Failed to start APC PBE Agent service. VMware Server is installed

[Anonymous user]

Some problem with PowerChute Business Edition software. Whenever the machine is logged, the following error is received while the system shell is starting:


"Failed to start APC PBE Agent service.
VMware Server is installed, Please uninstall."



There is no VMware Server is installed on this machine but the following VMware products are installed:

* VMware Infrastructure Client (for management of ESX servers)
* VMware Infrastructure Remote CLI (for management of ESX servers)
* VMware Infrastructure Toolkit (for management of ESX servers)
* VMware Infrastructure Update (for updating ESX servers)
* VMware Workstation (for virtual machine creation)

Any advise?

[BillP]

Hi Pluto,

PCBE sees VMware Workstation as VMware and will not run with it. The other 4 you have listed I have not tested yet but I have tested the Workstation and know it will not work with it installed. As of now there is no work around for this and for me to get it installed I had to uninstall VMware Workstation.

If anyone else has had experience with this please let us know.

[BillP · Accepted solution]

I have run into this problem as well but have a question. After uninstalling VM-Workstation and installing PowerChute, did PowerChute continue to function normally after VM-Workstation was reinstalled? The question is whether the APC test for VMWare is done only during installation of PowerChute or whether it tests every time you try to activate it. I don't want to bother uninstalling VM-Workstation and re-installing it if the test is during every startup of the PowerChute software since I'll end up with exactly the same problem when I reinstall VM-Workstation.
Thanks, Ed

[ChrisW_apc · Accepted solution]

I've got the same problem. First of all Powerchute wouldn't install because it detected VMware Server - even though I'm only using Workstation. I uninstalled VMware, installed Powerchute, then reinstalled VMware and now I get the "Failed to start APC PBE Agent service" message when Windows starts up.

This is on Windows XP x64 Edition by the way.

[BillP]

If it were me, and I really, really wanted these two to play nice:

First, I'd make sure I understood why the software doesn't want you to run VMware Workstation - there's problably a good reason for it.
If there's not a good reason, I'd cheat.

I was going to do the grunt work for you, but I only use the VMware server products (ESX/ESXi) and the workstation download is 500MB that I don't have time for right this second.

If I had the time to download workstation, the next thing I'd do is obtain and use the free Microsoft tool called [Process monitor|http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx] and read a little on how to use it.

Using that tool, you would be able to have it monitor the PCBE setup to see what files/registry keys it is accessing in order to detect that you have "VMware server" installed.

Once you know what file/registry key(s) it's checking, it's likely you could fudge the detection by renaming directories/registry keys. Remember, it doesn't make sense for the installer team to check every single file and registry entry to detect VMware. They probably only check one or two places.

I'm purposely leaving out lots of "how-to" details - futzing around with your computer's registry and file system is potentially hazardous to mental and system stability if you aren't really sure what you're doing. If you don't have the background to fill in the details yourself, you're probably better leaving it alone and I disclaim any responsibility for your actions. 🙂

Message was edited by: DevAudio to fix grammar errors

[ChrisW_apc]

Downgrading to version 7 of Powerchute Business Edition is another way to avoid this problem.

[BillP]

I'd first understand the reasons why it's choking over VMware workstation if it were me. I suspect it's because a power shutdown event on the workstation will kill VMware and all its live VMs in an unfriendly fashion, leading potentially to damaged VMs.

I'd definitely keep lots of snapshots of my VMs and make sure I was OK with that data-loss scenario.

Don't you love it when software developers take it upon themselves to protect you from yourself because you're not a big boy capable of weighing risks and making your own decisions? 😉

Message was edited by: DevAudio

[ChrisW_apc]

DevAudio wrote:
Don't you love it when software developers take it upon themselves to protect you from yourself because you're not a big boy capable of weighing risks and making your own decisions? 😉

🙂

I don't use VMware often and not for anything critical. And anyway, being killed by a shutdown event is no worse than being killed by the power going off if I didn't have a UPS.

I'm only a home user but surely there's thousands of business users who want to use both VMware and an APC UPS. Fingers crossed APC release an update soon.

[BillP]

I think you're just falling between the cracks.

In a "real" VMware server environment, you'd have management servers to detect the outage and you'd be using the APC network shutdown software or SNMP (or other means) to handle shutting down the VMs, then shutting down ESX(i) server. Since you're a home user trying to run the free PCBE software and VMware Workstation, your use case is very rare, and probably didn't really merit the development resources for attempting to support it in a free product. I think that's a wise business decision on APC's part.

The part that would bother me is the "Stop! You Shouldn't Do This, Little One! It Is Bad For Your VMs! I Will Protect You From Your Own Stupidity By Taking Away Your Choice!" mentality. I'm an advocate of software telling me the risks and letting me do what I want with my systems anyway - because I can find ways the developer didn't think of for mitigating or ignoring them.

Unfortunately, I live in the real world and can understand APC's wanting to do this. For every one of us that knows what we want, or at least thinks we do and are willing to take our lumps if we're wrong, there are 100 SMB owners who would not read the "Okay, we'll trust you and let you do this, as long as you understand we don't recommend it and won't support it" warnings and then get mad and blame the product when Bad Things Happen™ and refuse to buy any more of that "lousy" product. Far better to annoy the one guy running VMware Workstation than the other 100 SMB owners. If teh workstation guy had the money to buy the big-boy products, he'd likely be running ESX(i) so you err on the side of keeping your big-spenders happy }:>

We all pay Stupid Tax. Sometimes its for our mistakes and we deserve it, sometimes we pay Stupid Tax on other people's mistakes.

[ChrisW_apc]

Yeah that makes sense.

Maybe I'll try using Sun VirtualBox instead of VMware.

[BillP]

i think DevAudio explained it best as far as APC's reasoning for not allowing you to install PCBE with VMWare on your system since there is a risk of shutting down your computer and crashing your virtual machines since PCBE does NOT have support for shutting down and saving the VMWare machines from the host operating system.

He also explained how APC has support for VMWare ESX/ESXi in a usually corporate type environment in conjunction with an APC network management card which shuts things down over the network with powerchute network shutdown.

i do agree with DevAudio that it would be nice to get a warning about the risk of installing PCBE but still letting you decide if you want to proceed and install knowing the risk rather than just not being able to do it at all.

[BillP]

Is it really necessary that PCBE needs to tell the VM's to shut down? I have VMware Server 1.0.8 on my Win 2003 SBS Server with 3 different VM's inside (2x Debian Linux, 1x Win XP) and I got the same agent message after the restart.

I have configured all three VM's on the host that they automatically power on on host start-up and power off on host shut-down (see attachment). So, I think when the host gets the signal from the APC agent he should shut down, the VM's should also shut-down just fine, without getting into any trouble. I have shut-down / restarted my host many times without having shut-down each VM before. I never got into any problems!

Additionally there is the possibility to use the VMWare API tools to suspend or even shut-down each VM by a little batch script. If someone does not trust the shut-down of VM's when the host is shutting down, he could also start a script, when the Agent tells the host to shut-down, that shuts down or suspends (which might be quicker) each VM before the host is shut down.

I think APC should take a look into the possibilites of virtualization software before blocking users with such "safety" functions. A little hint during installation (or at first agent start), that APC thinks that there are problems with VMWare and PCBE could be enough. There really should be an "Ignore" button for all of those who wants to take the risk...

Now I have a server with 3 VM's inside ( a total of 4 machines) that are NOT SECURED by APC PCBE at all !!! So, not only my VM's are in danger to get damaged by a blackout, but also my host! I am not sleeping well at night... Thank you APC for trying to sell me an expensive software that I would not need.

Does any of you have a quick workaround for me/us?

BTW: It is possible to install PCBE into a VM and connect the VM installation to the UPS. Then the VM is secured by PCBE, but the host is not and the VM could not shut down the host. PCBE could not be run on the host the could shut down also the VM... Very bad design and product politics !?!??

Message was edited by: omerk

[BillP]

Hi again,
the official solution from APC is to use PowerChute Network Shutdown -> http://www.apcc.com/products/family/index.cfm?id=127

Or you can use PCBE V8.0, which has the VMWare detection (and Hyper-V) not integrated.

I decided to take a closer look into pbeagent.exe, which is located under %programfiles%\APC\PowerChute Business Edition\agent. I used the following Hex-Editor: http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/ and found interesting strings. See attached "pbeagent.exe-original.jpg"

I then changed "vm" into "am" at 4 places (see attached "pbeagent.exe-patched.jpg"), started the service and voila it did run!

Please make the changes only on a copy of pbeagent.exe to have the original file for backup. And you need to do this modification, every time when, you update PCBE. I hope that APC integrates an "ignore" button in the next version, because personally I don't like this kind of patching...

I don't know, if the terms "vmms", "VMwareServerWebAccess", "VMwareHostd" and "VMAuthdService" are used to detect running processes, or enumerating registry keys. If anyone can find out where they must match, maybe they can be altered without negative effects. Then the patching is obsolete...

[Anonymous user]

I didn't get mine installed either. Got 4 linux machines running Folding@Home in VMWare Workstation.

I would really like running the UPS application, but not at the cost of shutting off my folding machines.

Bummer


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