Linux VM IP Customization Fails in SRM or VLSR with Error: “A general system error occurred: vix error codes = (1, 2)”

Products

• VMware Live Recovery

Issue/Introduction

During Test Recovery, Planned Migration, or Disaster Recovery operations, Linux virtual machines fail IP customization.

The following error appears in the Recovery Plan report within the DR user interface:

“Error - A general system error occurred: vix error codes = (1, 2)”

In /var/log/vmware/vmware-dr.log, the following entries are recorded:

-->          (vmodl.fault.SystemError) {
-->             faultCause = (vmodl.MethodFault) null,
-->             faultMessage = <unset>,
-->             reason = "vix error codes = (1, 2).
--> "
-->             msg = "A general system error occurred: vix error codes = (1, 2).
--> "

Environment

VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.8

VMware Live Site Recovery 9.x

Cause

The issue occurs because the VMware Tools guest authentication service (VGAuthService) is not running on the affected Linux virtual machines.

The vgAuthService is required for SRM guest operations, including IP customization. When the VGAuth socket (/var/run/vmware/guestServicePipe) is missing, vmtoolsd cannot connect, leading to VIX impersonation errors and resulting in the error message:

“vix error codes = (1, 2)”.

Example log excerpts:

From /var/log/vmware-vmsvc-root.log:

[ warning] [VCGA] VGAuth_NetworkConnect: connect() failed for /var/run/vmware/guestServicePipe, [errno = 2], No such file or directory
[ warning] [VCGA] VGAuth_ConnectToServiceAsUser: Failed to connect to public pipe
[ warning] [vix] VixToolsImpersonateUser: impersonation failed (1)

From /var/log/vmware-vgauthsvc.log.0:

[2025-09-10T09:20:23.614Z] [ warning] [VGAuthService] Error: catalog file not found at "/usr/lib/vmware-vgauth/schemas/catalog.xml"
[2025-09-10T09:20:23.614Z] [ warning] [VGAuthService] Failed to load schemas
[2025-09-10T09:20:23.614Z] [ warning] [VGAuthService] ServiceStartAndRun: failed to init verification; exiting

Resolution

To resolve the issue, perform the following steps on the protected site VM:

• Remove TAR VMware Tools (if present):
  • Run the below command to uninstall all traces of  TAR tools:

/usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

• • Reboot the VM
    
    
• Remove Open VMware Tools:
  • Run the below command to uninstall all traces of Open VMware Tools:

dnf remove open-vm-tools

• • Reboot the VM

• Install the latest supported version of VMware Tools