VM tools status - unmanaged - for Linux guests

[NilC]

After upgrading our hosts to ESXi 4.0U1 the tools status of all VMs was either Out of Date (for Win) or Unmanaged (for Linux) as expected.

Working on a Linux VM guest I upgraded the tools by getting the open-vm RPM packages from for 4.0U1 for 64bit SLES10. I only installed the vmware-open-vm-tools-common, kmod and nox packages as we had before , upgraded the virtual hardware to v7 but still it reported the VM tools status as Unmanaged. I added the vmware-tools-common and vmware-tools-nox RPMs but still it reported Unmanaged.

I then removed all the rpms and installed VM tools by choosing the option from the vCenter and mounting the cdrom image and installed from the tarball and answered a lot of questions. After this the VM tools status reported as OK !

I would much prefer to use the RPMs from the VMware download site as it is much easier to install across hundreds of Linux servers but what does the status of Unmanaged mean? Is there a way to use the RPMs and have a tools status of OK ?

Any pointers appreciated.

Cheers,

Neil

[AWo]

The .rpm can be used if the Distribution and the Kernel fits the version of the modules which are compiled in the .rpm.

As soon as this doesn't match the modules need to be recompiled. That's when you need to have the Kernel sources, header files and gcc installed. And when you have to run through all the questions....

Even if you have successfully installed the .rpm, after a Kernel update you need to recompile them.

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

Author @ vmwire.net

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[NilC]

Yes but that isn't what the Unmanaged means in the status of VMware Tools as seen in vCenter means is it? The RPMs I installed are for SLES10 x64 and esx4.0u1 , if they were not compatible with the distribution then I would get errors when installed the RPMs. I see the following in dmesg output:

VMware PVSCSI driver - version 0.0.0.6

VMware memory control driver initialized

vmmemctl: started kernel thread pid=12436

VMCI: Major device number is: 254

e1000: eth0: e1000_set_tso: TSO is Enabled

e1000: eth1: e1000_set_tso: TSO is Enabled

# lsmod | grep ^v

vsock 85472 0

vmci 56968 1 vsock

vmmemctl 33256 0

It looks like everything loads ok.

[AWo]

Unmanaged means that the necessary modules are not loaded and the vmware tools daemon is not running. That can be due to modules which doesn't fit to you Kernel.

Check what you see when you enter:

ps -e | grep vm

lsmod | grep vm

AWo

VCP 3 & 4

Author @ vmwire.net

\[:o]===\[o:]

=Would you like to have this posting as a ringtone on your cell phone?=

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[callenstein]

I am having the same issue, here is what I see:

gkwauk2:~ # ps -e |grep vm

2929 ? 00:00:00 vmmemctl

3497 ? 00:00:00 vmware-guestd

4822 ? 00:00:00 vmware-user

gkwauk2:~ # lsmod | grep vm

vmci 56968 1 vsock

vmmemctl 33256 0

What is it supposed to look like?

Thanks! ChucK

[callenstein]

I just talked to VMWare support, unmanaged means installed, but not managed by vcenter.

So, if you google "en-000329-02 vmware", you will find the document "VMware Tools Installation Guide Operating System Specific Packages".

When you install the OSPs according to that document, on SLES of Ubuntu, they will appear as 'Unmanaged' in vcenter.

ChucK

http://tested on SLES 10 SP3, ESX 4.0u1, vCenter4

[mondorescue]

I have the same problem. I tried to install OSP Packages for SLES 11 SP1. And now the VM-Tools appears as "unmanaged" in vcenter. I checked all loaded modules with other VMs that use the tar.gz as installation method and it seems to be fine. But "unmanaged" appears in VCenter for this VM.

We wanna use rpms for installation. Because we can update vm-tools with our repository server.

After using precompiled packages i tried to compile src.rpm, but with same result.

Anybody who has a solution for that?

Best regards

Timm

[mondorescue]

Ok. Now i read that "unmanaged" is ok after installation.

But how to know that the tools are running ok?

And what happened if the tools are out of date? Does it appear in vcenter?

Or did i lost the functionality of checking vmware-tools?