[INFO] Linux VMware Tools Install Changes to Upstart

This is another short post to let you all know myself and Jeremy Sage from VMware GSS found an interesting thing with VMware tools on newer versions of Linux.  I found this as I have been using the new CentOS 6.2 Minimal ISO for a lot of my new builds.  That will be a separate post, but if you have not tried it check it out.  The thing we found only seems to affect the vSphere 5.0 tools, not the older ones even on the same build of CentOS regardless of the hardware version.  This was originally going to be used as an image in a vCloud catalog so natrually the tools are important for customization and why I started to investigate it.  Just because the vCenter server showed tools “OK” and “RUNNING” I wanted to know where they were.  This does not affect all versions of Linux, but if you are trying to figure it out hopefully this helps.

The main point is that the newer versions of RHEL and CentOS as well as a few other distributions are using Upstart for services.  I kept thinking the installer for the tools was not actually working, because on a vSphere 5 host the tools are NOT installed to chkconfig or /etc/init.d like they are with the pre-vSphere 5.0 tools.

vmware-config-tools.pl --help
VMware Tools 8.3.7 build-341836 configurator

chkconfig output
....
udev-post 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
vmware-tools 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:off 5:on 6:off
....

Output of the /etc/init.d directory
....
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 36376 Jan 10 20:17 vmware-tools
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 2824 Jan 2 20:23 vsftpd
....

OLD Command and output to check tools
service vmware-tools status
vmtoolsd is running

OLD Command to start/stop: service vmware-tools start

Starting VMware Tools services in the virtual machine:
 Switching to guest configuration: [ OK ]
 VM communication interface: [ OK ]
 VM communication interface socket family: [ OK ]
 Guest operating system daemon: [ OK ]
 Virtual Printing daemon: [ OK ]

With vSphere 5.0 tools and the new versions of RHEL and CentOS you get a different set of commands since Upstart is used.  The scripts are also in a different location.

vmware-config-tools.pl --help
VMware Tools 8.6.0 build-446312 configurator.
 chkconfig output: (Will show nothing for vmware-tools) sshd 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
udev-post 0:off 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off
vsftpd 0:off 1:off 2:off 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:off

Output of the /etc/init directory (NEW LOCATION is not init.d NOTE THE .CONF File!) .... .... -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 147 Oct 7 10:01 tty.conf
-r--r--r--. 1 root root 915 Dec 25 19:11 vmware-tools.conf
....

NEW Command to check tools: status vmware-tools
VMmware-tools start/running
 NEW Command to start/stop: start/stop vmware-tools
VMmware-tools start/running

Hopefully this keeps you from calling GSS, or in my case filing a bug thinking that the tools were not installing properly.  They are there, you just need to know where to find the scripts and what the new Upstart syntax is.  Maybe this post will save you the time it took me to locate the changes, or maybe you already knew and I was out of the loop :).