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
Since no solid answer has been found I'm just going to accept that under these specific circumstances there is no fix.
Solution: Close down VMware Workstation and choose for the VMs to "Run in the Background" Works flawlessly after that.