guestId, guestFamily, guestFullName are incorrect for Debian 10 with VMware Tools version 10.3.10

Products

• VMware
• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

• After installing the open-vm-tools 10.3.10 using apt-get install open-vm-tools in Debian 10 on ESXi 6.5 and 6.7, the guestID , guestFamily, and guestFullName are not correct in ESXi Host Server side.
• VM Tools Version:

# apt-get install open-vm-tools
# vmtoolsd -v
VMware Tools daemon, version 10.3.10.10540 (build-12406962)

• guestInfo in ESXi 6.5 reports:

Guest information:
(vim.vm.GuestInfo) {
   toolsStatus = "toolsOk",
   toolsVersionStatus = "guestToolsUnmanaged",
   toolsVersionStatus2 = "guestToolsUnmanaged",
   toolsRunningStatus = "guestToolsRunning",
   toolsVersion = "10346",
   toolsInstallType = "guestToolsTypeOpenVMTools",
   toolsUpdateStatus = (vim.vm.GuestInfo.ToolsUpdateStatus) null,
   guestId = "", 
   guestFamily = "otherGuestFamily",
   guestFullName = "Linux 4.19.0-5-686-pae Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)",

• guestInfo in ESXi 6.7 reports:

Guest information:

(vim.vm.GuestInfo) {
   toolsStatus = "toolsOk",
   toolsVersionStatus = "guestToolsUnmanaged",
   toolsVersionStatus2 = "guestToolsUnmanaged",
   toolsRunningStatus = "guestToolsRunning",
   toolsVersion = "10346",
   toolsInstallType = "guestToolsTypeOpenVMTools",
   toolsUpdateStatus = (vim.vm.GuestInfo.ToolsUpdateStatus) null,
   guestId = "other4xLinux64Guest", 
   guestFamily = "linuxGuest",
   guestFullName = "Other 4.x or later Linux (64-bit)",

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7

Cause

VGAuth feature is not supported in Tools version 10.3.10.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, update the VMware Tools version from 10.3.10 to higher version (11.0.0 or 11.1.0).

Workaround:
To work around this issue on Debian 10 virtual machine, add these lines:

# vi /etc/vmware-tools/tools.conf
[guestosinfo]
    short-name = debian10-64

On ESXi host, the Guest information will then show the correct information:

(vim.vm.GuestInfo) {
   toolsStatus = "toolsOk",
   toolsVersionStatus = "guestToolsUnmanaged",
   toolsVersionStatus2 = "guestToolsUnmanaged",
   toolsRunningStatus = "guestToolsRunning",
   toolsVersion = "10346",
   toolsInstallType = "guestToolsTypeOpenVMTools",
   toolsUpdateStatus = (vim.vm.GuestInfo.ToolsUpdateStatus) null,
   guestId = "debian10_64Guest", 
   guestFamily = "linuxGuest", 
   guestFullName = "Debian GNU/Linux 10 (64-bit)",