"HTTP 12152" when starting VMware Server 2.0.2 on OEL 5.5 64-bit

Problem:

After installing VMware Server 2.0.2 on Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 64-bit, we normally start up the server as follows:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware start

Unfortunately, the VMware console is rather unstable and often crashes. When it crashes, the browser displays the following error:

The server could not complete a request (HTTP 12152 ).
The server encountered an unexpected condition that prevented it from fulfilling the request. If this problem persists, please contact your system administrator.

The log /var/log/messages shows the following errors:

Oct 19 20:51:02 oradev watchdog-webAccess: [8853] Begin '/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/java/jre1.5.0_15/bin/webAccess -client -Xmx64m -XX:MinHeapFreeRatio=30 -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio=30 -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager -Djava.endorsed.dirs=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/common/endorsed -classpath /usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/bin/commons-logging-api.jar -Dcatalina.base=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16 -Dcatalina.home=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16 -Djava.io.tmpdir=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/temp org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start', min-uptime = 30, max-quick-failures = 5, max-total-failures = 1000000

Oct 19 20:51:02 oradev watchdog-webAccess: Executing '/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/java/jre1.5.0_15/bin/webAccess -client -Xmx64m -XX:MinHeapFreeRatio=30 -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio=30 -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.apache.juli.ClassLoaderLogManager -Djava.endorsed.dirs=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/common/endorsed -classpath /usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/bin/bootstrap.jar:/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/bin/commons-logging-api.jar -Dcatalina.base=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16 -Dcatalina.home=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16 -Djava.io.tmpdir=/usr/lib/vmware/webAccess/tomcat/apache-tomcat-6.0.16/temp org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap start'

Solution:

1. Confirm the current glibc version. OEL 5.5 runs 2.5-49.

root@oradev:/root> rpm -qa | grep glibc-2
glibc-2.5-49

2. Download Disk 1 of Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3 x86_64 from http://edelivery.oracle.com

3. The filename is V15427-01.zip.

4. Extract the file glibc-2.5-34.x86_64.rpm from this ISO (using a program similar to WinISO).

5. Copy this RPM to your server (for example, to /tmp/vmwareglibc).

6. Execute the following:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware stop
cd /tmp/vmwareglibc
rpm2cpio glibc-2.5-34.x86_64.rpm | cpio -ivd
mkdir /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6
mv lib64/libc-2.5.so /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6/libc.so.6

7. Now edit the following file:

view /usr/sbin/vmware-hostd

8. Immediately before the last line, add the following bolded line:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/vmware/lib/libc.so.6:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
eval exec "$DEBUG_CMD" "$binary" "$@"

9. Start up the VMware server and console, and you should now be okay:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware start

Applicable Versions:

• VMware Server 2.0.2 build 203138 (VMware-server-2.0.2-203138.x86_64.tar.gz)
• Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 x86_64

References:

http://www.davidmarkley.com/vmware/vmware-server-2-on-centos-5-4