vRA Blueprint and Ubuntu 14.04 with Open VM Tools customizaton

If you are using Ubuntu 64 bit 14.04 version with Open VM Tools installed then you can read further on how to use the Open VM Tools and then use it with vRA.

Ubuntu 14.04 VM w Open VMware Tools

The version of Open VM Tools its running is - 2:9.4.0-1280544-5ubuntu6.2. You can get the version details by using the following command

dpkg –l | grep open-vm-tools

You can install the open vm tools by giving the command:

apt-get install open-vm-tools

If the tools service is stopped or not running then you can run the following command:

service open-vm-tools start

If you encounter any issue then only try with the following command:

/etc/init.d/open-vm-tools start

Additionally when customizing the VM and deploy a VM from the template we required an additional package installed as per the http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2075048 .

To install this plug-in in Ubuntu: 

To obtain and import the VMware Packaging Public Keys:

Create a directory on the virtual machine to store the VMware Packaging Public Keys.  

Download all the VMware Public Packaging Public Key files from the http://packages.vmware.com/tools/keys directory.

Save the files to the directory you created.

For each key that you download, run this command to import the key:

sudo apt-key add /key_path/key_name

where:

key_path is the directory in which you saved the keys.

key_name is the file name of a key

Create the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vmware-tools.list with this content:

deb http://packages.vmware.com/packages/ubuntu precise main

or run this:

sudo echo "deb http://packages.vmware.com/packages/ubuntu precise main" >>  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/vmware-tools.list

Note: Use either precise or trusty above.

To install the package, run this command:

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install open-vm-tools-deploypkg

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)

mI0ESAP+VwEEAMZylR8dOijUPNn3He3GdgM/kOXEhn3uQl+sRMNJUDm1qebi2D5b

Qa7GNBIlXm3DEMAS+ZlkiFQ4WnhUq5awEXU7MGcWCEGfums5FckV2tysSfn7HeWd

9mkEnsY2CUZF54lyKfY0f+vdFd6QdYo6b+YxGnLyiunEYHXSEo1TNj1vABEBAAG0

QlZNd2FyZSwgSW5jLiAtLSBMaW51eCBQYWNrYWdpbmcgS2V5IC0tIDxsaW51eC1w

YWNrYWdlc0B2bXdhcmUuY29tPoi8BBMBAgAmBQJIA/5XAhsDBQkRcu4ZBgsJCAcD

AgQVAggDBBYCAwECHgECF4AACgkQwLXgq2b9SUkw0AP/UlmWQIjMNcYfTKCOOyFx

Csl3bY5OZ6HZs4qCRvzESVTyKs0YN1gX5YDDRmE5EbaqSO7OLriA7p81CYhstYID

GjVTBqH/zJz/DGKQUv0A7qGvnX4MDt/cvvgEXjGpeRx42le/mkPsHdwbG/8jKveY

S/eu0g9IenS49i0hcOnjShGIRgQQEQIABgUCSAQWfAAKCRD1ZoIQEyn810LTAJ9k

IOziCqa/awfBvlLq4eRgN/NnkwCeJLOuL6eAueYjaODTcFEGKUXlgM4=

=bXtp

-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Once installed you can reboot the VM, convert the VM back to Template by right clicking the VM and selecting an option "Convert to Template".  Now access the UI of vRA and go to Infrastructure Tab. Select the Compute Resources option and highlight the necessary Cluster which has the Ubuntu blueprint listed, and select Data Collection option at the bottom of the selection, and for the Inventory option, select "Request Now". Once you see "Succeeded" then the vRA blueprint got updated and now the customization should work for the Ubuntu Linux 14.04 version.

Please refer KB 2075048 for instructions on other Linux distros.

Please share and care !!

Thanks for reading.