Heeter

Hey all,

Wondering if anyone has ever installed vmware server onto a debian/ubuntu command line server?

I can't use esxi on this particular server as it is not compatible with the mainboard.

Thanks

Heeter

bmclaughlin807

I've done it under CentOS and Fedora.

One of the best tips I can give you is to make sure you look up how to disable automatic kernel updates and do it... if you don't then every time there's a kernel update the next time you boot your VMWare won't work until you re-run the configuration script to rebuild the kernel modules.

This applies to any linux guests as well... the VMWare tools won't run after a kernel update and if they don't run the next time the server reboots it will just cut the power to the VM instead of telling it to power off... not good for the filesystem!

Heeter

Thanks,

Heeter

the_tazinator

I have installed VMWare server on Ubuntu server several times. Mostly due to ESXi not supporting the hardware that I was wanting to install the vmware server software onto.

The install is simple and runs just as well as ESXi server on comparable hardware.

If you would like, I would be glad to post the steps to install it.

bmclaughlin807

It does run a lot better than VMWare Server on Windows... but I think ESXi has some stuff that VMWare Server doesn't...

there are tutorials on the web for how to open the ESXi .iso and add drivers and patches for more hardware... I haven't tried it yet as I don't have a spare computer to try ESXi on.

fitz

There is no comparison between ESX/ESXi and VMWare server. VMWare server does not run "just as well" - there is a huge performance/efficiency difference between running virtualization over an existing OS vs. bare-metal virtualization. HUGE.

That being said, Heeter, is ESXi not working on the new box you just bought? Didn't you check the hardware compatibility list that VMWare puts out to make sure it runs before you bought it?

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Heeter

Hi Fitz, this is for my personal home web/email/mysql server. Those two hp proliants we talked about were delivered from HP with esxi and the raid arrays setup. I asked HP to set it up for me for delivery.

For my personal setup, I have just an ASUS M2AVM mobo. Not compatible with ESXi, tried it already.

I am trying to figure out how to install vmware server, I install it easily off my linux desktop machines, but can't figure out how to it off my linux command line server.

Heeter

bmclaughlin807

ESXi is built on a linux base OS... The biggest difference is that ESXi has memory page sharing and other technologies that VMWare server just doesn't have. In a very small environment (only one or two VM's) you probably won't notice much if any performance difference between ESXi and VMWare server on a command-line only linux distro. The difference becomes HUGE when you have a lot of VM's running on one machine.

There are lots of sites out there that walk you through the process of modifying the .iso image to add linux drivers for unsupported hardware, as well as tutorials on removing some of the limitations built into ESXi (Such as the fact that it will not install on drives that show up as IDE)

fitz

No. I would respectfully disagree - The biggest difference is where the virtualization layer resides.

ESX is not built on a linux OS. Let me repeat that: ESX is not built on a linux OS.

ESX/ESXi runs the hypervisor layer directly on the hardware and abstracts the hardware and presents it to the guest. This is not based on Linux, if anything, it is more based on Hive and SimOS than linux. The full ESX version does contains a stripped down linux service console which provides a mechanism for the management of the hypervisor layer through the console - but the service console is not the hypervisor itself but only the way to manage the hypervisor. ESX relies on the linux service console for management. From an abstract point of view, in ESX, the linux service console runs basically as a virtual machine on top of the hypervisor. ESXi has no service console. ESXi has only a 32MB footprint on the disk and has no linux service console as it only contains the hypervisor.

As for the perfomance difference between ESX and VMWare server - I would mostly agree that there is little difference in a smaller environment. However, the performance of a single machine is still more costly (memory/CPU/IO) overall in a VMWare server environment compared to an ESX/ESXi environment. ESX provides near-native performance. VMWare server makes no such claim. It also depends in large part on what kind of load you are putting on the virtual guests.

As you mentioned, as you scale out, this difference is magnified and the performance difference is HUGE. This is not a result of the memory deduplication or other such things, it is the result of having a bare-metal hypervisor layer (ie: the biggest difference)

edit: oops, just read Heeters reply.. glad to know you got the other setup working. For your personal side, you could, in theory, modify the ISO, but it's usually easier to modify the install process of ESXi to add the drivers and/or modify the config files during installation to install on unsupported hardware.

Did you grab the tarball version of VMWare server?

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bmclaughlin807

*learns lots!*

Ok, ok... It boots a linux kernel, then swaps their own vmkernel to run on the hardware... They also implement the linux module interface, so they can use linux hardware drivers... you might understand where a VMWare noob like myself might get confused!

I got as far as burning a modified ISO before I needed my spare computer for a different project... never got to actually install and play with ESXi.

fitz

no problem.. I didn't mean to come off as cranky. Had a late night and was still a little cranky/groggy in the morning. Mostly meant to educate as opposed to beat you over the head

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Heeter

Hey all,

On a previous post, I asked if it was possible to install vmware server onto a command line ubuntu server.

Well, I am trying to figure out how and cannot do it.

I am trying to download and install onto my Ubuntu server through my Putty SSH, and for the life of me can't seem to even download vmware server 2.

can anyone help,

Thanks

Heeter

bmclaughlin807

Try this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/VMware/Server


You don't give a whole lot of information about what exactly you're having problems with... you should be able to use wget to download the file to the computer.

Heeter

I downloaded the tar package I needed from one of my work stations, and burned onto cd, I am trying to move it onto my /srv folder in my server. I will work from there.

Heeter

fitz

*threads merged*

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Heeter

Well, I finally figured out how to do this:

I can't directly download from vmware into my server as it is a registrations based download @ vmware.com

So I downloaded it onto my opensuse workstation, and transferred it onto my webserver, so now wget command looks like this:

Having done that, I decided to put my own internal repository into my Ubuntu server:

Now I am going to download all applications I need and toss them in there.

Now if only I could figure out why my linux-headers-'uname -r' is not working.




Heeter