Stopping vmware guests with vmware-cmd

4 Replies

Lots of talk out there about “VMControl error -8: Invalid operation for virtual machine’s current state: Make sure the VMware Server Tools are running” when trying to use “vmware-cmd stop” to stop a VM. Stop by default tries to do a soft stop, where it asks the guest to shut down.

I’m scripting a start followed by a stop so vmware will generate new mac addresses for a vmx, and thie works “vmware-cmd stop hard”. ‘hard’, ‘soft’ and ‘trysoft’ are listed here as options.

Theres information here about how MACs are generated by the way. Removing mac address lines from the vmx file will cause them (and the uuid if it’s removed to) to be generated on startup and added to the vmx file.

4 thoughts on “Stopping vmware guests with vmware-cmd”

pt Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:47:12 -0700 at 12:47 pm

I also experienced VMControl erro -8, however with the vmware-cmd start. (This is vmware server 1.05 )

I just wonder if know what could cause this, and if there is anything in the log that I can look for?

Thanks
btm Post authorTue, 30 Sep 2008 12:56:24 -0700 at 12:56 pm

@pt,

You are running vmware-cmd as root or via sudo, correct?

I’d tail /var/log/vmware/vmware-serverd.log when you try to start and see what messages appear.
sweety Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:02:42 -0700 at 1:02 am

/var/log/vmware/vmware-serverd.log VMControl erro -8, however with the vmware-cmd start
rmccurdy Thu, 11 Mar 2010 06:08:44 -0700 at 6:08 am

for /f “delims=” %%i IN (‘dir/s/b c:\rootwars\*.vmx’) do (
“C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Server\vmware-cmd” -v “%%i” start
)

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