Confirming VMware vRealize Automation 7.x Guest Agent functionality

Products

• VMware Aria Suite

Issue/Introduction

This article provides steps to confirm if the VMware vRealize Automation 7.0 Guest Agents (VRMGuestAgent, Gugent, Darwin) are all working properly.

This is useful when trying to diagnose if failures in Software provisioning are caused by misconfiguration, failed communication, or in custom scripting.

Environment

VMware vRealize Automation 7.0.x

Resolution

To confirm functionality, create a new Software Components blueprint and apply it to a simple blueprint to confirm output.

Note: Ensure to log in to VMware vRealize Automation as a user with appropriate roles for creating Software and Virtual Machine blueprints.

1. Log in to VMware vRealize Automation.
2. Navigate to Design > Software Components, and click New.
3. Provide a Name and (default) ID.
4. Leave the properties page as default.
5. For Actions, only edit the Install command at this time.
   Note: Install command differs based on your target OS (Windows or Linux):

For Windows you will use the Script Type of CMD and the script should read as follows:

mkdir c:\test

echo "Your vRealize Automation Guest Agent is working perfectly!" > c:\test\output.txt

For Linux you will use the Script Type of Bash and the script should read as follows:

mkdir /tmp/test/

echo "Your vRealize Automation Guest Agent is working perfectly!" > /tmp/test/output.txt

1. Finish and publish the new Software Component.
2. Create a new Blueprint for the target OS you want to test against. This blueprint should contain a single test VM, our test Software Component, and enough network configuration to be able to reach the vRealize Automation IaaS Manager server at the address specified when you installed the Guest Agent(s).
   
   Note: Try to avoid adding custom properties or components that are not required for the test to reduce complexity in troubleshooting if needed later.
   
   
3. Publish the new Blueprint and add it to any required entitlement.
4. Test the deployment.
5. Wait until the machine is either completed provisioning or until the machine shows at a status of CustomizeVM under Infrastructure, Managed Machines.
6. After the deployment is completed, confirm that an output.txt file has been created with our message at c:\test\output.txt in Windows or /tmp/test/output.txt in Linux.

Note: If the files do not show up correctly then the VMware vRealize Automation Guest Agent is not working properly and you will need to troubleshoot it to find the solution.