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grittyminder
Contributor
Contributor

Benefit to installing VMware tools on a GUI-less linux based VM?

Greetings!

I was wondering if there truly was any benefits to installing VMware tools (ESX 3.5) on a strictly command-line based (i.e. no GUI) linux-based distribution. It seems that most of the VMware tools benefits are related to the GUI and so will not be of much use. If possible I do not want to have to install any additional applications on the linux-based server in question, and this includes VMware tools.

Here are the benefits of VMware tools and how they do/do not apply in the present situation:

  1. Improved video compatibility & performance -- No video so this doesn't apply

  2. Mouse synchronization with the host operating system -- No mouse so this doesn't apply

  3. Improved network compatibility & performance -- This could be a benefit, however how much of a network performance boost could I expect here? Does anybody have any ideas?

  4. Copy and paste between the host and guest -- This seems to only apply to the GUI (I haven't been able to find a way to copy/paste using the command line interface)

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

Your post has been moved to the VI: Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

Dave Mishchenko

VMware Communities User Moderator

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eldee201110141
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

On #3. I can't speak to linux specifically, but I can tell you how the tools affect Windows. Before installing the tools, the VM sees the NIC as a 10/half adapter, and afterwards see it as a 1000/Full adapter. Not sure what the default driver in Linux is, but my guess is it won't see it as a Gigabit adapter until the tools are installed.

Larry

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Well there is more, for example,

WIth vmware-tools installed your vm can then use:

#. memory ballooning techniques

#. programmatic enhancements such as the vi-toolkit and for example run applications on demand using the vmrun interface

#. use of VMCI (not much used yet)

#. use of the suspend/resume/shutdown/start scripts in your guest for quiescing of databases etc..

and I'm sure I am forgetting something, so while it can be useful (especially the memory ballooning bit) it certainly isn't a requirement



--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

To add to Wil's list - a driver for the virtual scsi card is added improving disk performance -

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grittyminder
Contributor
Contributor

I didn't realize that people had replied to this thread, sorry. With regards to #3 ("Improved network compatibility & performance") I did some formal testing on my own.

Test Guest OS: Ubuntu Server 8.04 configured as multi-homed firewall/router with 2 IF in networks A and B

Test Method: Configure Iperf server in network A. Configure Iperf client in network B. Measure network speed (10 trials) from Iperf client, through firewall/router, to server with vmtools not installed on firewall/router. Measure network speed (10 trials) from Iperf client, through firewall/router, to server with vmtools installed on firewall/router.

Results:

Mean Network Speed w/o VMtools: 81.38 MB/sec

Mean Network Speed /w VMtools: 77.27 MB/sec

The two means are statistically significant, although I can't find the p value right now. The results seem to suggest that you should expect a slight network performance decrease when using VMtools with a Linux-based server (well, at least with a Ubuntu Server 8.04 based firewall/router). However, despite the performance hit, at the very least, the ability to cleanly startup/shutdown the VM from the VI Client makes installing VMtools worth it.

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AndreTheGiant
Immortal
Immortal

Teorically VMware Tools driver must give you more performance on disk and network I/O.

Which kind of virtualization product are you using? (ESX3, ESX3.5, Server1, Server2?)

Andre

**if you found this or any other answer useful please consider allocating points for helpful or correct answers

Andrew | http://about.me/amauro | http://vinfrastructure.it/ | @Andrea_Mauro
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grittyminder
Contributor
Contributor

We're using ESX3.5 and Virtual Center 2.5. The test client was a stand alone laptop (Windows XP SP2); the test server was a Windows XP SP2 virtual machine with VMware tools already installed; the firewall/router and test server were housed in iSCSI storage (Eternus 2000) on separate volumes. The only thing that changed between the first and second test conditions was the inclusion of VMtools for the second test condition.

...any ideas?

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Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

The paravirtualized drivers installed with VMware tools tend to work better but they may or may not grant you greater performance. That depends on too many things. SPecifically it will depend on the number of VMs currently using the network, number of Cores/vCPUs in use, etc. etc. In general on ESX v3.x I have noticed that the pcnet32 drivers work as well as the vmxnet driver, but the e1000 driver works better than those.

Just as an aside, I use VMware Tools on all my Linux VMs. I do not however always use the vmxnet driver. But that is not all you get with VMware Tools:

VMware Block Filesystem driver (vmblock) to provide drag and drop file capability within VMware Remote Console and the Workstation from which it is running (Not supported by ESX)

VMware Sync Driver (vmsync) for freezing and thawing the filesystem on Linux systems

VMware Memory Controller (vmmemctl) for implementing the balloon driver

VMware Network Driver (vmxnet/vmxnet3) for implementing a paravirtualized network device

VMware Host/Guest file system driver (vmhgfs) for creating a share between a host and a guest when using VMware Workstation only

VMware SVGA Display Driver for Windows systems only as this driver is integrated into the X.org project for Linux

VMware Mouse Driver for Windows systems only as this is integrated into the X.org project for Linux

VMware descheduled CPU time accounting driver (vmdesched) which is an experimental driver which improves the accuracy of time keeping

vsock for datagram and stream socket interfaces to interface with the VMware VMCI (vmci) module that drives VMware's inter-VM communication device

VMware Toolbox on Linux or VMware Tray on Windows for controlling the various options of the VMware Tools


Best regards, Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009, DABCC Analyst[/url]
Now Available on Rough-Cuts: 'VMware vSphere(TM) and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment'[/url]
Also available 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise'[/url]
[url=http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll]SearchVMware Pro[/url]|Blue Gears[/url]|Top Virtualization Security Links[/url]|Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast[/url]

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
AlbertWT
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Well, it sounds to me that installing VMWare tools is a recommended for VM better performance

Kind Regards,

AWT

/* Please feel free to provide any comments or input you may have. */
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Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

In general it is. Smiley Happy However, if there is an issue, it is also one the first things to disable.


Best regards, Edward L. Haletky VMware Communities User Moderator, VMware vExpert 2009
Now Available on Rough-Cuts: 'VMware vSphere(TM) and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment'[/url]
Also available 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise'[/url]
[url=http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll]SearchVMware Pro[/url]|Blue Gears[/url]|Top Virtualization Security Links[/url]|Virtualization Security Round Table Podcast[/url]

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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