VMware Tools problems on a updated ESXi host (6.7->7.0)

[Raudi]

Hi,

we have noticed a problem with the installation of the current VMware Tools on a ESXi 7.0 host which was updated from 6.7.

On the updated host the tools are in a /tools folder, the /productLocker links to /tools.

This is the content of /tools/vmtols folder:

-rw-------    1 root     root     130664448 Mar  6 10:47 windows.iso

And on the fresh installed 7.0 host the /productLocker is pointing to /locker/packages/vmtoolsRepo

This is a different location, and this path exists on the updated host too, with this content:

-rw-r--r--    1 root     root     130775040 Jun 16 13:40 windows.iso

So the install routine of the VMware Tools are installing the Tools to a wrong location on the updated host, or during update from 6.7 to 7.0 the Tools location wasn't configured correctly. 

I have now executed this both commands:

rm productLocker
ln -snf /locker/packages/vmtoolsTepo /productLocker

After a host reboot the VM's are showing that a Tools update is available.

The question is now, what can i do, that without a host reboot, the new VMware Tools are detected by the VM's?

And is this a konwn issue, or should i open here a support request?

Kins regards

Stefan

[Raudi]

Okay, this is interesting...

After a reboot of the host, the content of /locker/packages/vmtoolsRepo is copied to /tools and the link of productLocker is changed back to /tools.

I noticed this, because i tryed to delete the /tools content after changing the link, but i was only able to delete the content, not the folder. Then after a host reboot the folder is filled again and with the same new version.

And on a different host i looked to the /tools folder before and afer the reboot. Before there are the old VMware Tools and after the reboot the folder content was synced to the current version.

Why is the behavior on a clean installed and updated host different? Why must the complete tools folder exist twice on the updated host?

[Raudi]

I think i'm getting it...

The /tools folder is a Ram-Disk Cached folder. Because this host is still using SD cards.

The new installed hosts have bigger SSD's for the boot device, here is no Cache Ram-Disk.

The behavior is described here:

Installing and upgrading the latest version of VMware Tools on existing hosts (2129825)