VMware - VMware Player - on OpenSuse 10.1

Prerequisites

• Get the VMware(player) rpm package (e.g. VMware-player-1.0.1-19317.i386.rpm) from VMware
• Installation of Open SuSE 10.1
• Kernel 2.6.16-4-default
• Actual version of vmware-any-any-update. Search Google.

If you installed vmware(player) before, be shure to delete all files in /tmp:

rm -rf /tmp/vmware-*

Get kernel source

Get the kernel-source, gcc, g++ and make and check if everything installed fine:

rpm -qa kernel* gcc* make

Prepare kerneltree

According to <ref>to install VMware 5.0 workstation on SUSE Linux 10.0</ref> do the following: Go into the kernel source directory and make a configfile.

cd /usr/src/linux
make cloneconfig
make prepare
make prepare_all 
make modules_prepare (THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR 10.1 !!)

This is necessary because otherwise vmware will NOT compile and leave you with an error message about the wrong kernel directory /usr/src/linux/includ.

Install VMware

1. Install vmware(player) rpm package. 2. Start Installation which and abort with STRG+C when asked for the kernel source directory. 3. Untar vmware-any-any-update and change to the directory and run

cd vmware-any-any-updateXXX/
perl runme.pl

No vmware(player) should compile without problems.

Configure Networking

SuSE Firewall

You have to open the firewall for the samba server before you can access it from inside of the virtual machine.

Linux host: smb.conf

To use samba networking within your virtual machine, you have to configure the samba server via yast or edit the configuration file by yourself.

Use the following settings in the global part of /etc/samba/smb.conf:

[global]
server string = yourServerName
wins support = no
workgroup = yourWindowsSambaWorkgroup
guest account = nobody
encrypt passwords = yes
map to guest = Bad User
socket options = TCP_NODELAY
security = user
guest account = nobody 
;
; Speed up the samba sever
;
local master = yes
preferred master = yes
dns proxy = no

For a directory to share with your linux host add the following lines to your /etc/samba/smb.conf. It assumes, that you have static IP addresses in your network

[aDirectory]
; Deny all hosts in subnet 192.168.0.1-254 (netmask 255.255.255.0)
hosts deny = 192.168.0.0/24
; Allow specific hosts
hosts allow = IP_OF_A_HOST_TO_ALLOW ANOTER_IP
path = /home/username/aDirectory
; If no, you will see NOTHING in your windows client
available = yes
browseable = yes
public = no
writable = yes
username = solo

Windows client

Should work out of the box.

VMware Tools in a SuSE Guest

VMware tools is accessible via the Menu VM->VMware Tools Install. An isofile is mounted and accessible via the /media/... directory. Install ether the tar.gz sources or the rpm package.

Download the

vmware-tools-any-updateXYZ.tgz

from your favorite mirror (use Google to find it), unpack it an run

runme.pl

Then you can run the configuration in a shell with

vmware-tools-config.pl

which is exactly the same - including the prerequisites, like the vmware install.

Mount vmware images

VMware images (vmdk) can be mounted with the tool "vmware-mount.pl".

Usage: /usr/bin/"
       -p          : Print the partition table
       disk        : Name of the Virtual Hard Disk file
or
       disk        : Name of the Virtual Hard Disk file
       partition   : Number of the partition
       [-t type]   : Partition type
       [-o options]: Partition mount options(s)
       mount-point : Directory where to mount the partition

E.g.: To get a forsight linux image updated I did

myPC:/local/VMs # vmware-mount.pl foresight-2.18.0/foresight-2.18.0-x86.vmdk 1 temp/

Then the console keeps open until you press "Ctrl+C" and you can use chroot or whatever to maintain the filesystem.

References

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