OSX Lion: Launchd VMware script stops unwanted

[plafundum2]

Hi all, I am new on the forum, but definitely not on OSX and Unix. Still i have an persistent issue.

I wrote a start script, in this case for VMware. Runs perfectly when hit from commandline: The script starts VMware, then the script exits and VMware keeps running.

Basically, this is the shell script, mark the backticks:
`/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vmx -x /Users/pietje/Virtual\ Machines/Ubuntu\ 64-bit.vmwarevm/Ubuntu\ 64-bit.vmx >> $logFile 2>&1 &`

The following script will make Launchd start VMWARE, and also keep it running, but now the bash script will remain running.
`/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vmx -x /Users/pietje/Virtual\ Machines/Ubuntu\ 64-bit.vmwarevm/Ubuntu\ 64-bit.vmx & >> $logFile 2>&1`

But when calling with launchdaemon, the script runs, starts VMware. When the bash script ends however, VMware gets terminated too.
Here is my plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.pietje.launch.vmware</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>/Users/pietje/bin/bash/com.pietje.launch.vmware.plist.sh</string>
<string>LaunchDeamon</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>
<true/>
</dict>
</plist>


I have tried all kinds of stuff. also nohup, but that will not work too, gives
nohup: can't detach from console: Inappropriate ioctl for device
Also <key>KeepAlive</key> <true/> does not work

Any guru here who can help me?

[hayne]

Why are you using backticks in your script? Backticks are used to capture the output of a command - that doesn't seem relevant here.

[Hal Itosis]

This may be one of those cases where it's better to employ launchd directly, instead of having it call upon a script. E.g. this should work:

:
:
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
	<string>/Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vmx</string>
	<string>-x</string>
	<string>/Users/pietje/Virtual Machines/Ubuntu 64-bit.vmwarevm/Ubuntu 64-bit.vmx</string>
</array>
:
:

NB: as can be seen in my (code fragment) version, we should not escape\ spaces or add any "quoting" in the plist... since those <string> fields get quoted when read by launchd.

NB2: since we aren't relying on any script process to act as our middleman, there's no need for that backgrounding (&) business.

Also, I left out the >> $logFile 2>&1 part... since we don't know the actual path there.

[plafundum2]

Without bakticks teh script does not run well.

@ Hal Itosis: your posting seems the best hint so far, got it also from a friend of mine. Thanks especially for the remarks (the two NB's) because I am sure those will save me two or more hours! :-)

I keep u posted on the results.