VMware Server running on Ubuntu 64bit:

The problem is that the Ubuntu package is a 32bit package and doesn’t take into consideration that pam 64bit will try to load the 32 bit libraries as 64 bit libraries. The workaround, discovered by PLM is to replace /etc/pam.d/vmware-authd with:

#%PAM-1.0
auth       sufficient       /usr/lib/vmware-server/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix2.so shadow nullok
auth       required         /usr/lib/vmware-server/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix_auth.so shadow nullok
account    sufficient       /usr/lib/vmware-server/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix2.so
account    required         /usr/lib/vmware-server/lib/libpam.so.0/security/pam_unix_acct.so

VMware Server running on Ubuntu 32bit:

The problem is that for Ubuntu 32bit, the pam authentication lines in /etc/pam.d/vmware-authd are wrong and need to be replaced by:

#%PAM-1.0
auth required pam_unix_auth.so shadow nullok
account required pam_unix_acct.so