Unable to install VMware-vSphere-Perl-SDK-5.0.0 on Debian

[chrisopsview]

Hi  -

I am attempting to install the latest VMware Perl SDK (VMware-vSphere-Perl-SDK-5.0.0-422456.x86_64.gz) on a Debian GNU/Linux 'lenny' release.

root:/usr/local/nagios/vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib# ./vmware-install.pl

Creating a new vSphere CLI installer database using the tar4 format.

Installing vSphere CLI 5.0.0 build-422456 for Linux.

You must read and accept the vSphere CLI End User License Agreement to

continue.

Press enter to display it. q

Do you accept? (yes/no) yes

Thank you.

cat: /etc/*-release: No such file or directory

sh: rpm: command not found

Openssl-devel is not installed on the system.

openssl-devel 0.9.7 is required for encrypted connections.

Please install openssl-devel version 0.9.7 or greater.

sh: rpm: command not found

e2fsprogs is not installed on the system

e2fsprogs 1.38 is required for UUID.

Please install e2fsprogs 1.38 or greater.

root:/usr/local/nagios/vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib# dpkg -l e2fsprogs

ii  e2fsprogs           1.41.3-1            ext2/ext3/ext4 file system utilities

Clearly the installer is broken.

So, my question is - is the installer deliberately broken (ie, no support for Debian) or is this a perl coding error that needs fixing?

Thanks,

Chris

[lamw]

If you take a look at the vSphere SDK for Perl 5.0 release notes - http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/viperltoolkit/viperl50/vsp50_vsperl_relnotes.html you will see that Debian is not officially a supported platform.

[chrisopsview]

Hi -

I realise that, and I am not using Debian through choice, however there is references to Debian in the perl installer. Hence my question.

Cheers,

Chris

[lamw]

I suspect the installer might be a "generic" one that was used, can't really comment on the reason for referencing it. In any case, it is not a supported OS

[chrisopsview]

Fair.  Thankfully, Debian isn't my OS of choice, so this is a minor inconvenience (I've compiled it from source manually and it works). I'm going to try it on RHEL-5 now to see if the installer works correctly.

UPDATE: which it doesn't. Why does it ask for a proxy when there is no requirement for a proxy in my environment?

./vmware-install.pl

http_proxy not set. please set environment variable 'http_proxy' e.g. export

http_proxy=http://myproxy.mydomain.com:0000 .

ftp_proxy not set. please set environment variable 'ftp_proxy' e.g. export

ftp_proxy=http://myproxy.mydomain.com:0000 .

[stumpr · Accepted solution]

As William points out, it won't be supported, but you can use the VMware Perl SDK easily enough on any Perl platform (I've done it this way with Window as well).  I've done this specifically on Ubuntu and OS X over the years.

Install the module requirements as indicated in the "vSphere SDK for Perl Source Code Installation on Linux".  In the source package, copy the VMware folder in vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib/lib/VMware/share from the Linux Perl SDK download tarball to your Perl path. 

For the required modules, you can use PPM, CPAN or apt to get the packages.

I've run this way for years with no issues, but that is obviously not an official support statement

You should be able to just avoid setting a proxy during the installer.  It's there in case it's required for downloading module dependencies.

[chrisopsview]

Hi all,

Thanks for your replies. The installation worked fine on RHEL.  I have fixed the script for Debian using the below hack:

if ( direct_command("cat /etc/*-release | grep -i ubuntu") || direct_command("cat /proc/version | grep -i ubuntu") ) {

becomes:

if ( direct_command("cat /etc/*-release | grep -i ubuntu") || direct_command("cat /proc/version | grep -i debian") ) {

All the best,

Chris

[jespernohr]

WOW Great!

This works as well on Raspberry PI   "Raspbian"

   # check for e2fsprogs-devel installed

   if ( direct_command("cat /etc/*-release | grep -i ubuntu") || direct_command("cat /proc/version | grep -i Linaro") ) {

instead of

   # check for e2fsprogs-devel installed

   if ( direct_command("cat /etc/*-release | grep -i ubuntu") || direct_command("cat /proc/version | grep -i ubuntu") ) {