[gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Daniel Frey]

Hi all,

I managed to drag several 3+ year old gentoo webserver installs to
current. That was an interesting experience. I'd say it was difficult
and time-consuming but not impossible. ;-) Believe me, they were kicking
and screaming the whole way.

These are all virtualized under ESXi now so I did some reconfiguration
and decided to add open-vm-tools for shutdown support through the host.
All items for vmware are built into the kernel, and the VMs are working
as they should.

Well, except for starting vmware-tools:

vmsvc[1297]: [ warning] [GLib-GObject] invalid (NULL) pointer instance

vmsvc[1297]: [critical] [GLib-GObject] g_signal_emit_by_name: assertion
`G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed


I've tried rebuilding glib but no luck. I haven't tried changing the USE
flags on glib as of yet (just thought of that now, actually...) It
doesn't seem to affect the host shutdown (which is what I initially
wanted) but it probably shouldn't be crashing. I have a feeling it may
have something to do with VMCI.

I have 5 or 6 gentoo installs running under ESXi, some were new (started
off a new stage3) and they all have this problem. It's not show-stopping
by any means, but has anyone found a solution? Google has not been so
helpful here as most reponses I've found affect Windows.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Tanstaafl]

On 2014-01-15 9:11 PM, Daniel Frey <djqfrey@gmail.com> wrote:
> These are all virtualized under ESXi now so I did some reconfiguration
> and decided to add open-vm-tools for shutdown support through the host.
> All items for vmware are built into the kernel, and the VMs are working
> as they should.
>
> Well, except for starting vmware-tools:
>
> vmsvc[1297]: [ warning] [GLib-GObject] invalid (NULL) pointer instance
>
> vmsvc[1297]: [critical] [GLib-GObject] g_signal_emit_by_name: assertion
> `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed
>
> I've tried rebuilding glib but no luck. I haven't tried changing the USE
> flags on glib as of yet (just thought of that now, actually...) It
> doesn't seem to affect the host shutdown (which is what I initially
> wanted) but it probably shouldn't be crashing. I have a feeling it may
> have something to do with VMCI.

Did you mean it doesn't seem to affect the GUEST shutdown?

And do the tools actually successfuly start after those warnings?

This is something I'm getting ready to tackle myself so am very 
interested...

My primary concern is that the host (ESXi 5.0) can safely shut down my 
gentoo guest. Obviously I too would prefer not to have any ugly 
warnings, unless they are indeed harmless.

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Daniel Frey]

On 01/16/2014 11:55 AM, Tanstaafl wrote:
> On 2014-01-15 9:11 PM, Daniel Frey <djqfrey@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Did you mean it doesn't seem to affect the GUEST shutdown?
> 

Yes, the guest shutdown seems to still be working. I've tested both
manual (i.e. asking for a guest shutdown) and it works, and I've set up
my APC ups to shutdown the host and all VMs, again all working. If
you're interested in the howtos for the APC shutdown I think I have a
bookmark around somewhere.


> And do the tools actually successfuly start after those warnings?

Yes, as far as I can tell. Seems I can't copy and paste to/from my local
clipboard though when in vSphere. Maybe that's what's broken. SSH gets
me around that.

> 
> This is something I'm getting ready to tackle myself so am very
> interested...
> 
> My primary concern is that the host (ESXi 5.0) can safely shut down my
> gentoo guest. Obviously I too would prefer not to have any ugly
> warnings, unless they are indeed harmless.
> 

So far it seems to be harmless. I put syslog-ng in the boot runlevel so
it doesn't clutter up the service startup.

I've tried an emerge -euDN world on one of the VMs with no results so
I'm pretty sure that it's something in the open-vm-tools package that's
not quite right. I also tried enabling VMCI to a VM to test, still no-go.

If you google it apparently it's cluttering up Windows event logs too,
it's not just linux guests.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Jarry]

On 16-Jan-14 22:17, Daniel Frey wrote:
>
> Yes, the guest shutdown seems to still be working. I've tested both
> manual (i.e. asking for a guest shutdown) and it works, and I've set up
> my APC ups to shutdown the host and all VMs, again all working. If
> you're interested in the howtos for the APC shutdown I think I have a
> bookmark around somewhere.

BTW if all you want is safe shutdown, it can be done even without
vm-tools (which I personally do not like at all). In vSphere-client
I have "suspend" instead of shutdown (current state with memory
snapshot is saved), from ESXi you'd have to play a little with
/sbin/shutdown.sh script (i.e. with ssh/keys to log into all VM
and shut them down), and for power-interruption you can use NUT
(which I find better than apcupsd or PowerChute, because there is
native NUT-client for ESXi)...

apart from apcupsd
you can use NUT (which I find better, there is native ESXi-client).

Jarry

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Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Daniel Frey]

On 01/16/2014 01:35 PM, Jarry wrote:
> 
> BTW if all you want is safe shutdown, it can be done even without
> vm-tools (which I personally do not like at all). In vSphere-client
> I have "suspend" instead of shutdown (current state with memory
> snapshot is saved), from ESXi you'd have to play a little with
> /sbin/shutdown.sh script (i.e. with ssh/keys to log into all VM
> and shut them down), and for power-interruption you can use NUT
> (which I find better than apcupsd or PowerChute, because there is
> native NUT-client for ESXi)...
> 
> apart from apcupsd
> you can use NUT (which I find better, there is native ESXi-client).
> 
> Jarry
> 

I did some testing a while back, suspending took significantly longer
than just shutting down the VMs. In my case I needed the Guest Shutdown
to work.

I don't run any UPS monitoring software on any VMs, I use the vMA
appliance with the APC PCNS software to signal the host of a failure.
The host then shuts down the VMs then powers down itself.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Tanstaafl]

On 2014-01-16 4:35 PM, Jarry <mr.jarry@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16-Jan-14 22:17, Daniel Frey wrote:
>>
>> Yes, the guest shutdown seems to still be working. I've tested both
>> manual (i.e. asking for a guest shutdown) and it works, and I've set up
>> my APC ups to shutdown the host and all VMs, again all working. If
>> you're interested in the howtos for the APC shutdown I think I have a
>> bookmark around somewhere.
>
> BTW if all you want is safe shutdown, it can be done even without
> vm-tools (which I personally do not like at all). In vSphere-client
> I have "suspend" instead of shutdown (current state with memory
> snapshot is saved), from ESXi you'd have to play a little with
> /sbin/shutdown.sh script (i.e. with ssh/keys to log into all VM
> and shut them down),

No desire to use this - my only concern is safe shutdown of gentoo 
guests (other VMs are Windows Servers that can natively be safely shut 
down).

> and for power-interruption you can use NUT (which I find better than
> apcupsd or PowerChute, because there is native NUT-client for
> ESXi)...

Excellent. Is there any kind of docs on getting this working on both the 
host and the gentoo VMs?

> apart from apcupsd you can use NUT (which I find better, there is
> native ESXi-client).

I'm VERY interested in this option, Jarry...

One major reason is open-vm-tools requires modules to be enabled in the 
kernel, and .

But... does NUT require modules? Or can I just compile in whatever I 
need? I generally have always run my servers without modules enabled (I 
know that open-vm-tools requires modules to be enabled), for security 
purposes (one less thing to worry about).

I know that NUT has full support for my UPS's (Powerware 9125's), so I'm 
hoping modules are not required. Even if they are, I'd still rather use 
NUT than the open-vm-tools.

I would appreciate any doc pointers, or other additional information, if 
you are so inclined.

Thanks!!

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Daniel Frey]

On 01/17/2014 05:10 AM, Tanstaafl wrote:
> 
> One major reason is open-vm-tools requires modules to be enabled in the
> kernel, and .
> 
> But... does NUT require modules? Or can I just compile in whatever I
> need? I generally have always run my servers without modules enabled (I
> know that open-vm-tools requires modules to be enabled), for security
> purposes (one less thing to worry about).
> 

open-vm-tools also requires fuse, FYI. VMWare does have a lot of kernel
options in 3.10.25, which is what I upgraded the virtual machines to.
The only module that wasn't in the kernel was vmblock.

Dan

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Tanstaafl]

On 2014-01-17 11:57 AM, Daniel Frey <djqfrey@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 01/17/2014 05:10 AM, Tanstaafl wrote:
>> >
>> >One major reason is open-vm-tools requires modules to be enabled in the
>> >kernel, and .
>> >
>> >But... does NUT require modules? Or can I just compile in whatever I
>> >need? I generally have always run my servers without modules enabled (I
>> >know that open-vm-tools requires modules to be enabled), for security
>> >purposes (one less thing to worry about).
>> >
> open-vm-tools also requires fuse, FYI. VMWare does have a lot of kernel
> options in 3.10.25, which is what I upgraded the virtual machines to.
> The only module that wasn't in the kernel was vmblock.

Coming back to this now...

Is there a list of all kernel modules that need to be installed for 
open-vm-tools?

I found an old wiki archive article discussing installing open-vm-tools:

http://www.gentoo-wiki.info/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_on_VMware

but it is based on the 2.6.x kernel series, so I'd really like to find 
some decent instructions for modern kernels.

I'm on 3.10.17 now, but am in the process of updating to 3.10.25 for 
open-vm-tools support.

Maybe I'm over-complicating this (not uncommon for me) again...

Re: [gentoo-user] Anyone using open-vm-tools w/ESXi?

[Daniel Frey]

On 02/01/2014 05:05 AM, Tanstaafl wrote:
> Coming back to this now...
> 
> Is there a list of all kernel modules that need to be installed for
> open-vm-tools?

Nope, but here's a list (through trial and error):

General setup  --->
  -*- Namespaces support  --->
    [ ]   User namespace  (This needs to be UNchecked)

Processor type and features  --->
  [*] Linux guest support  --->

[*] Networking support  --->
  Networking options  --->
    <*> Virtual Socket protocol
    <*>   VMware VMCI transport for Virtual Sockets

Device Drivers  --->
  Misc devices  --->
    <*> VMware Balloon Driver
    <*> VMware VMCI Driver
  SCSI device support  --->
  [*] SCSI low-level drivers  --->
    <*>   VMware PVSCSI driver support
  [*] Fusion MPT device support  --->
    <*>   Fusion MPT ScsiHost drivers for SPI
  [*] Network device support  --->
    [*]   Ethernet driver support  --->
      [*]   Intel devices
        <*>     Intel(R) PRO/1000 Gigabit Ethernet support
        <*>     Intel(R) PRO/1000 PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet support
    <*>   VMware VMXNET3 ethernet driver
  Graphics support  --->
    <*> Direct Rendering Manager (--snip--)  --->
    <*> DRM driver for VMware Virtual GPU
    [*]   Enable framebuffer console under vmwgfx by default
    <*> Support for frame buffer devices  --->
      [*]   Enable firmware EDID
      [*]   Enable Video Mode Handling Helpers
      [*]   Enable Tile Blitting Support
      [*]   VESA VGA graphics support
  <*> Sound card support  --->
    <*>   Advanced Linux Sound Architecture  --->
      [*]   PCI sound devices (NEW)  --->
        <*>   (Creative) Ensoniq AudioPCI 1371/1373

File systems  --->
  <M> FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) support

A couple notes:
-Select 'Linux guest support' first or a lot of options won't be
 visible.
-There was a conflict with one of the VMWare drivers if namespace
 support is selected. I have forgotten which driver had the
 conflict.
-Storage: Defaults on ESXi use the mptspi driver. You can change
 the virtual machine to use PVSCSI.
-Audio: I haven't tried audio with ESXi. I would assume it's the same
 as the wiki article you linked.
-Networking: Newer versions of ESXi use e1000e; older use e1000.
 VMWare also can have its own driver selected; depends how the
 virtual machine is set up. With ESXi 5.1, if you use defaults it'll
 use either e1000 or e1000e.
-Display: If you want something other than 80x25 through vSphere use
 the vga= parameter on the kernel line. I use vga=773 and it works OK
 with vSphere, haven't tried vCenter.
-Don't forget to set the 'fuse' USE flag for open-vm-tools.

Most of this stuff I experimented with until I got a combination that
worked. You can also search for vmw in the kernel config to find VMWare
drivers.

Dan