Learning to VMRUN

I was also seeing the exception: -

Error: The virtual machine cannot be found

when using the VMRUN command ( I'm running VMware Server 2.0 on Ubuntu 9.0.4 64-bit ) as follows: -

vmrun -t server -h https://hostname.domainname.com:8333/sdk -u root -p passw0rd register "/vmwares/domino/Virtual\ Machine.vmx"

Having validated the path to the .VMX file ( /vmwares is a mount point for a 1 TB drive formatted as EXT4 ), I was also baffled.

The syntax of the VMRUN command does imply a logical/physical path to the VM: -

"[storage1] vm/myVM.vmx"

and I was missing the obvious - the phrase [storage1].

I followed the advice given here to start a VM from the Web UI and then issue the command: -

vmrun -t server -h https://hostname.domainname.com:8333/sdk -u root -p passw0rd list

which showed the running VM as: -

[VMwares on Samsung] domino/Virtual\ Machine.vmx

Once I had this ( slightly strange ) "path", I was good to go.

I can now start my VM as follows: -

vmrun -t server -h https://hostname.domainname.com:8333/sdk -u root -p passw0rd start "[VMwares on Samsung] domino/Virtual\ Machine.vmx"

and, if I want to be mean, stop it as follows: -

vmrun -t server -h https://hostname.domainname.com:8333/sdk -u root -p passw0rd stop "[VMwares on Samsung] domino/Virtual\ Machine.vmx"

Simple :-)

Thanks to the VMware Communities folks here