ISO image entry might not be removed from the VMX file after installing VMware Tools on a virtual machine

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

After you install VMware Tools on a virtual machine running on an ESXi host, the ISO image entry might not be removed from the VMX file even though the CD has been ejected and the CD-ROM has been disconnected.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 5.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 5.1

Resolution

To prevent this issue from occurring in future, apply the following patch:

• For ESXi 5.1, apply VMware ESXi 5.1 Patch Release ESXi510-201404001. For more information, see VMware ESXi 5.1, Patch Release ESXi510-201404001 (2070666).
• For ESXi 5.5, apply VMware ESXi 5.5 Patch Release ESXi550-201404001. For more information, see VMware ESXi 5.5, Patch Release ESXi550-201404001 (2076120).

Note: This patch resolves the issue for newly created virtual machines. For existing virtual machines, where the virtual machine configuration files (.vmx) contains an ISO image entry, run the cdrom_iso_line.py script to identify and remove the entry as described below.

To work around the issue if you cannot upgrade or for existing virtual machines with mounted ISOs, run the cdrom_iso_line.py script.

First, copy the attached cdrom_iso_line.py script to the root directory of an ESX/ESXi host in your environment using a suitable tool (For example, WinSCP, Filezilla, and so on).

To run the script locally on a host where you are logged in as root, run this commands:

1. cd /
2. chmod 755 cdrom_iso_line.py
3. ./cdrom_iso_line.py -f /usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/linux.iso,/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso

To run the script on a different host with username and password, run these commands:

Note: Ensure that the script is run by the root user only.

1. cd /
2. chmod 777 cdrom_iso_line.py
3. ./cdrom_iso_line.py –h <hostname> -u <username> -p <password> -f usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/linux.iso,/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso

Note: In the above mentioned commands, replace linux.iso with solaris.iso for Solaris machines and replace linux.iso with freebsd.iso for FreeBSD machines.

For help, run this command:

./cdrom_iso_line.py --usage

Additional Information

For translated versions of this article, see:

• 日本語: 仮想マシンへの VMware Tools インストール完了後、ISO イメージのエントリが VMX ファイルから削除されないことがある (2076980)