Re: Should open-vm-tools appear as a running (possibly unmanaged) in the VMware Tools status of vSphere Client?

[John W. <jl...@sc...>]

Marcelo Vanzin wrote:
> I don't know if "could" there means that the status would always be set to "not
> installed". 
Could vs. would seems to suggest some variability in observed behavior. 
We can assure  OSR5,  OSR6 or probably UW714 VM users on ESX 4.x
hosts  that the display of the IP(s) and system name indicate that
open-vm-tools are installed and running on their VM.  That should
satisfy everyone.
> The workaround that the user who first complained used was to set up the VM as
> "linux" or "linux 64-bit". That would work around this particular bug, since we
> do have a Tools package for Linux.
>   
I think that it would be preferable to display the correct Guest OS type. 
(See below)
> I'm not sure whether ESX 4.1 has a specific guest os type for SCO. I think we
> have some internal tweaks for SCO regarding time keeping, that are only applied
> if you choose the appropriate guest OS type. So changing it to Linux might have
> some adverse side-effects.
>   
Our current OSR 5.0.5 VA released was generated on WS for Windows 6.5.x
as:

     Other:  Other-32  (No SCO guest type available then)
     VM version:        4      
     open-vm-tools:     2010.03.20-243334

         INFO_OS_NAME = null string.

and that guest OS type is carried through the import of the VA and running
of the VM.

Our OSR6 efforts are starting with generation of the VM on
ESX 4.0 which offers guest OS types for "SCO OpenServer 5" and
"SCO UnixWare 7", but nothing for OpenServer 6.

      Other:   Other-32
      VM Version:    7
     open-vm-tools:  2011.04.25-402641    (port starting point)

         INFO_OS_NAME = "openServer6"

I just invented an OS_NAME string which triggered a warning in the
hostd.log file about an unrecognized/unsupported guest OS.   A search
through the  ESX host files revealed Guest OS types for "openServer5",
"openServer6" and "unixWare7".

When open-vm-tools was modified to provide INFO_OS_NAME
as "openServer6", the vSphere Client will switch from "Other-32" to
"SCO OpenServer 6" on a running VM.

The next release of open-vm-tools for OpenServer 5.0.7 will by corrected
to provide "openServer5".

-- John Wolfe