Hi, Maybe this is just a newbie question. I am trying to inspect VMware images with guestfish. I am running Fedora 15 in a VSphere VM. Once Fedora is installed I do: yum update yum install '*guestf*' Then I run guesfish on a copy of a Fedora 15 disk. guestfish -rw -I -a Fedora15-2-disk1.vmdk with the following result: libguestfs: error: unexpected end of file when reading from daemon. This usually means the libguestfs appliance failed to start up. Please enable debugging (LIBGUESTFS_DEBUG=1) and rerun the command, then look at the debug messages output prior to this error. Or you can run 'libguestfs-test-tool' and post the complete output into a bug report or message to the libguestfs mailing list. Below is the debug trace. My understaningd is KVM or any hypervisor software is not required by the libguestfs architecture. It seems like the most telling message is: qemu-kvm: -drive file=Fedora15-2-disk1.vmdk,cache=off,if=virtio: could not open disk image Fedora15-2-disk1.vmdk: Operation not permitted I presume I am performing a very basic function which is expected to work. Thanks in advance Derek libguestfs: new guestfs handle 0x2123650 libguestfs: [00000ms] febootstrap-supermin-helper --verbose -f checksum '/usr/lib64/guestfs/supermin.d' x86_64 supermin helper [00000ms] whitelist = (not specified), host_cpu = x86_64, kernel = (null), initrd = (null), appliance = (null) supermin helper [00000ms] inputs[0] = /usr/lib64/guestfs/supermin.d checking modpath /lib/modules/2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64 is a directory picked vmlinuz-2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64 because modpath /lib/modules/2.6.38.6-26.rc1.fc15.x86_64 exists checking modpath /lib/modules/2.6.40.6-0.fc15.x86_64 is a directory picked vmlinuz-2.6.40.6-0.fc15.x86_64 because modpath /lib/modules/2.6.40.6-0.fc15.x86_64 exists supermin helper [00000ms] finished creating kernel supermin helper [00000ms] visiting /usr/lib64/guestfs/supermin.d supermin helper [00000ms] visiting /usr/lib64/guestfs/supermin.d/base.img supermin helper [00000ms] visiting /usr/lib64/guestfs/supermin.d/daemon.img supermin helper [00000ms] visiting /usr/lib64/guestfs/supermin.d/hostfiles supermin helper [00025ms] visiting /usr/lib64/guestfs/supermin.d/init.img supermin helper [00093ms] finished creating appliance libguestfs: [00095ms] begin testing qemu features libguestfs: [00107ms] finished testing qemu features libguestfs: accept_from_daemon: 0x2123650 g->state = 1 libguestfs: is_openable: /dev/kvm: No such file or directory libguestfs: [00122ms] /usr/bin/qemu-kvm \\n -drive file=Fedora15-2-disk1.vmdk,cache=off,if=virtio \\n -nodefconfig \\n -nodefaults \\n -nographic \\n -m 500 \\n -no-reboot \\n -no-hpet \\n -device virtio-serial \\n -serial stdio \\n -chardev socket,path=/tmp/libguestfsH4wsQ8/guestfsd.sock,id=channel0 \\n -device virtserialport,chardev=channel0,name=org.libguestfs.channel.0 \\n -kernel /var/tmp/.guestfs-500/kernel.2427 \\n -initrd /var/tmp/.guestfs-500/initrd.2427 \\n -append 'panic=1 console=ttyS0 udevtimeout=300 noapic acpi=off printk.time=1 cgroup_disable=memory selinux=0 guestfs_verbose=1 TERM=xterm ' \\n -drive file=/var/tmp/.guestfs-500/root.2427,snapshot=on,if=virtio,cache=unsafe open /dev/kvm: No such file or directory Could not initialize KVM, will disable KVM support qemu-kvm: -drive file=Fedora15-2-disk1.vmdk,cache=off,if=virtio: could not open disk image Fedora15-2-disk1.vmdk: Operation not permitted libguestfs: error: unexpected end of file when reading from daemon. See earlier debug messages. Or you can run 'libguestfs-test-tool' and post the complete output into a bug report or message to the libguestfs mailing list. libguestfs: child_cleanup: 0x2123650: child process died libguestfs: closing guestfs handle 0x2123650 (state 0)