[CentOS-virt] VMs won't power on

[Greg Bailey]

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