[sles-beta] Beta 5 and VMware-tools

urs.frey at post.ch urs.frey at post.ch
Thu May 1 01:42:38 MDT 2014 

Hi Bo

Thank you very much for your concern and explanations.
See you only mention open-vm-tools.
But there are the VMwareTools coming with the ESXi release itself.
So there are two branches of VMwareTools obviously having different states at VMware itself in being supported, propagated and displayed in vSphere.

Here in my place we do have an architecture board which carefully observes all points concerning supportability, certification matrices and also functionality itself.
So it is not me, deciding what is allowed to use for production.
As long as open-vm-tools are not stated green in vSphere display and do obviously not have the same state with VMware support itself, I will have to use the professional VMwareTools coming with ESXi release.
This is strict and I can not help it.

So the point is, that VMware internal there is a problem with the handling of the two branches on VMwareTools.
This should be resolved preventing an oncoming support ping-pong on the back of the end-user.

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: Bo Dang [mailto:bdang at vmware.com]
Gesendet: Thursday, April 24, 2014 6:05 AM
An: Joe Doupnik; Frey Urs, IT222; Kai Dupke; allen at ua.edu; mge at suse.com; kukuk at suse.de; uwedr at suse.com
Cc: sles-beta at lists.suse.com; John Savanyo
Betreff: Re: [sles-beta] Beta 5 and VMware-tools

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<mailto: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<mailto:jrd at netlab1.net>>
To: sles-beta at lists.suse.com<mailto: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<mailto:sles-beta-bounces at lists.suse.com>

[sles-beta-bounces at lists.suse.com<mailto:sles-beta-bounces at lists.suse.com>] on behalf of urs.frey at post.ch<mailto:urs.frey at post.ch>

[urs.frey at post.ch<mailto:urs.frey at post.ch>]

Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2014 2:04 AM

To: jrd at netlab1.net<mailto:jrd at netlab1.net>; sles-beta at lists.suse.com<mailto: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><mailto: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>

[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<mailto: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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