VMware virtual machines wont resume from the command line

Question

I'm running VMWare Workstation on Ubuntu 10.10. I have a series of virtual machines that I clone every week.

I've written a bash script that cycles through each of the virtual machines, softly suspends it, clones it, and then attempts to resume it.

The problem is, the VM's do not resume, so I have to manually resume them. I'm trying to figure out how I can modify the script I've written to ensure the VMs resume. I've included the script and a sample of the generated logfile showing the error message.

#!/bin/bash

##Author:   William Cooper
##Date: 2/15/2011
## Purpose:     Perform full backups of Virtual Machines
##      Running under VMWare Workstation

## Script won't run if the /nas directory doesn't exist
## The /nas directory is a mounted Buffalo Terastation
## Check /etc/fstab if this mountpoint is broken
   BACKUPDEST="/nas"

## No need to modify
   HOST=`hostname`
   DATEFILE=`/bin/date +%G%m%d`

## Run Command to find list of VM names:
## this will only be the name of the vm, no path and no .vmx
   VMLIST=`vmrun list | grep '/' | cut -d'/' -f3 | cut -d'.' -f1`

## Initialize Counter variable used to cycle through VMs in VMARRAY variable
   COUNTER=1

## Run Command to find list of VM Names and then store them in an Array:
## This will include full pathnames
   VMARRAY=( `vmrun list | grep '/'` )

#################################################################
## Functions

##
## Notify the starting time of backup in the log
##
function startScript {
   echo
   echo "----------------------------------------------------"
   echo "START - ${VM}"
   echo "Host: ${HOST}"
   echo "Date: `date`"
   echo
}

##
## Suspend VM
##
function suspendVM {
   ## Suspend the VM
   echo "Attempting to softly suspend "${VM}" . . ."
   vmrun suspend ${VMARRAY[${COUNTER}]} soft
   echo "${VM} Suspended on `date`"
   echo
}

##
## Backup VM
##
function doBackup {

   ## Check to see if the correct backup directory exists.
   if [ ! -d ${BACKUPDEST}/${VM} ]; then
      echo "${BACKUPDEST}/${VM} does not exist, creating . . ."
      mkdir "${BACKUPDEST}/${VM}"
      echo
   fi

   ## Backup VM (clone)
   echo "Backup of "${VM}" began: `date`"
   echo "Backup to ${BACKUPDEST}/${VM}/BACKUP/${DATEFILE} . . ."
   mkdir ${BACKUPDEST}/${VM}/BACKUP/${DATEFILE}
   vmrun clone ${VMARRAY[${COUNTER}]} ${BACKUPDEST}/${VM}/BACKUP/${DATEFILE}/${VM}.vmx full
   echo "Backup of "${VM}" ended: `date`"
   echo
}

##
## Start VM
##
function doStart {
   ## Resume VMs which were running [--type gui|sdl|vrdp|headless]
   echo "Attempting to resume "${VM}" . . ."
   vmrun start ${VMARRAY[${COUNTER}]}
   echo "${VM} Resumed on `date`"
   echo
}

##
## Notify the finishing time of backup in the log
##
function finishScript {
   echo "FINISH - ${VM}"
   echo "Host: ${HOST}"
   echo "Date: `date`"
   echo "----------------------------------------------------"
   echo
}

#################################################################
## Script

for VM in ${VMLIST}
do

   sleep 1
   ## StartScrip executes for logging
      startScript

   ## Suspend VM performs soft suspend
      suspendVM
      sleep 3

   ## Do Backup performs the VM clone
      doBackup
      sleep 3

   ## Start VM performs start vm
      doStart
      sleep 3

   ## FinishScript executes for logging
      finishScript

   ## Increment the Counter
      COUNTER=${COUNTER}+1

done | tee "${BACKUPDEST}/logs/VMClone_${DATEFILE}.log"

## Script
#################################################################
exit

An example of the generated logfile for each VM is shown below.

----------------------------------------------------
START - vmname
Host: servername
Date: Sat Feb 19 12:30:29 CST 2011

Attempting to softly suspend vmname . . .
vmname Suspended on Sat Feb 19 12:30:44 CST 2011

Backup of vmname began: Sat Feb 19 12:30:47 CST 2011
Backup to /nas/vmname/BACKUP/20110219 . . .
Backup of vmname ended: Sat Feb 19 12:43:16 CST 2011

Attempting to resume vmname . . .
Error: Cannot launch the UI because no display server is present in the current environment
vmname Resumed on Sat Feb 19 12:43:20 CST 2011

FINISH - vmname
Host: servername
Date: Sat Feb 19 12:43:23 CST 2011
----------------------------------------------------

Error: Cannot launch the UI because no display server is present in the current environment

Answer 1

You could use the nogui paramater to the start command, e.g:

vmrun start yourmachine.vmx nogui

See: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vix180_vmrun_command.pdf