[sles-beta] Beta 5 and VMware-tools
Joe Doupnik
jrd at netlab1.net
Thu Apr 24 09:47:23 MDT 2014
Bo Dang,
Thank you for taking the time to discuss with us the open-vmtools
situation with SLES/SLED.
To be candid though, there remains uncertainty which I think needs
be addressed somehow in the shipping material. That is, who "owns"
open-vmtools? The uncertainty is if a nearly invisible third party does.
So, I looked about the source RPM in SLES 12 beta 5 for some hints, and
there is no simple answer to the concern. No copyright notice either.
All very nebulous.
We are experienced people here, so I did more thinking. There are
two interfaces to be maintained in synchronization: hypervisor to tools
and tools to guest o/s. The main products evolve independently. The poor
tools shim tries to cope. The kernel evolves (steadily) and that
involves a kmod rebuild operation of VMware's tools today, automated or
not. Thus there is an advantage to having tools built with and shipped
with the Linux kernel. Best would be to have the kernel and VMware's
ESXi tools work together as they do presently. Part of the reason is the
open-vmtools has not been particularly reliable in the past, and thus I
have avoided it as other people may have as well. Thus history is also
part of the concern.
At this point matters are beyond radar range of we beta testers.
Our hope are that the present rough edges will be smoothed by release
time and all will be well again with both tool sets.
Thanks,
Joe D.
On 24/04/2014 05:05, Bo Dang wrote:
> Hi Kai,Joe,urs, allen, mge, Thorsten, uwe and all,
>
> Thanks a lot for your comments and concerns for open-vm-tools. I am
> copying John who might have more info in this list.
>
> We are working closely with SUSE with related items. Such as, you
> might know that toolsd service from open-vm-tools in current build
> will not be started automatically and you need to execute "sudo
> systemctl enable vmtoolsd" and "sudo systemctl start vmtoolsd" to
> start its service manually. Legacy tools service doesn't work well in
> current build , you will be suggested to remove some packages for
> "open-vm-tools" first for its legacy tools installation. Such as
> packages "open-vm-tools","open-vm-desktop" and "libvmtools0"
>
> Don't hesitate to let us know for any related issues :)
>
> Thanks again for all your supports and suggestions!
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Bo Dang
>
> bdang at vmware.com
> Level 8 South Wing of Tower C Raycom InfoTech Park
> No. 2 Kexueyuan South Road Haidian District Beijing, 100190, People's
> Republic of China
> +86-10-5993-4242 Office
> +86-10-5993-4205 Fax
>
> *From: *"Joe Doupnik" <jrd at netlab1.net>
> *To: *sles-beta at lists.suse.com
> *Sent: *Thursday, April 24, 2014 12:11:51 AM
> *Subject: *Re: [sles-beta] Beta 5 and VMware-tools
>
> Kai,
> Thanks for taking the time to write up this situation. The story
> appears to be better than I had thought.
> Joe D.
>
> On 23/04/2014 15:39, Kai Dupke wrote:
>
> VMware already made a statement on this list before, but I asked them to
> clarify again.
>
> The open-vm-tools are maintained by VMware but organized as an open
> source project.
>
> SLES 12 include the tools because VMware as partner asked us to include
> them, which is a good fit to our guest story.
>
> The today situation is an interim situation as with chicken-egg, because
> VMware can't drop the tools from the ESX product as SLES 11 for example
> does not contain the open-vm-tools at the moment.
>
> At the same time VMware can't just change the wording as the
> open-vm-tools are, open available for each to rebuild and grab, which
> could lead to false positive display.
>
> My understanding is that VMware will change the message to something
> like 'guest provided' in the display of the client, without any 3rd
> party or other confusion statement.
>
> We also work with VMware to get the support finalized in a way that
> these package will be tagged as fully supported.
>
> greetings kai
>
> On 04/23/2014 03:42 PM, Joe Doupnik wrote:
>
> The key word is "if". We don't know that. There are various versions
> of VMware hypervisor in use, little is known about how the open-vmware
> tools fit into that puzzle and what it does/does not support in the way
> of features.
> Let's look at this geometrically, for welcomed relief. There is
> VMware, there are SUSE virtual machines, and sandwiched between is a set
> of tools. There are two interfaces involved. At the moment VMware-tools
> matches the hypervisor version of choice. The third party open-vmware
> offering hopefully (that ambiguous word) works with both sides today
> (not necessarily true in the recent past), yet it is a third party to be
> coordinated with the other two by means still unknown. The SUSE part of
> things changed so that the VMware tools will not build with our v12 beta
> 5 material; again the reasons are unknown.
> How this situation will evolve during our beta is also unknown.
> Which of these approaches offers least risk and broad version
> coverage? Risk includes what the vendors involved will accept as a
> proper systems component when fingers are pointed. That's a description
> of what is concerning us about this situation.
> Joe D.
>
> On 23/04/2014 14:27, Beddingfield, Allen wrote:
>
> I'm having a hard time understanding why there is such concern here.
> VMware supporting the open-vm-tools is preferable to me. I can then
> use SUSE Manager to also manage my vm tools, instead of having to rely
> on VMware for such things. I actually have a script that currently
> does this, instead of using VMware's interface, but if the
> functionality is the same, installing/updating is easier, and VMware
> doesn't care/supports it, I don't see a problem.
>
> --
> Allen Beddingfield
> Systems Engineer
> The University of Alabama
> ________________________________
> From:sles-beta-bounces at lists.suse.com
> [sles-beta-bounces at lists.suse.com] on behalf ofurs.frey at post.ch
> [urs.frey at post.ch]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 2:04 AM
> To:jrd at netlab1.net;sles-beta at lists.suse.com
> Subject: Re: [sles-beta] Beta 5 and VMware-tools
>
> Hi
> I fully agree with Joe
> I mean I use VMwareTools coming together with the specific ESXi
> release for good reasons for years now on different Linux distributions.
> Now with SLES12 beta I am kind of “urged” to use open-vm-tools which
> obviously do not match the VMware environment I have here.
>
> Wouldn’t it be a solution to leave the final decision about which
> VMware Tools to use to the end user?
>
> So I may choose to install what comes with SLES or I can also use what
> gets delivered from ESXi.
> Therefore no automated installations anymore together with SLES12.
>
> We do not know what the plans on VMware are.
> For the moment, the statements of VMware about open-vm-tools do not
> really convince me.
> http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2073803
>
> Best regards
>
> Urs Frey
> Post CH AG
> Informationstechnologie
> IT Betrieb
> Webergutstrasse 12
> 3030 Bern (Zollikofen)
> Telefon : ++41 (0)58 338 58 70
> FAX : ++41 (0)58 667 30 07
> E-Mail:urs.frey at post.ch<mailto:urs.frey at post.ch>
>
> Von:sles-beta-bounces at lists.suse.com
> [mailto:sles-beta-bounces at lists.suse.com] Im Auftrag von Joe Doupnik
> Gesendet: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 8:24 PM
> An:sles-beta at lists.suse.com
> Betreff: Re: [sles-beta] Beta 5 and VMware-tools
>
> Keeping a perspective on this. There is now a gulf between SLES
> v12 beta 5 and the VMware tools (o/s kind other 64-bit) provided with
> ESXi v5. The VMware software stalls while making kmods. That's all
> observational evidence. What we don't know is what changed. I will
> presume that the SLES (including kernel) part has, for probably good
> reasons, and that sooner or later VMware will issue tools for the v12
> level of SLES. But that is only my guessing.
> What remains unconvincing is saying VMware recommends the
> open-vmware tools. Lots of room to interpret what is said by whom and
> in what context. The evidence says VMware ships their own tools rather
> than the open-vmware ones. Folks with contractual details may well be
> concerned, but we give the betas a chance to develop further before
> jumping to firm conclusions.
> Joe D.
>
> On 22/04/2014 17:58, Joe Doupnik wrote:
> vCenter is a high priced separate management product. I do not
> have it. ESXi servers have their own set of VMware tools. We click on
> the vSphere client to request they be installed in a VM. They match
> the particular version of ESXi. They don't work with beta 5, which
> means there are two branches of tools and the vendor's branch has been
> made inoperable. The open-vmware-tools item has had a rather chequered
> history. I have no good reason to trust that item very far (at this
> time). Now the branches are really separated. Not a comfortable
> situation.
> Joe D.
>
> On 22/04/2014 17:49, Kai Dupke wrote:
>
> On 04/22/2014 02:42 PM, Joe Doupnik wrote:
>
> Returning to this particular VMware-tools item today.
>
> Two points.
>
> [...]
>
>
>
> The open-vm-tools on SLES are the tools VMware recommends for the use.
>
> With "3rd party" you refer to the display in the Virtual Center I assume.
>
>
>
> Bo Dang form VMware commented on this earlier:
>
>
>
> Thanks for this info and keep contacting us! As john metnioned in
> another thread "The intent of the message was to communicate that end
> users do not need to worry about installing/updating VMware tools
> centrally from vCenter. Instead users are expected to use OS package
> manager to maintain vmware tools or open-vm-tools. We published the
> following KB article to clarify that open-vm-tools are "supported" and
> there is a FAQ at the bottom about this message at
> http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2073803 " and we are planning to change
> message in the future to remove "3rd Party" and instead say something
> like "Guest Managed" to reduce user concerns.
>
>
>
> greetings
>
> Kai Dupke
>
> Senior Product Manager
>
> Server Product Line
>
>
>
>
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> Kai Dupke
> Senior Product Manager
> Server Product Line
>
>
>
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