01.08   hardware lists for libdiscover1
ii  dpkg           1.10.28        Package maintenance system for Debian
ii  dselect        1.10.28        a user tool to manage Debian packages
ii  e2fslibs       1.37-2sarge1   ext2 filesystem libraries
ii  e2fsprogs      1.37-2sarge1   ext2 file system utilities and libraries
ii  ed             0.2-20         The classic unix line editor
ii  eject          2.0.13deb-8sar ejects CDs and operates CD-Changers under Li
ii  exim4          4.50-8         metapackage to ease exim MTA (v4) installati
ii  exim4-base     4.50-8         support files for all exim MTA (v4) packages
ii  exim4-config   4.50-8         configuration for the exim MTA (v4)
ii  exim4-daemon-l 4.50-8         lightweight exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii  fdutils        5.4-20040228-1 Linux floppy utilities
ii  findutils      4.1.20-6       utilities for finding files--find, xargs, an
ii  gcc-3.3-base   3.3.5-13       The GNU Compiler Collection (base package)
ii  gettext-base   0.14.4-2       GNU Internationalization utilities for the b
ii  grep           2.5.1.ds1-4    GNU grep, egrep and fgrep
ii  groff-base     1.18.1.1-7     GNU troff text-formatting system (base syste
ii  grub           0.95+cvs200406 GRand Unified Bootloader
ii  gzip           1.3.5-10sarge1 The GNU compression utility
ii  hostname       2.13           A utility to set/show the host name or domai
ii  hotplug        0.0.20040329-2 Linux Hotplug Scripts
ii  ifupdown       0.6.7          high level tools to configure network interf
ii  info           4.7-2.2        Standalone GNU Info documentation browser
ii  initrd-tools   0.1.81.1       tools to create initrd image for prepackaged
ii  initscripts    2.86.ds1-1     Standard scripts needed for booting and shut
ii  ipchains       1.3.10-15      Network firewalling for Linux 2.2.x
ii  iptables       1.2.11-10      Linux kernel 2.4+ iptables administration to
ii  iputils-ping   20020927-2     Tools to test the reachability of network ho
ii  kernel-image-2 2.4.27-10sarge Linux kernel image for version 2.4.27 on 386
ii  kernel-pcmcia- 2.4.27-10sarge Mainstream PCMCIA modules 2.4.27 on 386
ii  klogd          1.4.1-17       Kernel Logging Daemon
ii  libacl1        2.2.23-1       Access control list shared library
ii  libattr1       2.4.16-1       Extended attribute shared library
ii  libblkid1      1.37-2sarge1   block device id library
ii  libc6          2.3.2.ds1-22   GNU C Library: Shared libraries and Timezone
ii  libcap1        1.10-14        support for getting/setting POSIX.1e capabil
ii  libcomerr2     1.37-2sarge1   common error description library
ii  libconsole     0.2.3dbs-56    Shared libraries for Linux console and font
ii  libdb1-compat  2.1.3-7        The Berkeley database routines [glibc 2.0/2.
ii  libdb3         3.2.9-22       Berkeley v3 Database Libraries [runtime]
ii  libdb4.2       4.2.52-18      Berkeley v4.2 Database Libraries [runtime]
ii  libdiscover1   1.7.7          hardware identification library
ii  libgcc1        3.4.3-13       GCC support library
ii  libgcrypt11    1.2.0-11.1     LGPL Crypto library - runtime library
ii  libgdbm3       1.8.3-2        GNU dbm database routines (runtime version)
ii  libgnutls11    1.0.16-13.1    GNU TLS library - runtime library
ii  libgpg-error0  1.0-1          library for common error values and messages
ii  liblocale-gett 1.01-17        Using libc functions for internationalizatio
ii  liblockfile1   1.06           NFS-safe locking library, includes dotlockfi
ii  liblzo1        1.08-1.2       A real-time data compression library
ii  libncurses5    5.4-4          Shared libraries for terminal handling
ii  libnewt0.51    0.51.6-20      Not Erik's Windowing Toolkit - text mode win
ii  libopencdk8    0.5.5-10       Open Crypto Development Kit (OpenCDK) (runti
ii  libpam-modules 0.76-22        Pluggable Authentication Modules for PAM
ii  libpam-runtime 0.76-22        Runtime support for the PAM library
ii  libpam0g       0.76-22        Pluggable Authentication Modules library
ii  libpcap0.7     0.7.2-7        System interface for user-level packet captu
ii  libpcre3       4.5-1.2sarge1  Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expression Library
ii  libpopt0       1.7-5          lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libsigc++-1.2- 1.2.5-4        type-safe Signal Framework for C++ - runtime
ii  libss2         1.37-2sarge1   command-line interface parsing library
ii  libssl0.9.7    0.9.7e-3sarge1 SSL shared libraries
ii  libstdc++5     3.3.5-13       The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libtasn1-2     0.2.10-3       Manage ASN.1 structures (runtime)
ii  libtext-charwi 0.04-1         get display widths of characters on the term
ii  libtext-iconv- 1.2-3          Convert between character sets in Perl
ii  libtext-wrapi1 0.06-1         internationalized substitute of Text::Wrap
ii  libtextwrap1   0.1-1          text-wrapping library with i18n - runtime
ii  libusb-0.1-4   0.1.10a-9.sarg userspace USB programming library
ii  libuuid1       1.37-2sarge1   universally unique id library
ii  libwrap0       7.6.dbs-8      Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers library
ii  locales        2.3.2.ds1-22   GNU C Library: National Language (locale) da
ii  login          4.0.3-31sarge5 system login tools
ii  logrotate      3.7-5          Log rotation utility
ii  mailx          8.1.2-0.200405 A simple mail user agent
ii  makedev        2.3.1-77       creates device files in /dev
ii  man-db         2.4.2-21       The on-line manual pager
ii  manpages       1.70-1         Manual pages about using a GNU/Linux system
ii  mawk           1.3.3-11       a pattern scanning and text processing langu
ii  modutils       2.4.26-1.2     Linux module utilities
ii  mount          2.12p-4sarge1  Tools for mounting and manipulating filesyst
ii  nano           1.2.4-5        free Pico clone with some new features
ii  ncurses-base   5.4-4          Descriptions of common terminal types
ii  ncurses-bin    5.4-4          Terminal-related programs and man pages
ii  net-tools      1.60-10        The NET-3 networking toolkit
ii  netbase        4.21           Basic TCP/IP networking system
ii  netkit-inetd   0.10-10        The Internet Superserver
ii  nvi            1.79-22        4.4BSD re-implementation of vi
ii  passwd         4.0.3-31sarge5 change and administer password and group dat
ii  pciutils       2.1.11-15      Linux PCI Utilities
ii  pcmcia-cs      3.2.5-10       PCMCIA Card Services for Linux
ii  perl-base      5.8.4-8        The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister
ii  ppp            2.4.3-20050321 Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) daemon
ii  pppconfig      2.3.11         A text menu based utility for configuring pp
ii  pppoe          3.5-4          PPP over Ethernet driver
ii  pppoeconf      1.7            configures PPPoE/ADSL connections
ii  procps         3.2.1-2        The /proc file system utilities
ii  psmisc         21.5-1         Utilities that use the proc filesystem
ii  sed            4.1.2-8        The GNU sed stream editor
ii  slang1a-utf8   1.4.9dbs-8     The S-Lang programming library with utf8 sup
ii  sysklogd       1.4.1-17       System Logging Daemon
ii  sysv-rc        2.86.ds1-1     Standard boot mechanism using symlinks in /e
ii  sysvinit       2.86.ds1-1     System-V like init
ii  tar            1.14-2         GNU tar
ii  tasksel        2.24           Tool for selecting tasks for installation on
ii  tcpd           7.6.dbs-8      Wietse Venema's TCP wrapper utilities
ii  telnet         0.17-29        The telnet client
ii  usbutils       0.70-8         USB console utilities
ii  util-linux     2.12p-4sarge1  Miscellaneous system utilities
ii  wget           1.9.1-12       retrieves files from the web
ii  whiptail       0.51.6-20      Displays user-friendly dialog boxes from she
ii  zlib1g         1.2.2-4.sarge. compression library - runtime

That's pretty sparse. No SSH, no FTP client!

Here's my partioning scheme:

hacom:~# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1             250M   52M  186M  22% /
tmpfs                 245M     0  245M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/hda3             4.6G   33M  4.4G   1% /home
/dev/hda8             361M  8.1M  334M   3% /tmp
/dev/hda5             4.6G  122M  4.3G   3% /usr
/dev/hda6             2.8G   77M  2.6G   3% /var
/dev/hda4             216G   33M  205G   1% /vmware

The first packaged I added was SSH:

hacom:~# apt-get install ssh

After answering some sensible curses-based questions, I had SSH listening on port 22.

At this point I'm going to post my dmesg output here for those of you who want to know how the internals are recognized.

Linux version 2.4.27-2-386 (horms@tabatha.lab.ultramonkey.org)
 (gcc version 3.3.5 (Debian 1:3.3.5-13)) #1 Wed Aug 17 09:33:35 UTC 2005
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
 BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001eff0000 (usable)
 BIOS-e820: 000000001eff0000 - 000000001eff3000 (ACPI NVS)
 BIOS-e820: 000000001eff3000 - 000000001f000000 (ACPI data)
 BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
495MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 126960
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 122864 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
ACPI: RSDP (v000 CLE266                                    ) @ 0x000f69b0
ACPI: RSDT (v001 CLE266 AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1eff3000
ACPI: FADT (v001 CLE266 AWRDACPI 0x42302e31 AWRD 0x00000000) @ 0x1eff3040
ACPI: DSDT (v001 CLE266 AWRDACPI 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000e) @ 0x00000000
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hda1 ro
No local APIC present or hardware disabled
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 1002.300 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 1998.84 BogoMIPS
Memory: 496364k/507840k available (1069k kernel code, 11088k reserved, 459k data, 96k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (32 bytes/line), D cache 64K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 64K (32 bytes/line)
CPU:     After generic, caps: 0381b83f 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU:             Common caps: 0381b83f 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Centaur VIA Nehemiah stepping 08
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
Checking for popad bug... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20040326
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb400, last bus=3
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router VIA [1106/3177] at 00:11.0
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
devfs: v1.12c (20020818) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x0
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
COMX: driver version 0.85 (C) 1995-1999 ITConsult-Pro Co. 
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
RAMDISK: cramfs filesystem found at block 0
RAMDISK: Loading 3692 blocks [1 disk] into ram disk... done.
Freeing initrd memory: 3692k freed
VFS: Mounted root (cramfs filesystem).
Freeing unused kernel memory: 96k freed
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ide: late registration of driver.
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:11.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: VIA vt8235 (rev 00) IDE UDMA133 controller on pci00:11.1
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xee00-0xee07, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xee08-0xee0f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
hda: WDC WD2500SB-01KBC0, ATA DISK drive
blk: queue df825b60, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: 488397168 sectors (250059 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=30401/255/63, UDMA(33)
Partition check:
 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 < p5 p6 p7 p8 > p3 p4
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Adding Swap: 1502036k swap-space (priority -1)
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,1), internal journal
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,3), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,8), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,5), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,6), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,4), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
  options:  [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0c.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:08.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:10.0
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:0c.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:09.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:10.1
Yenta ISA IRQ mask 0x0008, PCI irq 11
Socket status: 30000006
Yenta ISA IRQ mask 0x0008, PCI irq 5
Socket status: 30000006
irda_init()
Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 5.2.52-k3
Copyright (c) 1999-2004 Intel Corporation.
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:08.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0c.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:10.0
e1000: eth0: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:09.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:0c.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:10.1
e1000: eth1: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:10.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:11.5
e1000: eth2: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
Via 686a/8233/8235 audio driver 1.9.1-ac3
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:11.5
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:10.2
via82cxxx: Six channel audio available
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:11.5 to 64
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: VIA97 (Unknown)
via82cxxx: board #1 at 0xEF00, IRQ 10
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 09:50:48 Aug 17 2005
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:10.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:08.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:0c.0
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xeb00, IRQ 11
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 5 for device 00:10.1
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:09.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 5 with 00:0c.1
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xec00, IRQ 5
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:10.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:0a.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 10 with 00:11.5
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xed00, IRQ 10
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
PCI: Found IRQ 7 for device 00:10.3
ehci_hcd 00:10.3: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0
ehci_hcd 00:10.3: irq 7, pci mem df9f5000
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
ehci_hcd 00:10.3: USB 2.0 enabled, EHCI 1.00, driver 2003-Dec-29/2.4
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 6 ports detected
irda_init()
uhci.c: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v1.1
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
shpchp: acpi_shpchprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x1001
pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
pciehp: acpi_pciehprm:get_device PCI ROOT HID fail=0x1001
e1000: eth0: e1000_watchdog: NIC Link is Up 100 Mbps Full Duplex
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10f
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x170-0x177 0x370-0x377 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.

With that out of the way, we can talk about why I'm installing Debian on this box. I'd like to run VMware Server Beta on it. Sure, Debian is not an officially supported platform, but I read this post from a few days ago and thought "this can work."

The original post that gave me hope to run VMware Server Beta on Debian mentioned the requirement to add several packages. I added the following. Note that I use the correct package names, while the post does not.

hacom:~# apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.27
hacom:~# apt-get install kernel-headers-2.4.27-2-386
hacom:~# apt-get install build-essential

With these packages installed, I set up the kernel files as outlined in the post.

hacom:/usr/src# bzip2 -d kernel-source-2.4.27.tar.bz2
hacom:/usr/src# tar -xf  kernel-source-2.4.27.tar
hacom:/usr/src# ln -s kernel-source-2.4.27 linux
hacom:/usr/src# mv /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.27/include /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.27/include.orig
hacom:/usr/src# ln -s /usr/src/kernel-headers-2.4.27-2-386/include /usr/src/kernel-source-2.4.27/include

Now I was ready to extract the VMware archives and try installing them.

hacom:/tmp# cd /usr/local/src
hacom:/usr/local/src# ls
VMware-mui-e.x.p-22088.tar.gz  VMware-server-e.x.p-22088.tar.gz
hacom:/usr/local/src# tar -xzf VMware-server-e.x.p-22088.tar.gz
hacom:/usr/local/src# cd vmware-server-distrib/
hacom:/usr/local/src/vmware-server-distrib# ls
FILES  bin  doc  etc  installer  lib  man  sbin  vmware-install.pl
hacom:/usr/local/src/vmware-server-distrib# ./vmware-install.pl
Creating a new installer database using the tar3 format.

Installing the content of the package.

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 manual files?
[/usr/share/man]

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]

The installation of VMware Server e.x.p build-22088 for Linux completed
successfully. You can decide to remove this software from your system at any
time by invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall.pl".

Before running VMware Server 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]

The correct version of one or more libraries needed to run VMware Server may be
missing.  This is the output of ldd /usr/bin/vmware:
        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4001a000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x4003c000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x4003f000)
        libX11.so.6 => not found
        libXtst.so.6 => not found
        libXext.so.6 => not found
        libXt.so.6 => not found
        libICE.so.6 => not found
        libSM.so.6 => not found
        libXrender.so.1 => not found
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x40092000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x400a4000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

This program cannot tell for sure, but you may need to upgrade libc5 to glibc
before you can run VMware Server.

Hit enter to continue.

At this point I knew I had a problem. I didn't like seeing all of those "not found" messages, so I aborted and added the necessary packages.

hacom:~# apt-get install libx11-6
hacom:~# apt-get install libxtst6
hacom:~# apt-get install libxt6
hacom:~# apt-get install libxrender1

When I later ran into trouble starting the Web-based interface to the server, I realized I needed to add these packages too:

hacom:~# apt-get install libdb2
hacom:~# apt-get install libxi6

Now I was ready to try installing VMware Server again.

hacom:/usr/local/src/vmware-server-distrib# ./vmware-install.pl

Installing the content of the package.

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 manual files?
[/usr/share/man]

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]

The installation of VMware Server e.x.p build-22088 for Linux completed
successfully. You can decide to remove this software from your system at any
time by invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall.pl".

Before running VMware Server 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]

Making sure services for VMware Server are stopped.

Stopping VMware services:
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0                                   done
   DHCP server on /dev/vmnet1                                          done
   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1                                 done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet2                                   done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet3                                   done
   DHCP server on /dev/vmnet8                                          done
   NAT service on /dev/vmnet8                                          done
   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet8                                 done
   Virtual ethernet                                                    done

You must read and accept the End User License Agreement to continue.
Press enter to display it.
...omitted...
Do you accept? (yes/no) yes

Thank you.

Configuring fallback GTK+ 2.4 libraries.

In which directory do you want to install the mime type icons?

Do you accept? (yes/no) yes

Thank you.

Configuring fallback GTK+ 2.4 libraries.

In which directory do you want to install the mime type icons?
[/usr/share/icons]

The path "/usr/share/icons" does not exist currently. This program is going to
create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want? [yes]

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]

Trying to find a suitable vmmon module for your running kernel.

None of the pre-built vmmon modules for VMware Server 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]

Using compiler "/usr/bin/gcc". Use environment variable CC to override.

What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running
kernel? [/lib/modules/2.4.27-2-386/build/include]

Extracting the sources of the vmmon module.

Building the vmmon module.

Using standalone build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
make[1]: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
make[2]: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/driver-2.4.27-2-386'
make[2]: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/driver-2.4.27-2-386'
make[2]: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/driver-2.4.27-2-386'
make[2]: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only/driver-2.4.27-2-386'
make[1]: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmmon-only'
The module loads perfectly in the running kernel.

You have already setup networking.

Would you like to skip networking setup and keep your old settings as they are?
(yes/no) [yes]

I'm cheating here because I don't have output from my first run, where I set up networking. All I originally did was set up eth0 as a bridge for vmnet0. I set up eth1 as a bridge for vmnet2, and I also bridged eth2.

Extracting the sources of the vmnet module.

Building the vmnet module.

Using standalone build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only'
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only'
The module loads perfectly in the running kernel.

/etc/init.d/httpd.vmware: line 120: status: command not found
Please specify a port for remote console connections to use [902]

Restarting internet superserver: inetd.
Configuring the VMware VmPerl Scripting API.

Building the VMware VmPerl Scripting API.

Using compiler "/usr/bin/gcc". Use environment variable CC to override.

Installing the VMware VmPerl Scripting API.

The installation of the VMware VmPerl Scripting API succeeded.

Do you want this program to set up permissions for your registered virtual
machines?  This will be done by setting new permissions on all files found in
the "/etc/vmware/vm-list" file. [no]

Generating SSL Server Certificate

In which directory do you want to keep your virtual machine files?
[/vmware]

Do you want to enter a serial number now? (yes/no/help) [no]

Starting VMware services:
   Virtual machine monitor                                             done
   Virtual ethernet                                                    done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0                                   done
   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet1 (background)                    done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet2                                   done
   Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet3                                   done
   Host-only networking on /dev/vmnet8 (background)                    done
   NAT service on /dev/vmnet8                                          done
   Starting VMware virtual machines...                                 done

The configuration of VMware Server e.x.p build-22088 for Linux for this running
kernel completed successfully.

Now I was ready to set up the VMware Management Interface.

hacom:/usr/local/src/vmware-server-distrib# cd ..
hacom:/usr/local/src# ls
VMware-mui-e.x.p-22088.tar.gz  VMware-server-e.x.p-22088.tar.gz  vmware-mui-distrib  vmware-server-distrib
hacom:/usr/local/src# cd vmware-mui-distrib/
hacom:/usr/local/src/vmware-mui-distrib# ls
bin  console-distrib  doc  etc  mui  vmware-install.pl
hacom:/usr/local/src/vmware-mui-distrib# ./vmware-install.pl
A previous installation of VMware software has been detected.

The previous installation was made by the tar installer (version 3).

Keeping the tar3 installer database format.

Uninstalling the tar installation of VMware Management Interface.

   Shutting down http.vmware:                                          done

This program previously created the directory /var/log/vmware-mui, and was about
to remove it. Since there are files in that directory that this program did not
create, it will not be removed.

The removal of VMware Management Interface e.x.p build-22088 for Linux completed
successfully. Thank you for having tried this software.

You must read and accept the End User License Agreement to continue.
Press enter to display it.
...omitted...
Do you accept? (yes/no) yes

Thank you.

Installing the content of the package.

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 VMware Management Interface files?
[/usr/lib/vmware-mui]

The path "/usr/lib/vmware-mui" does not exist currently. This program is going
to create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
[yes]

In which directory would you like to install the documentation files?
[/usr/lib/vmware-mui/doc]

The path "/usr/lib/vmware-mui/doc" does not exist currently. This program is
going to create it, including needed parent directories. Is this what you want?
[yes]

The installation of VMware Management Interface e.x.p build-22088 for Linux
completed successfully. You can decide to remove this software from your system
at any time by invoking the following command:
"/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-mui.pl".

Before running VMware Management Interface for the first time, you need to
configure it by invoking the following command: "/usr/bin/vmware-config-mui.pl".
Do you want this program to invoke the command for you now? [yes]

Configuring httpd.conf to run Apache as:
User: www-data and Group: nogroup

Set the number of minutes before a http session times out. (This is the length
of time before someone connecting to VMware Management Interface will be logged
out) [60]

Generating SSL Server Certificate

   Starting httpd.vmware:                                              done

Installation of VMware Management Interface was successful

The configuration of VMware Management Interface completed successfully.

Now I had the VMware components running:

hacom:~# netstat -natup
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:902             0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     3192/inetd
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8333            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     1528/httpd
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     1443/sshd
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:25            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     1409/exim4
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:8222            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN     1528/httpd
tcp        0    300 192.168.2.18:22         192.168.2.5:1957        ESTABLISHED2580/sshd: richard

hacom:~# ps -ef | grep vm
www-data  1528     1  0 13:52 ?        00:00:02 /usr/lib/vmware-mui/apache/bin/httpd
 -DSSL -DSSL_ONLY -DGSX -d /usr/lib/vmware-mui/apache
root      3322     1  0 15:05 pts/0    00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-bridge
 -d /var/run/vmnet-bridge-0.pid /dev/vmnet0 eth0
root      3330     1  0 15:05 pts/0    00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-bridge
 -d /var/run/vmnet-bridge-2.pid /dev/vmnet2 eth1
root      3334     1  0 15:05 pts/0    00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-bridge
 -d /var/run/vmnet-bridge-3.pid /dev/vmnet3 eth2
root      3342     1  0 15:05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-natd
 -d /var/run/vmnet-natd-8.pid -m /var/run/vmnet-natd-8.mac
 -c /etc/vmware/vmnet8/nat/nat.conf
root      3348     1  1 15:05 ?        00:00:02 /usr/sbin/vmware-serverd -s -d
root      3413     1  0 15:05 pts/0    00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-netifup
 -d /var/run/vmnet-netifup-vmnet1.pid /dev/vmnet1 vmnet1
root      3421     1  0 15:05 pts/0    00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-netifup
 -d /var/run/vmnet-netifup-vmnet8.pid /dev/vmnet8 vmnet8
root      3437     1  0 15:05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-dhcpd
 -cf /etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcpd/dhcpd.conf -lf /etc/vmware/vmnet1/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases
 -pf /var/run/vmnet-dhcpd-vmnet1.pid vmnet1
root      3439     1  0 15:05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-dhcpd
 -cf /etc/vmware/vmnet8/dhcpd/dhcpd.conf -lf /etc/vmware/vmnet8/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases
 -pf /var/run/vmnet-dhcpd-vmnet8.pid vmnet8

When I tried to start a VM, however, I saw the following in /var/log/vmware/vmware-serverd.log:

Mar 21 12:14:37: app| Attempting to launch vmx : /vmware/sguil0-6-0p1_freebsd6-0_1024mb/FreeBSD.vmx
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| New connection on socket server-vmxvmdb from host
 localhost (ip address: local) , user: root
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| Connection from : /vmware/sguil0-6-0p1_freebsd6-0_1024mb/FreeBSD.vmx
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| Setting up autoDetect info.
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| VMServerdConnect: connecting to /vmware/sguil0-6-0p1_freebsd6-0_1024mb/FreeBSD.vmx
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| VMControl: Unexpected response from vmware-authd
 (Error connecting to /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx process.)
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| vmserverd: Could not connect to virtual machine 
 /vmware/sguil0-6-0p1_freebsd6-0_1024mb/FreeBSD.vmx:
 Unexpected response from vmware-authd:
 Error connecting to /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx process.
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| Failed to connect to vm: 
 /vmware/sguil0-6-0p1_freebsd6-0_1024mb/FreeBSD.vmx
Mar 21 12:14:38: app| VmsdCmd Command error: Operation failed to change
 the VM to the expected power state

Oh for Pete's sake. What could be wrong?

I looked closer at the logs and saw this:

Mar 21 12:07:45: app| HOSTINFO: Unknown CPU vendor "CentaurHauls" seen.
Mar 21 12:07:45: app| Failed to get information about CPUs.

In dmesg output I saw something similar:

/dev/vmmon[3301]: VMMON CPUID: Unrecognized CPU

This gave me enough for a better search in the VMware forums, where I found this post. Basically, VMware Server does not run on the Nehemiah CPU in the Hacom.

Here's my /proc/cpuinfo:

hacom:/var/log/vmware# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : CentaurHauls
cpu family      : 6
model           : 9
model name      : VIA Nehemiah
stepping        : 8
cpu MHz         : 1002.300
cache size      : 64 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr sep mtrr pge cmov pat mmx fxsr sse xstore
bogomips        : 1998.84

At this point my project is stalled. I don't see a workaround. Maybe the final version will run on this box.