Desktop Virtualization

Virtualization news and reviews

  • Solutions
  • Articles
  • Glossary
  • Contact

Gleb Reys March 31, 2008 17 Comments

Failed to allocate page for guest RAM error in Linux VMware Workstation

I've been spending increasingly more time researching topics for Unix Tutorial on one of my desktops. Ubuntu has replaced the Windows Vista I had and so far I quite like the experiment. Out of the box, all of the hardware was properly supported and even the NTFS partitions left from Vista install are easily available.

One of the first things I've decided to install was the trial version of the latest VMware Workstation: 6.0.3 build-80004. And although it installed without a problem, when I tried to run one of the previously created virtual machines, I got the following error:

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (vcpu-0)
Failed to allocate page for guest RAM!

As it turned out after a quick investigation, that was a result of running a VM from a NTFS partition, because its default mounting settings don't have the exec option.

Since you shouldn't be running anything critical through an NTFS driver anyway, I simply moved the VM onto one of the ext3 partitions and, sure enough, it fixed the guest RAM allocation error.

Update: if your scenario prevents you from moving a VM to a native partition, use the following option:

mainmem.UseNamedFile = "FALSE"

You should add it to the vmx file of your VM. Thanks for the tip, benito!

See Also

  • Disk Performance Tips for VMware Workstation

Filed Under: VMware Tagged With: VMware, vmware workstation

Upcoming topics

  • VMware View 4
  • PCoIP
  • New in xVM VirtualBox 3.1
  • vSphere 4

Comments

  1. benito says

    April 1, 2008 at 12:20 pm

    One posible solution is to include mainmem.UseNamedFile = "false" in the vmx file from the machine.

  2. Kory Miller says

    April 25, 2008 at 10:19 am

    [quote]One posible solution is to include mainmem.UseNamedFile = “false” in the vmx file from the machine.[/quote]

    worked for me (though it gave an error, so I think it wants "FALSE" in all caps….

  3. Mat Seymour says

    April 27, 2008 at 8:30 pm

    yeh does work

    utter genious

    🙂

  4. miki says

    May 3, 2008 at 7:20 am

    I added the line
    mainmem.UseNamedFile = “FALSE”

    worked pretty good!
    thanks!

  5. Dave says

    May 14, 2008 at 9:32 am

    Just make sure the quotes are correct.

    mainmem.UseNamedFile = “FALSE”

    shuld actually be

    mainmem.UseNamedFile = "FALSE"

    see the quote mark difference otherwise an error occurs.

  6. Gleb Reys says

    May 14, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Thanks so much for the comment, Dave!

    I have finally realized what happened – WordPress escaped the quotes with curvy ones, and all the readers who followed my advice got syntax error when they copied and pasted the line.

    It's fixed now! Thanks again!

  7. Edward Burns says

    June 5, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    mainmem.UseNamedFile = "FALSE"

    Does this have any adverse affect on performance? What does this setting actually do?

  8. Mike says

    June 26, 2008 at 3:58 pm

    Hey tyring to get this working, i'm VERY new to Linux. i'm trying to do the UseNamedFile = "FALSE" what is the command, or how exactly do i add that to the vmx file? Thanks, Mike

  9. Truong says

    July 9, 2008 at 4:44 am

    If you are in linux, just open file .vmx in your VM's directory by vim or geditl; then append that line into the file.

  10. Jon says

    August 15, 2008 at 10:25 am

    Well, this error message had just ruined my day, but your little article helped end it on a positive note. My .vmx file had stopped working and I had forgotten that I just recently moved it from my Ubuntu partition over to my Windows-dual-boot data partition. So, moving that file's folder back to /usr solved the problem. Thanks!

  11. Gleb Reys says

    August 15, 2008 at 11:24 am

    Glad to hear you had it fixed after all, Jon!

    It was a rather frustrating experience for myself, took a while to reconnect the events and figure it out.

  12. Jhon F. Ortiz O. says

    August 28, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    Hi! I repaired the VMware virtual machine following these steps. I just moved the vmware vm from a ntfs partition to ext3 partition. Thanks for this information. Bye!

  13. Gleb Reys says

    August 28, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    Hi, glad to have helped you! 🙂

  14. nor says

    September 26, 2008 at 5:22 pm

    works. thanks.

Trackbacks

  1. PiggituX.net WebloG » VMWare-Server unter Linux und NTFS - Partitionen says:
    June 2, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    […] Quelle: desktop-virtualization […]

  2. Running VMWare machines from NTFS filesystems on KUbuntu « Primal Cortex’s Weblog says:
    July 9, 2008 at 3:54 pm

    […] After a quick Google search, I hit this: http://www.desktop-virtualization.com/2008/03/31/failed-to-allocate-page-for-guest-ram/ […]

  3. 老所工作室 » Blog Archive » 在Ubuntu下安装VMware 6 says:
    September 29, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    […] 继续搜索,找到这个帖子,原来问题出在我的虚拟机是在NTFS文件系统下,这个文件系统无法支持命名管道。解决的办法很简单,打开我虚拟机的vmx文件,添加一行配置: […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

See Also

  • Unix Tutorial
  • Basic Unix Commands
  • Advanced Unix Commands
  • SSH port forwarding
  • Unix Tutorial Digest
  • Unix Reference

Advertise Here

If you're interested in advertising your desktop virtualization product on this website, please use the contact form to provide additional information.

Virtualization Software

APPIP ERROR: amazonproducts[
AccessDenied|The Access Key Id AKIAIJB2ICKX5VVPQVJA is not enabled for accessing Product Advertising API. Please sign up for Product Advertising API at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/assoc_credentials/home.
]
APPIP ERROR: amazonproducts[
AccessDenied|The Access Key Id AKIAIJB2ICKX5VVPQVJA is not enabled for accessing Product Advertising API. Please sign up for Product Advertising API at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/assoc_credentials/home.
]

Books you should read

  • Mastering VMware vSphere 4 (Computer/Tech)
  • vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide: Shortcuts down the path of Virtualization
  • Virtualizing Microsoft Tier 1 Applications with VMware vSphere 4

Recently Written

  • Follow Up on Hardware Virtualization
  • Open VM Tools or VMware Tools?
  • The End of the Road?
  • Desktop Virtualization in 2016
  • What Are Your Thoughts On VirtualBox 5.0?

Basic Unix Commands

Basic Unix Commands
  • ls command
  • mkdir command
  • man command in unix
  • cd command - change directory
  • uname command

Useful links

  • Solaris Blog
  • Unix Tutorial Unix Tutorials and System Administation Tips

Unix/Linux Reference

Unix Reference
  • check CentOS version
  • check Raspbian version
  • SSH port forwarding
  • unix commands
  • visudo tutorial
  • mtime unix
  • lrwxrwxrwx
  • Unix Tutorial digest

Advanced Unix Commands

Advanced Unix Commands
  • ln command - symlinks
  • tune2fs unix command - filesystem parameters
  • du command - disk usage
  • lsb_release command
  • find unix command

Virtualization Glossary

  • VDI
  • Virtual Machine
  • Sun xVM suite

Copyright © 2023 · Streamline Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in