VMware Gentoo Server Setup Considerations

Written by Peter Davies on 11 February 2009.

Kernel Options

The Gentoo server must load the correct timing options and other entries. The following should be appended to the kernel grub loader configuration (which is accessed by following “modify grub” from the previous steps):

clocksource=pit noapic nolapic acpi=off

NB: by setting the acpi to off, the VM will no longer automatically alert the ESX/ESXi server that it has shut down. This means that once the O/S has finished the screen will show “System Halted” twice meaning that you need to click the red square to terminate the VM session – this is perfectly normal.

VMware Tools

Remove one that comes with ESX server by navigating into the vmware “bin” folder and executing the uninstall script. This will remove the code from

Add package to portage:

echo "app-emulation/open-vm-tools ~x86" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords

Emerge the file, saying YES to installation of all other packages:

emerge -av app-emulation/open-vm-tools

Then test & add to startup:

/etc/init.d/vmware-tools start or restart
rc-update add vmware-tools default

Adding New Users

Issue the following commands:

useradd -m -g dev -G dev,wheel,apache username
passwd username

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