Installing Native VMware ESX/ESXi/vSphere Tools on Symantec Encryption Management Server
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Installing Native VMware ESX/ESXi/vSphere Tools on Symantec Encryption Management Server

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Article ID: 155585

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Updated On:

Products

Encryption Management Server Gateway Email Encryption Desktop Email Encryption Drive Encryption Endpoint Encryption File Share Encryption PGP Command Line PGP Key Management Server PGP Key Mgmt Client Access and CLI API PGP SDK

Issue/Introduction

The information in this article is considered historical.  Symantec Encryption Management Server 10.5 (PGP Server) and above use native VMware tools, and do not require manual installation.  Previous versions of the PGP Server required installing these tools.  Rather than attempt to install these tools, please upgrade to the latest version of the PGP server.  See the Upgrade Guide for more information on this topic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This article provides the basic steps for installation of the Native ESX VMware Tools on Symantec Encryption Management Server (previously PGP Universal Server). Please refer to the VMware documentation for any special use-cases.

  • Symantec Encryption Management Server supports the Native VMware tools package that is installed from the VMware ESXi or VMware vSphere server.
  • PGP Universal Server version 3.0 and later the Native ESX VMware Tools are supported.
  • On versions of PGP Universal Server prior to version 3.0, a package of pre-bundled PGP VMware tools was included to install the VMware tools for PGP Universal Server.
     

Pre-requisites:

Make sure that the Guest Operating System version of Linux (chosen for compatibility reasons) on the VMware server to install Symantec Encryption Management Server (or PGP Universal Server) is CentOS 4/5/6 or RHEL 5/6 (depending on which is available).  Change it if necessary.  Changing this option will require a power down of the Symantec Encryption Management Server Guest VM.

Note: Guest Operating System set to Other 32-bit Linux is no longer supported

Any PGP-Bundled VMware tools should be uninstalled before attempting to install the Native VMware tools.  Please consult with Symantec Support for assistance uninstalling the PGP-Bundled VMware tools.

Running the following installation requires command-line access to the Symantec Encryption Management Server (SEMS).  For information on how to access SEMS via SSH, read article 153592.

If you need just to reinstall VMware Tools after a PUP update of the server, see this article.

Resolution

Installing VMware Native Tools:

1. Choose to install the VMware tools from within the VMware vSphere client user interface (right-click on the virtual machine and then select Guest > Install/Upgrade VMware tools). This will make the VMware tools installer CD available to the virtual machine as a CD-ROM that contains the necessary installation files.

2. Connect to SEMS via SSH connection and run the following command to create a saved session. Running this script through SSH connection will cause network services to stop and may exit the installer prematurely.

# screen

(If the SSH session terminates, reopen the SSH session and type # screen -r, this will allow you to connect to the same session and continue the installation process)

3. Create a folder to mount the CD-ROM contents:

# mkdir /mnt/cdrom

4. Mount the CD-ROM to the new directory you created "/mnt/cdrom".

# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

5. List or display the contents of the Virtual CD-ROM (ISO) for VMware Tools:

# ls /mnt/cdrom

For this example "VMwareTools-8.4.6-385536.tar.gz" is displayed it may be newer than that based on the release of VMware you are using.

6. Create a directory to copy the contents of the VMware tools:

# mkdir /temp-vmware-tools

7. Navigate to the new directory:

# cd /temp-vmware-tools

8. Extract the contents of the Virtual CD-ROM "VMware tools"

tar zxpf /mnt/cdrom/VMwareTools-*.tar.gz

9. This will extract all the contents of the CD-ROM needed to install VMware tools into a directory named vmware-tools-distrib. Navigate to this new directory and run the script.

# cd /temp-vmware-tools/vmware-tools-distrib

10. List or display the contents of the folder and find the installer script

# ls -al

11. Run the installer script which is a file called "vmware-install.pl" and accept all the default answers to prompts:

# ./vmware-install.pl -d

Once the installation is complete reboot the server

# pgpsysconf --reboot

13. Watch the machine reboot from console connection and view the VMware tools startup for errors

14. Confirm the VMware toolsd is running, use the following commands:

# ps aux | grep vm

or

#ps aux |grep vmtoolsd

This should display the running process for VMware Tools "vmtoolsd"

15a. For Encryption Management Server 3.3.2 and earlier, ensure VmWare Tools are loaded into run level 3:

# chkconfig --list | grep vmware

After running the command it should display :Vmware-tools 0:off 2:0n 3:on 4:off 6:off

15b. For Encryption Management Server 3.4 and later check that tools is running and set to load at boot

# status vmware-tools

Should return: vmware-tools start/running

16. Remove the installation files:

# rm -fr /temp-vmware-tools

 

Uninstalling Vmware Native Tools:

1. To Uninstall VMware tools, run the following command:

# ./usr/bin/vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

This will stop the VMware Tools services and remove the VMware Tools. A message similar to this should appear "The removal of VMware Tools 8.4.6 build-385536 for Linux completed successfully.."

2. Reboot the Symantec Encryption Management Server with the following command

# pgpsysconf --reboot

 

Applies To

VMware Hypervisor ESXi

VMware vSphere 5+

VMware ESXi 5.5 or VMware ESXi 6.0

VMware ESX

Note: VMware ESX 3.5 is no longer supported by VMware on Symantec Encryption Management Server 3.3.1. For a list of supported VMware platforms per release of Symantec Encryption Management Server or PGP Universal Server, see TECH149547.