Re: cloning and pre-freeze script question

[Jim <jim...@ho...>]

On 11-Feb-11 14:54, Marcelo Vanzin wrote:
> On 02/10/2011 12:18 AM, James Ko wrote:
>> I have a restricted shell which limits the user from the underlying linux apps and filesystem
>> but authorization is using the usual mechanisms.  VIX would allow access to the underlying
>> filesystem bypassing the restricted shell.
>>
>> As for the logs, the user is showing guestUserName=hostd-quiescedsnap but
>> VMAutomation_ReadGuestOperationPolicies fails. hostPolicyString is NULL
>> VixAutomation_IsGuestOperationAllowed fails. No policy for this operation
>>
>> Is this the reason for the failure?
>> What is the required policy and how does this need to be set?
> The logs you sent earlier seem to imply that you don't have the VIX guest
> components running (see all VIX_E_UNRECOGNIZED_COMMAND_IN_GUEST). If that's the
> case, it's the first problem you need to fix.
>
> As far as the policy, I've been told that no configuration is needed for things
> to work. So make sure you have the VIX components running inside the VM if you
> want that to work, and let me know if you still get failures.
>
> Unfortunately your use case (restricted shell) wasn't really envisioned when
> this system was designed; so either you run VIX or, with the current version of
> ESX, lose the cloning functionality. On ESX 5.0 (yet to be released) the code
> path is different and doesn't use VIX anymore.
>

I loaded the missing libraries and was able to get cloning working.
Am I correct in my thinking that if I don't include the /etc/pam.d/vmtoolsd
file then guest user authentication cannot take place which effectively
blocks unintended guest user operation through VIX?  The quiesce operation
of cloning does not require guest authorization correct?

Jim