Richard Fairfield wrote:

Hello –

I have installed the VMware-server-1.0.5-80187.i386.rpm package on a CentOS 5.1 system. I then ran the vmware-config.pl program. I chose mostly default answer, except that I did not choose the NAT option; I saw no errors.

I used the VMware Server Console to create a Red Hat Linux VM. I also copied an externally created VM into the '/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/' directory. I cannot power-on either of these VMs. The VM's console is blank for several minutes, after which the following message appears in a pop-up window:

Unable to change virtual machine power state: The "/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx" process did not start properly Try running "/usr/lib/vmware/bin/vmware-vmx /var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/Red Hat Linux/Red Hat Linux.vmx" from the command-line on the server..

I tried running it from the command line, as the message suggests. That just hangs forever. I don't see anything other than the above error message in the /var/log/vmlog/vmware-serverd.log file.

I've tried rebooting, and uninstalling and reinstalling the VMware Server software. I even tried installing from tar file, instead of the RPM. Nothing changes.

I'm completely stuck. Can anyone help me with this?

What kernel are you running on your VMware server? (What does "uname -a" show?) You can't run the "kernel-xen" kernel and have VMware work; if that's the case, switch to the regular kernel and try that...

-Greg