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Vmware tools "not running" (or are they?)

D

danswartz

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 25, 2011
Messages
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So I have all my VMs set to start up and shutdown with the host. Startup delay is 300 seconds to be safe, but checked off 'continue immediately if vmware tools starts'. Shutdown delay is likewise 300 seconds, supposedly not an issue, since if guest shuts down faster, esxi continues. So, my point: I've noticed some of the VMs (win7 guests) will show up under Summary as 'vmware tools not running'. I remote desktop to the VM and all looks okay. Checking again shows they now ARE running. Here's what seems to be going on - if the guest is quiescent on the network, the vsphere client seems to be showing the tools as not running, but if I do, say, a ping, and the management console now shows and IP, lo and behold, the tools are now showed as 'running'. So the question is: is this a reporting artifact (and the tools are really running), or are the tools on the windows guest somehow going to sleep and only waking up when there is traffic? It matters to me, since if there is a power failure, and the UPS tries to shutdown the host, if the tools really are NOT running, the delay will be long enough to run out of time before the UPS loses battery power. Any ideas?
 
take a look at hostd.log (/var/log/vmware) after a reboot - it shows when tools REALLY register as running or not (status -> green from gray). That should tell you which it is.
 
Hmm, it's actually /var/log/hostd.log, no vmware in the path. That said, I checked one of them and it showed as 'not running'. I ssh'ed in and tailed the logfile, then went to a shell on a different guest and pinged the win7 guest and saw this:

2011-10-18T20:01:49.146Z [5BE5AB90 verbose 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/636323ea-3d93bab2/Allison/Allison.vmx'] sleepState value is 0
2011-10-18T20:01:50.618Z [5BA81B90 verbose 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/636323ea-3d93bab2/Allison/Allison.vmx'] Running status of tools changed to: 1
2011-10-18T20:01:51.643Z [5BF9CB90 verbose 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/636323ea-3d93bab2/Allison/Allison.vmx'] Tools guest daemon status changed to: 1
2011-10-18T20:01:51.643Z [5BF9CB90 verbose 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/636323ea-3d93bab2/Allison/Allison.vmx'] guest operations are ready
2011-10-18T20:01:51.643Z [5BF9CB90 verbose 'vm:/vmfs/volumes/636323ea-3d93bab2/Allison/Allison.vmx'] Reviving the heartbeat monitor in 30 seconds
 
Hmmm, I think I know what might be going on. Even though it's a VM, apparently the default power plan puts the "computer" to sleep after 30 minutes :) I'm going to disable that and see what happens. Thanks for the info!
 
heh. Yeah, those logs definitely show that it's not alive till you ping. odd.
 
No, this makes perfect sense! Windows put the 'computer' to sleep. If WOL is enabled, it woke up on network traffic and the tools are running again...
 
Update: 12 hours later and all 3 VMs show as "running" no matter how long they have been unused. The big hint was the sleepState part. Thanks again for the logfile tip...
 
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