Error "Content not found" when configuring GuestStore for VMware Tools distribution

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

When using the GuestStore feature to distribute VMware Tools across multiple virtual machines, attempts to refresh the configuration using the VMwareToolboxCmd.exe globalconf refresh command fail with the error message: "refresh failed, GuestStore client library error: Content not found."

This error occurs despite correctly configuring the GuestStore repository URL on ESXi hosts and extracting VMware Tools to the repository.

Environment

• VMware ESXi 8.0.3
• VMware vCenter Server 7.0 Update 2 or later
• VMware Tools 11.2.5 or later on Windows VMs
• GuestStore feature enabled

Cause

The error occurs because the VMware Tools GlobalConf module is specifically programmed to look for configuration files at predetermined paths within the GuestStore repository. By default, Windows VMs look for the tools.conf file at "/vmware/configurations/vmtools/windows/tools.conf". When this directory structure is missing or incomplete in your GuestStore repository, the VM returns a "Parent resource not found" error.

Resolution

1. Connect to your ESXi host via SSH.
   
   
2. Navigate to your GuestStore repository root:

   cd /vmfs/volumes/<datastore_uuid>/VMWareTools
   

3. Create the required directory structure:

   mkdir -p vmware/configurations/vmtools/windows
   

4. Create a basic tools.conf file in this directory:

   vi vmware/configurations/vmtools/windows/tools.conf
   

5. Add the following basic content to the file:

   [globalconf]enabled=truepoll-interval=3600[gueststoreupgrade]policy=manualpoll-interval=3600
   

6. Set appropriate permissions:

   chmod 644 vmware/configurations/vmtools/windows/tools.conf

Additional Information

• The GlobalConf module in VMware Tools checks the GuestStore repository every 60 minutes by default.
• For Linux VMs, the default path is "/vmware/configurations/vmtools/linux/tools.conf".
• Files distributed through GuestStore must be 512 MB or smaller.
• To configure GuestStore across multiple ESXi hosts, you can use the PowerCLI script available in PowerCLI script for configuring the GuestStore repository on the hosts managed by a vCenter Server 7.0 U2.
• The default GlobalConf resource path cannot be changed at the ESXi host level - it must follow the expected directory structure