For the others in the audience that are installing on Ubuntu 8.04 or another Linux system that doesn’t have packages, you should have a working VMware Server install with web interface and a client console by the bottom of the page.

Downloads

There are a few things you will need from VMware’s site before we kick off. Download these to your server machine.

VMware Server 1.06 is the latest version of the free product, released in late May 2008.

The web based Management User Interface (MUI) onto your VMware Server install. The files for VMware Server 1.06 are available here.

System Extras

Your Linux (in this case Ubuntu 8.04) system will require some extra libraries and bits if you haven’t already done so. Run the following on both the server and the client (if you’re installing the VMware console too).

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r` xinetd

As you progress through the install you may find that your system has extra requirements. It all depends on the setup and libraries already installed on each machine. So you have the option of installing these ones on your server now or just keep going and come back if needed.

sudo apt-get install libx11-6 libx11-dev libxtst6 libICE6 libxt6 libxrender1 libxi6 xfsprogs

Install

Extract both the tarballs you’ve download,

tar -xvzf VMware-server-1.0.6-*.tar.gz
tar -xvzf VMware-mui-1.0.6-*.tar.gz

switch to the Server install folder,

cd vmware-server-distrib

and run the installation script as root,

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

You may see errors during the install. If so, run these two commands to cover for a couple of missing libraries for cairo and gcc (tip courtesy of Ubuntu Tutorials)

sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.2.3/libgcc_s.so /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/libgcc_s.so.1

sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/libpng12.so.0

At the end of the install you’ll be asked for the registration key that you can get from the VMware website. I usually request 10 and copy and paste them to a safe place. Be aware that the Linux and Windows keys are different and can’t be interchanged.

When the key has been accepted the install tidies up and you should see the VMware Server starting and giving the OK message. To double check, just restart it again with,

sudo /etc/init.d/vmware restart

You now have a working VMware Server but no easy way to control it. So we need the MUI and the Console.

Switch folder back to the MUI source folder that you extracted earlier and run the install script,

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Once that’s completed, you should be able to connect from your client system’s web browser to https://<server>:8333 as long as you haven’t changed the port.

Again, depending on the state of your system, you may need to run the following if you have connection problems. I’ve found this fixes the SSL generation error (“starting httpd.vmware:-ne failed“) you may have at the end of the MUI install.

sudo ln -s -f /bin/bash /bin/sh

sudo vmware-config-mui.pl

Log on to https://<server>:8333 as your server user and you’ll see you can’t do too much. No options to create new VMs or change too many options. You need to install the VMWare console on your client machine.

Client Console Install

Installing the client console software is pretty easy. If you’re on a Windows machine just grab the client ZIP file from VMware, extract, double-click and you’re done.

For the Linux (specifically Ubuntu 8.04) world, use the links on those VMware MUI pages to download the console tarball and extract to a folder on your client machine. Remember that the rest of these instructions should be run on your Linux client and not your server.

cd vmware-server-console-distrib

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Just follow the instructions through and accept the defaults. Look out for any ominous error messages, but you shouldn’t see any.

Test things out by starting the console with,

/usr/bin/vmware-server-console

and log on as your server username and password. You can now create a VMware guest and start it up – as long as you’ve used a registration key. If you receive errors when starting your guest system via the console, make sure you’ve installed the libraries noted in the System Extras section. If you still have problems, run the following on the server to see if you have anything specific missing,

ldd /usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx

Hopefully by now you’ve got a smile on your face and if not, keep plugging away and feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

The reason for running up a Windows server as opposed to the typical LAMP alternative on Windows was due to frustration. The older Ubuntu server I had just made it very difficult to install the versions of PHP and MySQL that I wanted.

Applications I used were:
Apache 2.0.55
PHP 4.4.2
MySQL 4.1.18
Subverison 1.3

Download
The application packages you need to download are:
apache_2.0.55-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi
mysql-essential-4.1.18-win32.msi
php-4.4.2-Win32.zip
svn-1.3.0-setup.exe
svnservice (to run Subversion as a Windows service/daemon)

Installation
Now we’ve downloaded the right files we need to install them. for the most part this involves double-clicking the installer package and clicking Next a few times.

Install MySQL and use the Server Config tool to set options including Network Access.
Install Apache to the default location.
Unzip the PHP files to c:\php folder.
Install Subversion using the package defaults.
Unzip the SVNService tool to the Subversion folder and copy the SVNService.exe file to the bin directory.

Configuration

PHP
In the c:\php folder, copy the file php.ini-recommended to php.ini. Change the line that says,
doc_root =
to read
doc_root = c:\progra~1\apache~1\apache\htdocs

Set the error reporting to a more appropriate level by changing the line that reads,
error_reporting = E_ALL
to
error_reporting = E_ERROR|E_PARSE

Copy php.ini to your Windows folder eg. c:\windows\

Add the directory path c:\php to your system PATH variable, through My Computer→Properties→Advanced
Apache

Open the file c:\progra~1\apache~1\apache\conf\httpd.conf and add the following lines,
LoadModule php4_module "c:/php/php4apache2.dll"
and further down,
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Edit: I neglected to add in some other lines when writing this. In the Apache conf file’s Module section add,
LoadModule dav_svn_module "C:/Program Files/Subversion/bin/mod_dav_svn.so"
LoadModule authz_svn_module "C:/Program Files/Subversion/bin/mod_authz_svn.so"
Of course you should change the path to match that of the library files in your Subversion install folder.

Create a file in c:\progra~1\apache~1\apache\htdocs called test.php. In that file place this text,

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Restart the server

Open your browser and go the URL http://your_server/test.php.

You should see a page listing the current PHP settings. If not, check that the Apache service is running and that you can browse to http://. If that works then check the PHP configuration.

Subversion
Create a folder to hold your Subversion repository eg. c:\svn. In that folder create your folder structure for your code. Check the Subversion docs for the guidelines on how to do this the best way. To simply create a new repository called ‘project’ type the following line at a command prompt.
svnadmin create c:\svn\project

At a command prompt type,
svnservice -install -d -r c:\svn\project
which installs and starts the SVN service and tells it to run as a daemon (-d) and point to your code repository (-r xxxxx).

Open up Apache’s config file again (httpd.conf) and add the following code at the bottom of the file,
<Location /subversion>
DAV svn
SVNPath c:/svn/project
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Subversion Repository"
AuthUserFile conf/svnusers.conf
Require valid-user
</Location>
This tells Apache that any requests for http://your_server/subversion, will use web_dav to look at your code repository at c:\svn\project and only let authorized users see it.

Now we still need to tell Apache who is allowed to view our Subversion repository and who can read and write to our repo(sitory) too. At the cmd prompt again change directory to your Apache conf folder and type,
htpasswd -c svnusers.conf username
making sure you replace the ‘username’ with your real username. You’ll be asked to provide a password for that user which Apache will use.

And in the ‘project’ repo at c:\svn\project open the conf folder and edit the svnserve.conf file with a text editor. Uncomment a few lines until you have at least,
[general]
anon-access = read ## Can be none, read, write
auth-access = write ## Can be none, read, write
password-db = passwd ## Filename of users store
realm = My Project

Now we need to create a passwd file to store the usernames and password used to control access to the repository. It’s a s imple as a text file with the lines below in it. Add extra users on new line but watch that both username and password are case sensitive.
[users]
myuser= mypassword

Extras
If you are unable to connect to the MySQL server using PHPMyAdmin or similar and receive a message like,
Error 1251: “Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client”, do not despair.

From a MySQL prompt on your server run the command below for each affected user@machine combination.

SET PASSWORD FOR user@localhost = OLD_PASSWORD('password');

Making sure you replace the ‘user’ and ‘password’ with your own details.

Conclusion
Hope that all made sense, if not just leave a comment.