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benjaminsommerf
Contributor
Contributor

Support for Ubuntu 8.04 as guest OS in ESX?

Hello,

we're using VMWare ESXi 3.5 server in our university and according to the "Guest OS guide" Ubuntu 8.04 isn't supported as guest OS in ESX 3.5, yet. Can you tell me when (this year?) it's planned to add support for Ubuntu 8.04 as guest OS in ESX?

Thanks for your help in advance.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Well the released version of Ubuntu 8.0.4 LTS is about a week old, you gotta give them some time to process it all thru Q&A so they can properly support it.

As for the "when", it will come with one of the updates in ESX and those come in about every 2 months now.

No one will give you an exact date, it is there when ready.

FWIW, the other day I actually installed VMware workstation 6.5 beta on a 8.04 ubuntu host and that worked fine. So the changes needed in VMware tools in order to compile correctly can probably already be used from that workstation version. In case you didn't know the tools are basically cross platform (eg. a vmware server linux vmwaretools can be used in workstation / player / ESX for linux guests)

Alternatively you can use the open vmware-tools as they have been reported to work with Hardy as a guest in ESX.

--

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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benjaminsommerf
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

I know about open-vm-tools and already successfully installed VMWare Tools under a Ubuntu 8.04 guest with this howto:

http://peterc.org/2008/62-how-to-install-vmware-tools-on-ubuntu-hardy-804-under-vmware-fusion.html

but we have a specific problem with Ubuntu 8.04 that doesn't appear with Ubuntu 7.10.

Here's what happens:

Whenever we move a virtual machine with an unsupported Linux version (Debian 4.0 or Ubuntu 8.04) to another ESX instance (we have 4 instances in an ESXi 3.5 cluster, ESX often moves virtual machines to another instance in the cluster by itself for load-balancing of the servers' system ressources), the load factor of the running server process (mysqld for example) goes up to 100% and stays there. We then have(!) to stop this running virtual machine and restart it to stop this behaviour. It's a reproducable problem we only get with unsupported linux versions. With Ubuntu 7.10 this doesn't appear at all.

But Ubuntu 7.10 won't be supported much longer and 8.04 will be supported the next 6 years and that's why it's important for us to know when Ubuntu 8.04 will probably be officially supported for ESX.

If we get the information that Ubuntu 8.04 probably won't be officially supported this year, we'll have to move all our linux machines to Ubuntu 7.10 temporarily.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Funny I did see Peter Coopers page the other day and was thinking of adding the hyperlink in my answer Smiley Happy

It's a reproducable problem we only get with unsupported linux versions. With Ubuntu 7.10 this doesn't appear at all.

Even while 8.0.4 is still unsupported, ubuntu itself is on the support list and with the LTS on ubuntu, you can expect that VMware will also look at this version with special attention. I wouldn't expect 7.10 to be off the support list any day soon, even ubuntu will support it for 18 months.

When I just looked online, it appears people are actually shouting numbers for the support time at random, so I think I understand.

Have a look here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition/benefits/lifecycle

Heck my Ubuntu 6.06 LTS "dapper drake" vm servers are still humming along happily....

--

Wil

PS: Even while VMware does not yet officially support ubuntu 8.04, I would contact VMware support on your issue anyways, just making sure they are aware about the problem.

Message was edited by: wila (added the support bit)

| 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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benjaminsommerf
Contributor
Contributor

I already contacted VMWare Support and they told me that I should post in this forum, cause they can't answer my question and there should be some technical employees from VMWare in this forum who could answer it.

Any news on Ubuntu 8.04 support? In the Guest OS guide, it's still not mentioned....

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jibeddari
Contributor
Contributor

Supported or not ..

.. if you want this solved for Ubuntu 8.04 you could create an account and comment on this bug on Ubuntu Launchpad. This is a request to pacakge open-vm-tools for Ubuntu the same way as has already been done for Debian unstable, Lenny (testing) and Etch (through backports.org).

I've been using the Debian packages for open-vm-tools since early december 2007 on ESX 3 and now 3.5 without any trouble. The crucial points for me has been the vmxnet-module and the possibility of doing clean, VC-initiated shutdowns or reboots.

The open-vm-tools initiative from VMware is great, and that they are (or have been?) hiring for that team is even greater, just that it came a little too late for Ubuntu 8.04 it seems.

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rouben
Contributor
Contributor

FYI,

VMware does provide packages and even apt repositories with precompiled

versions of both kernel modules and VMware Tools for Ubuntu 8.04 and

8.04.1 for ESX version 3.5:

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