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Duco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Nested ESX tools show up as Running (Not Installed)

Hi Jim, see attached screenshots

I see the same behaviour on all my four nested ESXi VMs in both the web client and the C# client

Which exact log would you like me to upload?

Duco

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14 Replies
admin
Immortal
Immortal

If you could upload the vmware.log file for the ESXi VM (from the datastore on the physical host), that would be great. 

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Duco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Attached the logs for a virtual ESXi server from one of my physical hosts:

The good news is, as soon as I vMotion one of my virtual ESXi servers, the tools do show up as installed

Duco

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Duco wrote:

The good news is, as soon as I vMotion one of my virtual ESXi servers, the tools do show up as installed

Interesting.  Does a full shutdown of a virtual ESXi server followed by a restart fix the problem as well?

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Duco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Will try to deinstall tools on one of the nested esxi servers to test (all where working now)

After the upgrade I rebooted the nested esxi servers from the cli, so no full shutdown, from the VM

Will let you know

Duco

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Duco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

After uninstalling tools on one of the hosts, it says Not Running (current) so seems like it still caches the tools where installed before

Any idea how to force a refresh?

Duco

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Duco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

OK, restarted my vCenter Server, tools now show Not Running (Not Installed) on the host

Installed the tools again

Now did a poweroff instead of a reboot in the nested esxi guest after install

Powered on the nested esxi guest

After booting the nested esxi server, VMware Tools still show Running (Not Installed)

Seems like not all info is refreshed in vCenter ...

When restarting vCenter Server again, Status still is Running (Not Installed)

Only after a vMotion status changes to Running (Current)

Duco

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Thanks for the update.  I'm out of the office this week, but I'll take a look when I get back.

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Duco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

No hurry, have the tools running fine now, thanks for your support

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philbad
Contributor
Contributor

Just to chip in & say that I have experienced the same behaviour.

Unfortunately I have only one physical host so was unable to vMotion but found that a reboot of the physical host has got it to report properly. To be fair, the graceful power operations worked even when it was reporting not installed.

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

For those experiencing this issue, I have a question:  Does /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages exist on your ESXi host?

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Duco
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

It does, both on the physical and the virtual esxi host

Duco

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admin
Immortal
Immortal

This appears to be a known hostd bug that can be triggered by a "manual" Tools installation, regardless of guest OS type.  It looks like it should be fixed in a future update of ESXi 5.5.

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Photubias
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

So maybe a "/etc/init.d/hostd restart" might work when done on the physical ESXi host?

(or maybe "services.sh restart")

EDIT:

/etc/init.d/hostd restart AND services.sh restart do work, you can choose which to use.
So no need for vMotion or reboot ...

Message was edited by: Photubias -> Verified

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guellil
Contributor
Contributor

We're experiencing similar issues, though not for nested ESXi-Servers but for regular VMs. If I manually install the tools (9.4.0-1399439 on vSphere 5.5) it succeeds but they show up as "Running (Not Installed)" until I either reboot the vm or vMotion it to another host. Restarting hostd and/or services yields nothing.

We're using puppet to install the tools with all default answers.

Is there any information on when this issue will be resolved?

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