Topic: SME Server 7.4 on VMware Server 2.0 - can't access server manager

[johnwmcc]

I've twice tried to install SME Server 7.4 as  Virtual Machine guest, on two different VMware 2.0 Server installs on the same hardware. I can't quite get all of it working - in particular, I can't access the server-manager on the Virtual SME Server from a remote browser. Using Internet Explorer 7 from a Windows Vista machine, I can get as far as the login screen (after allowing a Certificate Exception), I log in, but the browser then hangs with http://<hostname>/server-common/cgi-bin/login showing in the address bar. Using FirefoxFox 3.0 (latest version), I just get a message "Loading..." when I try to browse to the server-manager, and the status bar says "Waiting for https://<hostname>/server-manager" and I don't even get as far the login screen to put in username and password.

It doesn't seem to be a firewall issue - SME Servre is set in Server-only mode, and I've tried turning off the firewall on the machine I'm browing from, but it makes no difference.

I can find nothing relevant on either this forum, or the VMware forums, and don't know which if either is the source of the problem.

Pretty much everything else works, and I can access the text based server-manager from the VMware VM Console by logging in as admin, so there's a (slightly clumsy) workaround. I can get SSH access, and browse normally to the Primary ibay (using either http: or https:) on the virtual server over the network, and also get FTP access (after I had used the text console server-manager to allow it).

The hardware is one of two identical Dell Dimension 1600SC servers, one of which is happily running SME Server 7.4 natively. I want to reconfigure the other (backup) server as a VM hosting both SME Server and a Windows XP guest. The hardware isn't on the compatibility list for VMware ESX3i v3.5, otherwise I would use that - I've tried it, but it won't install.

I've tried it with VMware Server 2.0 hosted first on Ubuntu Server 8.10, and then on Centos 5.2. The latter is slightly more successful in that more of SME Server works properly, though it was much more difficult to get a working VMware install under Centos.

I get this symptom on both attempted configurations. I've also tried setting the VM Guest OS both to RHEL v4 and to Other Linux 2.6 kernel, then reinstalling SME Server (on the Ubuntu 8.10 server hosted VMware), but the symptoms are pretty much the same. VMware is currently running on Centos 5.2, with the VM configured as RHEL v4.

I have seen several posts here about hosting VMware ON SME Server, but not much the other way round, though I have seen references to virtualised SME Servers.

Has anyone else had this problem, and/or found a solution?

I haven't reported it as an SME Server bug, as I don't know whether it is, or is rather somehing to do with VMware. But pretty well everything else I've tried in VMware seems to work, so I don't know where else to turn other than try this forum first.

Thanks if you can help, or suggest where I can look for further information - I can't see anything relevant in either the SME Server logs, or the VMware ones on the host machine - but I'm not sure exactly where I should be looking as I'm still fairly new to command-line Linux in general.

John McC

[arne]

Unfortunately I use a one year older model of Vmware and SME server, but it (they) have been running for that year with zero problems. Not easy to know what issue there might be with the newer revisions, but what about entering the server admin panel like this:
https://10.0.0.2/server-manager/ (replace ip adress with the correct one.)

[johnwmcc]

I've tried that, and unfortunately it makes no difference.

I'm beginning to feel I may just have a subtle hardware incompatibility with VMware - I get very similar symptoms on both a Ubuntu 8.10 server host, and CentOS 5.2 host - including rather unreliable access to CDrom and USB in the VM even though I've mounted them manually in CentOS (they don't seem to automount), and I HAVE enabled automounting of the USB devices in the VM.

But I'll give it one more try, starting with a new VM and a fresh install of SME Server, this time choosing Hardware Version 6 (instead of 7) in the new VM.

[christian]

Hard to believe it is a hardware issue.

Is your guest LAN connection using "bridge" mode? It should be in this case.

Can you SSH into the server? or access root from the VMWare console? If you get into shell level then trying pinging out and also check the server's route list using the "route" command.

C

[johnwmcc]

Hard to believe it is a hardware issue.

Is your guest LAN connection using "bridge" mode? It should be in this case.

Yes, it is, and the LAN connection is basically working ok.

Can you SSH into the server? or access root from the VMWare console? If you get into shell level then trying pinging out and also check the server's route list using the "route" command.

Yes I can SSH to the SME Server, and I can FTP to it as well. Haven't tried pinging or traceroute, but will try later on Friday (it's very late here local time - 1am - and I was on my way to bed when your reply came in).

Tx again for suggestions.

John

[Tib]

There is a simple way to get SME working on vmware

The secret is to have 2 network adapters setup ...

Network Adapter 1 in Bridged mode
Network Adapter 2 in Nat mode

You can add another adapter once you do the initial vm setup

setup SME as server/gateway

Network Adapter 1 as eth0 ... give it a static address that's in you local range.
Network Adapter 2 as eth1 ... set it up as DHCP sending out mac address.

This way I found I can do my yum updates as well as access the server-manager

It took me a few hrs of pulling my hair out to figure this out

I found the in Nat mode I can access the internet but not local networks

Then I found that in Bridged mode I can access the network but very limited access to internet.

I did some tests with Suse 11.1 etc to figure this out

If anyone has a better setup please tell as I can still nopt have both local and internet access at the same time on windows or Suse.

I have 3 SME7.4 vm's setup as well onw SME 8 and all work great

Regards,

Tib

[christian]

That's interesting. I wonder if it has to do with the mapping of your virtual connectors to their actual usage in the host. I think in general you would want all connections from the guest to go through the local network interface (eth0).

My set up is "server only" as I have another SME running as Server/GW. I have no issues with any connection set ups on any variant of guest I run. As guests I have running SME (CentOS4), Knoppix, Madriva, and ArchLinux. None have issues.

C

[Tib]

As far as I can remember all my connectors do go through eth0 (physical) network card as my real server is in server only mode,

In my example both Network adapter 1 and 2 still map to eth0 but in sme you tell one is eth0 the other is eth1 ... but in reality they still both connect through eth0.

If that makes sense.

What ver of vmware are you running christian?

Regards,

Tib

[christian]

WMware 2. I've also used VMWare 1.

I can't really tell what you mean in your statement without references to Eth0 in guest vs host.

You may wish to use the "route" and "traceroute" commands from your guest and host to see what is going on.

also use "ps -ef | grep -i bridge" from the host see which eth it is connecting to.

You should get something like:

Code: [Select]

root      6407     1  0 Mar08 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-bridge -d /var/run/vmnet-bridge-0.pid -n 0 -i eth0where "eth0" is my local network and bridge-0 is the same bridge-0 in the VMWare console.

So if you then have both "eth0" and "eth1" in your guest mapped to bridge-0 then they will both go to eth0 on your host.

You can determine which network interface is assigned in VMWare to your guest by matching the MAC address assigned in VMWare Console (for each interface) and that in the guest as obtained by "ifconfig".

Hope that helps.

[Tib]

christian

I ran route and this is what I got:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
172.16.237.0    *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth1
default         172.16.237.2    0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth1

Then I ran ps -ef | grep -i bridge:

root      4463  4384  0 22:36 pts/0    00:00:00 grep -i bridge

Now it could be I didn't set things up correct when running the

vmware-config.pl

I might play around in there a bit as well.

Regards,

Tib

[christian]

Then I ran ps -ef | grep -i bridge:

Where did you run that command from? It should be done on the host side.

[Tib]

oops .. I ran it in the client

Once I ran it in the host I got the same as you did

root      3431     1  0 Mar17 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/vmnet-bridge -d /var/run/vmnet-bridge-0.pid -n 0 -i eth0

Regards,

Tib

[Tib]

also if I run ifconfig on both host and client i get this:

Host:

br0       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:25:8D:02:60
          inet addr:192.168.1.15  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING ALLMULTI MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:12853618 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14568797 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:2353259555 (2.1 GiB)  TX bytes:3389483097 (3.1 GiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:25:8D:02:60
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING PROMISC MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:12928934 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14677864 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2618439174 (2.4 GiB)  TX bytes:3527986530 (3.2 GiB)
          Interrupt:169

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1311190 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1311190 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:918249890 (875.7 MiB)  TX bytes:918249890 (875.7 MiB)

tap0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:FF:43:8E:62:1C
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING PROMISC MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:36665 errors:0 dropped:616313 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:6116927 (5.8 MiB)

vmnet1    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:01
          inet addr:192.168.136.1  Bcast:192.168.136.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

vmnet8    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:56:C0:00:08
          inet addr:172.16.237.1  Bcast:172.16.237.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:3837 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

Client:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:C0:2F:ED
          inet addr:192.168.1.30  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING ALLMULTI MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:788 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:248 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:91073 (88.9 KiB)  TX bytes:26041 (25.4 KiB)
          Interrupt:185 Base address:0x2000

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:29:C0:2F:F7
          inet addr:172.16.237.131  Bcast:172.16.237.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:335 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:369 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:88521 (86.4 KiB)  TX bytes:28901 (28.2 KiB)
          Interrupt:169 Base address:0x2080

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:474 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:474 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:39955 (39.0 KiB)  TX bytes:39955 (39.0 KiB)

Can you see any differences to yours christian ?

Regards,

Tib

[christian]

It won't match mine.

Your host seems to be in server only mode but you are running your guest as server-gateway. Were you doing this as part of a work-around? It shouldn't be required.

Your host maps eth0 to bridged-0. In VMWare console you will look for your NICs to be mapped to bridged-0. In VMWare console you will identify the MAC address of your NIC and match it to the output of ifconfig in the guest. That way you can trace the linkage path.

If everything is bridged (no NAT) then doing "route" from the guest should show the default route to be your gateway on the network (that is the real gateway's IP address).

Unless you are trying to truly simulate server/gateway mode, I would put the guest back to server only mode and I would double check that the default gateway in your guest is in fact the real IP address of your gateway to the internet.

Most issues that create odd behaviour like this has to do with ensuring all of the route tables point to where they are supposed to. Hopefully this is the case here.

[aussierob]

Hi Christian,

I am trying to get vmware to work on sme8b5, and stuck unable to work out where to go,
so seeing your good replies on this issue, I thought I would ask if you can give me a pointer or two,
if it is easy to do so.
kind regards aussierob

1a. I  successfully installed sme8b6 using 'sme raid=1 sme multipart' (after a little learning on LMV to enlarge filesystems), as server-only mode.

1b. I can access server-manager, and have setup (and confirmed) access to ftp, ssh, can ping and have the gateway correct with access remotely too.

2a. I installed vmware-server-2.0.2 with the glibc workaround from these two main downloads
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root  shared  58716160 Mar 31  2009 VMware-mui-1.0.9-156507.tar
  -rwxr----- 1 admin shared 504809788 Sep 11 12:51 VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.i386.rpm

2b. All seems well, and a /etc/init.d/vmware restart yields the results below which look good except a couple of FAILs - which I presume is due to no VMs defined yet. I think I did not get these FAILs after the initial install though.

So two issues I think....
A. I cannot access https://192.168.40.13:8333/ui/: it simply says 'Done' or 'The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.'
B. when I get this working, what to I DO to install a VM? (everything seems to just say 'install' and use)

I hope this is enough information on the situation, and thanks in advance if you are able to enlighten my ignorance.


  [root@central init.d]# ./vmware restart
  Stopping VMware autostart virtual machines:
     Virtual machines[FAILED]
  Stopping VMware management services:
     VMware Virtual Infrastructure Web Access
     VMware Server Host Agent[FAILED]
  Stopping VMware services:
     VMware Authentication Daemon[  OK  ]
     VM communication interface socket family:[  OK  ]
     Virtual machine communication interface[  OK  ]
     Virtual machine monitor[  OK  ]
     Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0[  OK  ]
     Host network detection[  OK  ]
     Virtual ethernet[  OK  ]
  Starting VMware services:
     Virtual machine monitor[  OK  ]
     Virtual machine communication interface[  OK  ]
     VM communication interface socket family:[  OK  ]
     Virtual ethernet[  OK  ]
     Bridged networking on /dev/vmnet0[  OK  ]
     VMware Server Authentication Daemon (background)[  OK  ]
     Shared Memory Available[  OK  ]
  Starting VMware management services:
     VMware Server Host Agent (background)[  OK  ]
     VMware Virtual Infrastructure Web Access
  Starting VMware autostart virtual machines:
     Virtual machines[FAILED]