How to Start/Stop/Restart Tools in CentOS

[dderic]

Hello,

So I have VMware tools installed in Centos.  I know it starts up by itself.  How do I manually start/stop/restart it?  I've looked in /etc/rc.d/init.d and I can't seem to find the script.

Thanks!

Eric

[gaspipe]

service vmware-tools {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}

[dderic]

I tried that, says unrecognized service?  Thanks for replying though.

[nirvy · Accepted solution]

Try:

/etc/vmware-tools/services.sh restart

[abirhasan]

Have you tried with this command.?

# service vmware start

abirhasan   

[dderic]

Thanks nirvy, that did it! 

Can I simply stick services.sh in /etc/rc.d/init.d and use chkconfig/ntsysv to configure its startup/shutdown?

[dderic]

Doh.

[root@asdf init.d]# chkconfig --add vmware

service vmware does not support chkconfig

[root@asdf init.d]#

[dderic]

So I grabbed the RPMs from:

http://packages.vmware.com/tools/esx/latest/rhel6/x86_64/index.html

Specifically, vmware-tools-services-8.6.5-3.x86_64.rpm and it's dependencies.  I installed it with Yum.  It installed /etc/rc.d/init.d/vmware-tools-services which chkconfig supports.

Everything seems to work, start, and stop correctly.  The only thing is vSphere Client says:

"VMware Tools: (?) Running (3rd-party/Independent)"

... instead of ...

"VMware Tools: (check) Running (Current)"

I'm not sure if this is the ideal way of getting VMware tools on CentOS.  Anyone care to comment?

While the RPMs are listed as 3rd-party/Independent, it does works properly as an initialization script.

[gaspipe]

The "3rd party/independent" remark is to be expected, if installing VMware tools from source other than the vSphere/ESXi itself, I believe. It is somewhat strange that the traditional way didn't work for you, as CentOS definitely can run/start/strop VMware tools which are installed traditionally. Maybe there were some problems you didn't notice during installation which caused this behaviour.

[gaspipe]

Here's a detailed write-up on the issue: http://www.chriscolotti.us/vmware/info-linux-vmware-tools-install-changes-to-upstart/