Technical Details

I gave up on Fedora Core 15 (for now)

Prerequisites:

• Fedora Core 14 (no updates)
• VMware-server-2.0.2-203138
• Radu Cotescu’s patch script
• Ramon de Carvalho Valle’s patch #2

Install Fedora, I use the Software Developer version with the Fedora Packager.

Unpack raducotescu-vmware-server-linux-2.6.3x-kernel-release-1.6-0-gbb26dce.zip, copy VMware-server-2.0.2-203138-update-2.patch into raducotescu-vmware-server-linux-2.6.3x-kernel-e26b34e, you can either overwrite the original vmware-server-2.0.2-203138-update.patch file or update vmware-server-2.0.x-kernel-2.6.3x-install.sh to use the patch-2 file.

Disable selinux

Update /etc/services so that 902 reads as follows:

vmware-authd    902/tcp

Create a link to the kernel headers:

ln -s "/usr/src/kernels/$(uname -r)" /usr/src/linux

Add UTS_RELEASE to /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h (see https://blog.tuinslak.org/vmware-server-and-kernel-2-6-33):

echo "#define UTS_RELEASE \"$(uname -r)\"" >> /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h

Finally run Radu’s script giving it the directory of your vmwarer server 2.0.2 archive.

./vmware-server-2.0.x-kernel-2.6.3x-install.sh /PATH/TO/VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.x86_64.tar.gz

If all goes well you will have completed your install without error.

A couple of final cleanup issues you will need to rename libxml2.so.2 for vmware to something else (see http://communities.vmware.com/message/1670144#1670144)

mv /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libxml2.so.2/libxml2.so.2 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libxml2.so.2/SKIP.libxml2.so.2

And finally update /etc/init.d/vmware script so it starts after networking has properly started, the default configuration doesn’t do this on my machine.

Update the chkconfig line to read:

# chkconfig: 35 35 20

Make sure the init scripts are properly linked:

chkconfig --del vmware

chkconfig --add vmware

chkconfig --level 35 vmware on # for good measure

Reboot your machine.

Depending on your configuration you may also have to update your iptables rules.