open-vm-tools-common require /usr/bin/lsb_release on RHEL/CentOS systems

[admin]

Hi,

during evaluation of open-vm-tools (switching from VMwareTools RPM) I ran into the problem, that the open-vm-tools function set uses /usr/bin/lsb_release for detecting the release of RHEL/CentOS. Technically it calls only "lsb_release --release --short" for retrieving major and minor versions.

A missing /usr/bin/lsb_release prevents /etc/init.d/vmware-tools from loading the kernel modules vmmemctl and vmxnet

Use of lsb_release is a standard way, but on stripped systems, redhat-lsb (which contains /usr/bin/lsb_release) is not installed, because this RPM has a lot of dependencies, which usually nobody want to have installed on stripped systems, like:

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Package Arch Version Repository Size

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Installing:

redhat-lsb i386 3.1-12.3.EL.el5.centos centos5-base-i386 21 k

Installing for dependencies:

avahi i386 0.6.16-1.el5_2.1 centos5-updates-i386 250 k

avahi-compat-libdns_sd i386 0.6.16-1.el5_2.1 centos5-updates-i386 22 k

bc i386 1.06-21 centos5-base-i386 105 k

binutils i386 2.17.50.0.6-9.el5 centos5-base-i386 2.9 M

cairo i386 1.2.4-5.el5 centos5-base-i386 394 k

cups i386 1:1.3.7-8.el5_3.6 centos5-updates-i386 3.4 M

cups-libs i386 1:1.3.7-8.el5_3.6 centos5-updates-i386 193 k

fontconfig i386 2.4.1-7.el5 centos5-base-i386 174 k

freetype i386 2.2.1-21.el5_3 centos5-updates-i386 310 k

gettext i386 0.14.6-4.el5 centos5-base-i386 1.4 M

libICE i386 1.0.1-2.1 centos5-base-i386 54 k

libSM i386 1.0.1-3.1 centos5-base-i386 27 k

libX11 i386 1.0.3-9.el5 centos5-base-i386 795 k

libXau i386 1.0.1-3.1 centos5-base-i386 18 k

libXdmcp i386 1.0.1-2.1 centos5-base-i386 19 k

libXext i386 1.0.1-2.1 centos5-base-i386 35 k

libXft i386 2.1.10-1.1 centos5-base-i386 44 k

libXi i386 1.0.1-3.1 centos5-base-i386 25 k

libXrender i386 0.9.1-3.1 centos5-base-i386 27 k

libXt i386 1.0.2-3.1.fc6 centos5-base-i386 175 k

libXxf86vm i386 1.0.1-3.1 centos5-base-i386 14 k

libdaemon i386 0.10-5.el5 centos5-base-i386 24 k

libdrm i386 2.0.2-1.1 centos5-base-i386 19 k

libjpeg i386 6b-37 centos5-base-i386 139 k

libpng i386 2:1.2.10-7.1.el5_3.2 centos5-updates-i386 241 k

libtiff i386 3.8.2-7.el5_3.4 centos5-updates-i386 306 k

m4 i386 1.4.5-3.el5.1 centos5-base-i386 133 k

make i386 1:3.81-3.el5 centos5-base-i386 466 k

mesa-libGL i386 6.5.1-7.7.el5 centos5-base-i386 9.7 M

pango i386 1.14.9-5.el5.centos centos5-updates-i386 335 k

paps i386 0.6.6-18.el5 centos5-base-i386 32 k

pax i386 3.4-1.2.2 centos5-base-i386 63 k

time i386 1.7-27.2.2 centos5-base-i386 16 k

xorg-x11-filesystem noarch 7.1-2.fc6 centos5-base-i386 5.4 k

Transaction Summary

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Install 35 Package(s)

Update 0 Package(s)

Remove 0 Package(s)

avahi and cups should not exist on a hardened system, also the X-libraries were not expected to be installed, especially, when "open-vm-tools-nox" is installed...

Imho, use of /usr/bin/lsb_release is a overkill and can be done much easier in a simple script by reading /etc/redhat-release like some other release detection method also working.

At least for RHEL 5.4, following is working well:

cat /etc/redhat-release | sed 's/.* \(\.[0-9]\) .*/\1/'

lsb_release is used here:

1. grep lsb_release -r /usr/lib/vmware-tools/

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/functions: local version=`lsb_release --release --short`

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/functions: local version=`lsb_release --release --short`

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/functions: # if lsb_release includes minor version, use that

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/functions: lsb_release --release --short | tr --delete "."

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/install/open-vm-tools-kmod/functions: local version=`lsb_release --release --short`

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/install/open-vm-tools-kmod/functions: local version=`lsb_release --release --short`

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/install/open-vm-tools-kmod/functions: # if lsb_release includes minor version, use that

/usr/lib/vmware-tools/install/open-vm-tools-kmod/functions: lsb_release --release --short | tr --delete "."

I suggest to replace lsb_release either by a simple script or take a copy of the code (/usr/bin/lsb_release is also a shell script) and include the important parts.

Note: unfortunatelly, the open-vm-tools function are called using /bin/sh, therefore overloading this function by e.g. a /etc/profile.d scriptlet also not worked

Only existing workaround: store a copy of lsb_release into /usr/bin

BTW: if use of /usr/bin/lsb_release stays, at least this important requirement needs to be specified in the RPM, either

Requires: redhat-lsb

or

Requires: /usr/bin/lsb_release

Peter