I managed to sort this out originally, but never put it up on my blog. So here it is!
It’s a pretty simple thing to fix. More info here.
Simply add this line to /etc/vmware/config
xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = true
I’ve had a bit of a weird problem, due to a weird config I’m running here at the moment.
I’m running an Ubuntu 9.04 desktop, and a bunch of Ubuntu VMs in VMWare Server 2.0, but my VMWare host is actually Windows 2003. Which is sort of contrary to most other people, who are running Windows VMs under *nix hosts…
Hence, why it’s been so hard to find a solution to fixing my problem with keymapping when I connect to the console on my VM clients. The issue is to do with the mapping of keys, and stuff like the arrow keys don’t work. Problem is, there are heaps of fixes out there for fixing it on a Linux host, but my issue was with my Ubuntu desktop machine; I could access the VM consoles from Windows machines no worries, it was just Ubuntu.
So, after spending literally about 2 hours on google, I found the solution, tucked away in this forum post.
And the fix is bloody simple. On your Linux desktop that you want to connect to the VM server with (not on the VM host itself)
1. Open up /home/{username}/.vmware, where {username} is the user account you, er, "use". If you’re doing this in Nautilus, you’ll need to Show Hidden Files
2. Create a new file in there called config.
3. Edit config in a text editor, and add the line:
xkeymap.nokeycodeMap = "TRUE"
4. Save it, and enjoy!
I hope other people with this problem find this (surely I can’t be the only person in the world trying to use Ubuntu to connect to a Windows VMWare server?).
Never really got VMWare Server 2 running on my 9.04 Jaunty main box as I would have liked.
However, I found this guy’s site: http://readyroom.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/vmware-server-201-on-ubuntu-9-04-jaunty-jackalope/
This is apparently a scripted install with very basic instructions, which means I don’t have to think. Have I mentioned that I like not having to think? (maybe it’s a hangover from years of Windows…)
It’s running now, looks pretty good. I’ll see how it goes once it’s up and running.
Whenever I ever have anything to do with Java (whether it’s my own tinkering or at work), it’s always problems! So I’m not at all surprised to find out the the error I’m getting in the VMware Server 2 web console:
The server response include one or more errors
Details:
NullPointerException: Operation failed.
… seems to be related to Java: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/189011
Apparently, the way to fix this is do the following:
To extract the JRE, I downloaded the .bin file from java.com. You then have to run:
chmod +x path/to/file/jre-1_x_x_x-linux-i586.bin
Then run that file, and it extracts. I copied it to where it’s supposed to be as above.
Stopping/starting vmware is not correct above though - I found I needed to use:
/etc/init.d/vmware stop
Then:
ln -s jre.1.6.0_13/ jre1.5.0_15
Then /etc/init.d/vmware start
I then found that I was unable to access the web interface. When I ran etc/init.d/vmware start again, I got an error :
VMware Server is installed, but it has not been (correctly) configured
for the running kernel. To (re-)configure it, invoke the
following command: /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl.
So I did as the man said, and got:
The following VMware kernel modules have been found on your system that w
not installed by the VMware Installer. Please remove them then run this
installer again.
vmmon
vmnet
vmci
I.e. - ‘rm /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/misc/<ModuleName>.{o,ko}’
Execution aborted.
So, I went to where it told me to, and deleted the files. When the install script ran again, it was erroring, saying that it wasn’t able to stop the services:
At least one instance of VMware Server is still running.
Please stop all running instances of VMware Server first.
Looks like a reboot might be in order, so that’s what I’m gonna do…
After a reboot, I’ve now run /usr/bin/vmware-config.pl again. It’s gone through, and appears to have rebuilt the modules which I removed earlier. Now it all appears to be running - I’ll see if I keep having those problems with the admin website.
I’ve been running most of my toys on VMs on a Windows 2003 Server install, but now is time to do an upgrade on that box to a 64-bit OS (because it can’t see all the RAM). I’m also still running VMWare server 1.whatever, and not the newfangled new one.
So, during the migration I’m going to setup VMWare on my desktop, and migrate my VMs over. Found a How To Forge article for installing on 8.10, but I’m on 9.04 (Jaunty), which is probably the most "bleeding edge" I’ve ever been with an OS in my life!
For the most part, I’ll be following the instructions at the link, which will not doubt be much better documented than here, but I’ll put down what I’m doing here.
First, download VMWare Server 2.0.1 from VMWare. The tar, not the RPM, and save it to the desktop.
Then, in a terminal run
apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r` build-essential xinetd
Then, go to your desktop, unpack the TAR and run the installer:
tar xvfz VMware-server-*.tar.gz
cd vmware-server-distrib
sudo ./vmware-install.pl
You get a bunch of prompts, I just left everything on the defaults. There was some error message that I got about networking setup, but I ignored that (I’m good at that!) and it seems to be running OK. I’ve migrated an XP Pro install, and my mail filter (FreeBSD) over to my desktop now, and all seems to be running fine.
Nice interface, but seems to run a bit slow. Might be my crappy machine and the fact that I’m finding Firefox a bit slow lately too.
Hmmm. I chucked on some stuff from Ubuntu Studio (in order to get something to join MP3s together - but that’s a story for another time).
I think is has stuffed my kernel and now VMWare console won’t start any more.
Following the destructions here where a bloke has a similar problem when running through vmware-config.pl, I’m going to have to muddle my way around and see how I go. First off, I’m going to UNINSTALL all of these apps which got installed with the Studio package: I was going to take a screenshot and post it up, but that eludes me currently and I’ll need to figure that out later….
Once I’ve got rid of some of that crap, I need to find out how to unbork my install…
