VMWare

VMWare Server (Host) and Guest Setup Procedure

Virtual Hosts and Guests

Copying VM from one machine to another

VMWare Appliance Sites

 http://www.vmware.com/appliances/
 http://www.virtualappliances.net/
 http://virtualappliances.org/
 http://thincrust.org/aos.html

VMWare Tools

vmnet-bridge - Checks the status of the virtual bridges setup on each physical interface.
vmnet-dhcpd - Creates a DHCP server for any virtual machine connected to the virtual network.
vmnet-natd - Creates NAT tables to be used by dhcp and virtual machines.
vmnet-netifup - Used to force the start of the virtual interface needed by the virtual machine before it starts.
vmnet-sniffer - Used to sniff packets on a virtual network in vmware
vmrun - Will start, stop, restart a virtual and can also be used to take snapshots of virtual machines.
vmstat - Shows the status of virtual machines.
vm-support - This will create a tarball of info based on attributes of your computer to submit with an incident report to vmwares support page.
vmware-authtrusted - Used to authenticate vmware server against a domain.
vmware-cmd - This tool allows you to change system variables, get status on different virtual machines and alot more.
vmware-config.pl - Used in initial setup and can be used to change hardware parameters, such as network bridges and web server configuration.
vmware-loop - Used by vmware-mount to mount virtual drives.
vmware-mount.pl - Used to mount a virtual hard disk on the host operating system.
vmware-ping - Will send a ping to a remote host at a specified interval.
vmware-uninstall.pl - Uninstall script for vmware server.
vmware-vdiskmanager - Resize a virtual disk.

VMWare Terminology and Concepts

 VMWare Server User Guide
 VMWare Server Administration Guide
 VMWare Virtual Network Concepts
 VMWare Server Tips and Tricks

External Links

 Virtual Machine Creator

Important Configuration Issues

Hostd (vmware-mgmt the web management interfate) crashes

This is a known issue between VMware and the glibc-2.5-42 release, which appears in Red Hat 5.4 and CentOS 5.4 releases. The trick to fix it is documented here: Centos Bug 3884.

mkdir /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6
cd /tmp;  mkdir tmp; cd tmp
wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/5.3/os/x86_64/CentOS/glibc-2.5-34.x86_64.rpm [^]
rpm2cpio glibc-2.5-34.x86_64.rpm | cpio -ivd
mkdir /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6
mv lib64/libc-2.5.so libc.so.6  /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6/
Use editor to edit /usr/sbin/vmware-hostd and add the line: 
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH 
to the one but last line of the file.

I implemented this fix on both Taro and Gourd (the new einstein). It appears to work fine. At a later date, the edit of the