Auto-start Virtual Machines on Linux

So here is my scenario. I have a redhat EL5 machine running vmware workstation 6.5. We had a power outage while I was out of town and these dev/test boxes are not on the UPS, DOH! Well, the developers at this point had to figure out how to start the virtual machines on this box by themselves. So, when I returned, my first task was to ensure that these virtual machines startup automatically within vmware workstation.

So, the first thing I did was figure out how to get the virtual machines to start with the vmrun command. The first thing I learned was that I needed a line added to the vmx file to ensure the question prompts will not hold up the virtual machine from starting without the GUI to see the question that Vmware wants answered. To do this, I added the following line to my vmx file so that vmware will automatically select the default answer to any questions it may have.

msg.autoAnswer = "TRUE"

So, now I was able to figure out using helpfiles and some carefully crafted google queries that you can start a virtual machine in vmware workstation with the following command in headless mode (IE, no DISPLAY variable set).

vmrun start nogui

After figuring this out, I need to create an init script to start this up. The first thing that popped in my mind is the fact that I do not want these VM's starting under the root user, so I adapted my vmrun command for the script to look like this:

su - rivey -c "vmrun start nogui"

This will use the switch user command to run the command in parenthesis as the user I specify. I then snatched up the sshd init script, stripped all the junk I didn't need out, and finished with the following:
#!/bin/bash
#
# Init file for start Virtual Machines
#
# will start the following VM's
# /vms/Solaris10/Solaris10.vmx
# /vms/DC01/DC01.vmx
# /backup/vms/oraresource/oraresource.vmx
# /backup/vms/WindowsMemberServer/WindowsMemberServer.vmx
#
# source function library.
/etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

RETVAL=0
prog="vmware-vms"

#Location of vmx files
VM1=/vms/Solaris10/Solaris10.vmx
VM2=/vms/DC01/DC01.vmx
VM3=/backup/vms/oraresource/oraresource.vmx
VM4=/backup/vms/WindowsMemberServer/WindowsMemberServer.vmx

VMRUN=/usr/bin/vmrun

runlevel=$(set -- $(runlevel); eval "echo \$$#" )

start()
{
echo -n $"Starting $prog: Solaris10 "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN start $VM1 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo

echo -n $"Starting $prog: DC01 "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN start $VM2 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo

echo -n $"Starting $prog: oraresource "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN start $VM3 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo

echo -n $"Starting $prog: WindowsMemberServer "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN start $VM4 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo
}

stop()
{

echo -n $"Stopping $prog: Solaris10 "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN stop $VM1 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo

echo -n $"Stopping $prog: DC01 "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN stop $VM2 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo

echo -n $"Stopping $prog: oraresource "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN stop $VM3 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo

echo -n $"Stopping $prog: WindowsMemberServer "
su - rivey -c "$VMRUN stop $VM4 nogui"
RETVAL=$?
[ "$RETVAL" = 0 ]
echo
}

case "$1" in

start)
start
;;

stop)
stop
;;

*)
echo $"Usage: $0
{startstop}"

RETVAL=1
esac
exit $RETVAL

Now, a few things to point out. The first is pretty obvious, this script is starting and stopping 4 different VM's. The second, this is by no means the cleanest way of doing this and probably not the best script in the world, but it was a pretty nice little thrown together script to get the job done. Quick and dirty. Initial tests show the script is working like a champ. I tossed the script in /etc/init.d, threw the executable bit on, then sym linked it into rc3.d and rc5.d.