VMware Server

In the past, I used to use the VMware GSX server (my university paid a lot of money for that!). I haven’t been using it for a while but now, as I want to try out something with my new Athlon64 Dell, I picked it up again.

Some how, the GSX series is discontinued and VMware is only selling ESX. The original GSX becomes VMware Server and it is now a freeware! Great!

I downloaded and filled out an online form for a free serial number¹, but the vmmon and vmnet modules failed to compile for my kernel. I guess it is simply a problem of kernel code change since the VMware modules are programmed (this happens a lot in the history). After some kernel code hacking, the solutions are:

diff -uwr vmmon-only/linux/driver.c.old vmmon-only/linux/driver.c
--- vmmon-only/linux/driver.c.old   2007-09-06 17:59:54.000000000 -0400
+++ vmmon-only/linux/driver.c       2007-10-24 10:39:15.000000000 -0400
@@ -1656,7 +1656,10 @@
           current->egid == current->gid &&
          current->fsgid == current->gid) {
 #if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2, 4, 7)
-        current->mm->dumpable = 1;
+        /* current->mm->dumpable = 1; */
+        set_bit(MMF_DUMPABLE, &currnet->mm->flags);
+        smp_wmb();
+        clear_bit(MMF_DUMP_SECURELY, &current->mm->flags);
 #else
         current->dumpable = 1;
 #endif

and also

diff -uwr vmnet-only/driver.c.old vmnet-only/driver.c
--- vmnet-only/driver.c.old   2007-09-06 17:59:55.000000000 -0400
+++ vmnet-only/driver.c       2007-10-24 10:39:37.000000000 -0400
@@ -519,11 +519,14 @@
    int retval;

    unregister_ioctl32_handlers();
+   unregister_chrdev(VNET_MAJOR_NUMBER, "vmnet");
+/*
    retval = unregister_chrdev(VNET_MAJOR_NUMBER, "vmnet");
    if (retval != 0) {
       LOG(0, (KERN_WARNING "/dev/vmnet: could not unregister major device %d\n",
              VNET_MAJOR_NUMBER));
    }
+*/
    VNetProtoUnregister();
    VNetProc_Cleanup();
 }