open-vm-tools-devel

cross compiling vmtools and installing?

[James <jim...@te...>]

Hello,

I am trying to cross compile the open vmware tools package
and have it added to the target directory tree.  The linux target will
not have gcc and other build tools available.  The target will
also be console only with no X features.

I am able to get make to finish (after a few minor changes).

I see that vmtoolsd is a wrapper script which does something
with libtool libraries but it's not clear what that is exactly.
I copied the .libs/vmtoolsd to the target and the services/plugins

Can anyone provide some guidance on what needs to be
copied from the build tree to the target directories?

Thanks,
James

Re: cross compiling vmtools and installing?

[Marcelo V. <mv...@vm...>]

Hi James,

On 05/19/2010 02:41 PM, James wrote:
> I am trying to cross compile the open vmware tools package
> and have it added to the target directory tree.  The linux target will
> not have gcc and other build tools available.  The target will
> also be console only with no X features.
>
> I am able to get make to finish (after a few minor changes).
>
> I see that vmtoolsd is a wrapper script which does something
> with libtool libraries but it's not clear what that is exactly.
> I copied the .libs/vmtoolsd to the target and the services/plugins

That file is the intermediate output generated by libtool (AFAIK). To get the 
final binaries you need to run "make install".

You can use DESTDIR (as in "make install DESTDIR=/some/temp/dir") to install 
things into a temp directory, and then copy the binaries from there. I recommend 
configuring with "--without-root-privileges" when doing that.

-- 
- Marcelo

Re: cross compiling vmtools and installing?

[James <jim...@te...>]

Thanks Marcelo.  Your instructions worked well.

I have some further questions for you or anyone else on the list.

After installing and starting it I get a number of warnings
about /etc/redhat-release, /etc/redhat-version etc type files not found.
There were different ones for various distributions but I have
a 2.6.23 kernel from scratch.
Google couldn't tell me anything about what should be in those files
so I created the redhat versions of them and added a version number string
of "5.4" to it.
This seems to have silenced those warnings but I still get [guestinfo]
warnings "Failed to get vmstats" and "Failed to get nic info".

I'm guessing the previous two files tells guestinfo how to retrieve
the latter guestinfo.

What /etc/<dist>-release /etc/<dist>_version should I use or emulate?
What do I put in those files?  How do I resolve the guestinfo warnings?

If there is a FM to read or even code pointers to help me sort this out
I would appreciate getting pointed in the right direction.

Thanks,
James



On 20-May-10 11:32 Marcelo Vanzin wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> On 05/19/2010 02:41 PM, James wrote:
>> I am trying to cross compile the open vmware tools package
>> and have it added to the target directory tree. The linux target will
>> not have gcc and other build tools available. The target will
>> also be console only with no X features.
>>
>> I am able to get make to finish (after a few minor changes).
>>
>> I see that vmtoolsd is a wrapper script which does something
>> with libtool libraries but it's not clear what that is exactly.
>> I copied the .libs/vmtoolsd to the target and the services/plugins
>
> That file is the intermediate output generated by libtool (AFAIK). To
> get the final binaries you need to run "make install".
>
> You can use DESTDIR (as in "make install DESTDIR=/some/temp/dir") to
> install things into a temp directory, and then copy the binaries from
> there. I recommend configuring with "--without-root-privileges" when
> doing that.
>

Re: cross compiling vmtools and installing?

[Marcelo V. <mv...@vm...>]

Hi James,

On 05/22/2010 07:17 PM, James wrote:
> After installing and starting it I get a number of warnings
> about /etc/redhat-release, /etc/redhat-version etc type files not found.
> There were different ones for various distributions but I have
> a 2.6.23 kernel from scratch.
> Google couldn't tell me anything about what should be in those files
> so I created the redhat versions of them and added a version number string
> of "5.4" to it.

The easiest way to get rid of those warnings is to have a working "lsb_release" 
executable in your system. The code will first try to execute "lsb_release -sd" 
and then fall back to looking at a bunch of release files (for compatibility 
with older distributions).

Here's a sample output from my Ubuntu box:

$ lsb_release -sd
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

> This seems to have silenced those warnings but I still get [guestinfo]
> warnings "Failed to get vmstats" and "Failed to get nic info".

The vmstats warning might be because you did not compile with procps support. 
The warning is a little too strong in that case (and we should probably make it 
less so), but you don't need to worry about it if that's the case.

The 'nic info' warning is similarly explained if you didn't compile with libdnet 
support. Same thing, if that's the case, no need to worry, although I understand 
the warning is annoying. :-)

-- 
- Marcelo

Re: cross compiling vmtools and installing?

[James <jim...@te...>]

What are the features I get by enabling procps and libdnet support?
What would I be missing if I do not have them?

I have added procps and libdnet to my build but I don't see any
difference in my vSphere client.

James


On 24-May-10 11:47 Marcelo Vanzin wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> On 05/22/2010 07:17 PM, James wrote:
>> After installing and starting it I get a number of warnings
>> about /etc/redhat-release, /etc/redhat-version etc type files not found.
>> There were different ones for various distributions but I have
>> a 2.6.23 kernel from scratch.
>> Google couldn't tell me anything about what should be in those files
>> so I created the redhat versions of them and added a version number
>> string
>> of "5.4" to it.
>
> The easiest way to get rid of those warnings is to have a working
> "lsb_release" executable in your system. The code will first try to
> execute "lsb_release -sd" and then fall back to looking at a bunch of
> release files (for compatibility with older distributions).
>
> Here's a sample output from my Ubuntu box:
>
> $ lsb_release -sd
> Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
>
>> This seems to have silenced those warnings but I still get [guestinfo]
>> warnings "Failed to get vmstats" and "Failed to get nic info".
>
> The vmstats warning might be because you did not compile with procps
> support. The warning is a little too strong in that case (and we should
> probably make it less so), but you don't need to worry about it if
> that's the case.
>
> The 'nic info' warning is similarly explained if you didn't compile with
> libdnet support. Same thing, if that's the case, no need to worry,
> although I understand the warning is annoying. :-)
>

Re: cross compiling vmtools and installing?

[Marcelo V. <mv...@vm...>]

Hi James,

On 06/08/2010 11:38 AM, James wrote:
> What are the features I get by enabling procps and libdnet support?
> What would I be missing if I do not have them?
>
> I have added procps and libdnet to my build but I don't see any
> difference in my vSphere client.

libdnet is used to collect information about the guest's network configuration. 
This can be seen in the VM's summary pane in the vSphere client, where the VM's 
IP addresses (along other information) are listed. It is also used for some 
features like wake-on-lan support, IIRC.

procps is used to collect information about processes and their resource usage. 
I'm not really sure what features currently use that information.

-- 
- Marcelo

Re: cross compiling vmtools and installing?

[Ryan B. <rbe...@vm...>]

On 06/09/2010 02:02 PM, Marcelo Vanzin wrote:
>
> procps is used to collect information about processes and their resource usage.
> I'm not really sure what features currently use that information.
>

procps is used to extract guest memory statistics, which the Tools then publish 
(ultimately) to the vmkernel on vSphere 4.  Said stats are used in 
debugging/support instrumentation and may influence VMK memory management decisions.

It doesn't provide anything useful to customers running under Workstation or Fusion.

-- 
Ryan Beasley :: MTS, Guest Components - Applications :: VMware, Inc.