Can't start Honeywall VM

Hi,

I'm not sure why you need to directly edit the /etc/passwd file (other than if you wanted to manually change the default password of "password" for user accounts "root" and "roo").

Regardless, I'd recommend extracting the VM, change the VM's permissions, and powering on the VM first, before trying to manually edit any /etc/passwd files inside the honeywall VM's filesystem.

When you extracted the honeywall archive, did you change the ownership and permissions on the files, so that you have full access to the files?

For example, try the following steps:

# tar -jxvf honeywall.tar.bz2
honeywall/
honeywall/honeywall-f001.vmdk
honeywall/honeywall-f002.vmdk
honeywall/honeywall-f003.vmdk
honeywall/honeywall-f004.vmdk
honeywall/vmware-0.log
honeywall/vmware-1.log
honeywall/vmware-2.log
honeywall/nvram
honeywall/honeywall.vmx.sav
honeywall/nvram.sav
honeywall/honeywall.vmx
honeywall/honeywall.vmdk
honeywall/vmware.log
# chown -R root:root honeywall
# vmware-cmd -s register `pwd`/honeywall/honeywall.vmx
register(.../honeywall/honeywall.vmx) = 1
# vmware-cmd `pwd`/honeywall/honeywall.vmx start hard
start(hard) = 1

Then proceed to connect to the host system using the VMware Console as root and see if you get any console output from the "Honeywall VM" entry.

If you still can't connect to the VM via the VMware Console, try ssh'ing to the Honeywall VM by typing:

# ssh roo@192.168.0.128

This assumes you have the networking all setup on the host system ahead of time.

Please let me know if any of this works or not.

Thanks,

— Darien

Hi! Thanks for the responsem whenever I try to start honeywall it gives me this error

"Unable to change virtual machine power state: The process exited with an error: End of error message."

Here is the vmware log:

[code]Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Log for VMware Server pid=5522 version=1.0.3 build=build-44356 option=Release Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Command line: "/opt/vmware/server/lib/bin/vmware-vmx" "-C" "-@" """" "/root/Desktop/FIRM/VMs/honeywall/honeywall.vmx" Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| vmxvmdb: Index name being generated from config file Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| VMXVmdbConnectServerd - Trying to discover serverd Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.cpuusage Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.ram Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.uptime Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.load Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Msg_Post: Error Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| [msg.vmmonPosix.openFailed] Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory. Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Please make sure that the kernel module `vmmon' is loaded. Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| ———————————————————— Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| POST(no connection): Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory. Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Please make sure that the kernel module `vmmon' is loaded. Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Msg_Post: Error Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| [msg.vmmonPosix.initFailed] Failed to initialize monitor device. Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| ———————————————————— Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| POST(no connection): Failed to initialize monitor device. Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Module VMMon initialization failed. Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Flushing VMX VMDB connections Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Failed to initialize VM. /code

Hope this helps,

—Michael

Here let me make that better. Haven't used this system before.

Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Log for VMware Server pid=5522 version=1.0.3 build=build-44356 option=Release
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Command line: "/opt/vmware/server/lib/bin/vmware-vmx" "-C" "-@" """" "/root/Desktop/FIRM/VMs/honeywall/honeywall.vmx"
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| vmxvmdb: Index name being generated from config file
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| VMXVmdbConnectServerd - Trying to discover serverd
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.cpuusage
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.ram
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.uptime
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| MStat: Creating Stat system.load
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Msg_Post: Error
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| [msg.vmmonPosix.openFailed] Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory.
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Please make sure that the kernel module `vmmon' is loaded.
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| ----------------------------------------
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| POST(no connection): Could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory.
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Please make sure that the kernel module `vmmon' is loaded.
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| 
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Msg_Post: Error
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| [msg.vmmonPosix.initFailed] Failed to initialize monitor device.
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| ----------------------------------------
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| POST(no connection): Failed to initialize monitor device.
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| 
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Module VMMon initialization failed.
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Flushing VMX VMDB connections
Jul 26 10:57:51: vmx| Failed to initialize VM.

Hi Michael,

This issue sounds like a VMware Server issue, and not just a Honeywall VM specific issue. Have you tried running other VMs successfully on your host system? Or is this the first one you have tried?

Specifically, the error message talks about how VMware Server is unable to access a device known as /dev/vmmon. This device should have been setup and properly initialized if VMware Server was installed properly. To be more precise, vmmon is a kernel module that VMware Server loads when it's properly started up.

To verify that it's a VMware Server problem, here's an easy test you can do:

1) Download another Virtual Appliance from VMware's website: http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/index.html

2) Extract, register, and try to run this appliance.

If you're able to run everything properly. Then, we can try to troubleshoot this further, as it would seem to be Honeywall specific.

Otherwise, if you also get that same /dev/vmmon error message, I'd recommend you look at the VMTN forums, as they have threads that have covered how to resolve this issue as well: http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa;jsessionid=6953BD91C5F9C7924C464BD8059627C5?messageID=346841&#346841

Regards,

— Darien

Its seems as of now that I have gotten it to work thank you for your information.

—Michael

Good to hear. Glad I could help.

— Darien