Hi.
I've been troubleshooting a weird problem with X2Go for a while, when connecting to Gnome sessions in virtual machines the top and bottom panels are displayed but the desktop/background never shows up and the mouse pointer never stops spinning. It's like the Gnome session startup reaches 99% and then just waits forever for something.
It turns out it's related to VMWare Tools. I use VMWare Hypervisor (ESXi) 5, I can't say if the problem started when I upgraded from ESXi 4 to 5, but it's fairly recent.
I discovered that there are two instances of vmtoolsd running, the process list looks something like this when the X2Go session reaches "wait forever" state:
root@labblinux:~# ps auxw | grep vmware dali 12906 1.4 1.4 174604 14588 ? S 18:47 0:00 /usr/lib/vmware-tools/sbin64/vmtoolsd -n vmusr dali 12956 1.4 0.3 174604 3680 ? S 18:47 0:00 /usr/lib/vmware-tools/sbin64/vmtoolsd -n vmusr root 12971 0.0 0.0 7556 860 pts/0 S+ 18:47 0:00 grep vmware
If I "kill -1 12906" the other vmtoolsd (12956) dies(!):
root@labblinux:~# kill -1 12906 root@labblinux:~# ps auxw | grep vmware dali 12906 0.4 1.4 174604 14616 ? S 18:47 0:00 /usr/lib/vmware-tools/sbin64/vmtoolsd -n vmusr root 13041 0.0 0.0 7556 860 pts/0 S+ 18:48 0:00 grep vmware
Simultaneously the X2Go/Gnome session startup successfully finishes.
Starting a Gnome session locally on the virtual machine console successfully finishes. I've tried using xrdp instead of X2Go and had no problems starting sessions, both using X11rdp and X11vnc on the server side. There's only one vmtoolsd running unless it's a X2Go session.
I've unsuccessfully tried to figure out what the root cause is. It seems related to X2Go login/startup, somehow vmtoolsd starts twice and there's a conflict blocking Gnome startup.
I did however find a workaround; uninstall VMWare Tools and install the open-vm-tools package from the Debian repository (contrib has to be added). No problems with X2Go so far and VMWare seems happy with the open source tools (Shutdown/Restart Guest is available in vSphere Client).
I posted this to both x2go-user and x2go-dev for informational purposes. Maybe a wiki page would be the best place for this info? The wiki is however in a sad state and needs some serious cleanup. I personally don't think the template used is aesthetically pleasing and would prefer the default template or Arctic template which I've used extensively in all my DokuWiki installs.
Cheers, Daniel
Am 18.02.2012 19:54, schrieb Daniel Lindgren:
I've been troubleshooting a weird problem with X2Go for a while, when connecting to Gnome sessions in virtual machines the top and bottom panels are displayed but the desktop/background never shows up and the mouse pointer never stops spinning. It's like the Gnome session startup reaches 99% and then just waits forever for something.
It turns out it's related to VMWare Tools. I use VMWare Hypervisor (ESXi) 5, I can't say if the problem started when I upgraded from ESXi 4 to 5, but it's fairly recent. <snip>
Starting a Gnome session locally on the virtual machine console successfully finishes. I've tried using xrdp instead of X2Go and had no problems starting sessions, both using X11rdp and X11vnc on the server side. There's only one vmtoolsd running unless it's a X2Go session.
I've unsuccessfully tried to figure out what the root cause is. It seems related to X2Go login/startup, somehow vmtoolsd starts twice and there's a conflict blocking Gnome startup.
I did however find a workaround; uninstall VMWare Tools and install the open-vm-tools package from the Debian repository (contrib has to be added). No problems with X2Go so far and VMWare seems happy with the open source tools (Shutdown/Restart Guest is available in vSphere Client).
Exactly which flavor of Linux are you running? Plain Debian, Ubuntu ("bastardized" with an additional Debian repository for open-vm-tools), or something completely different? And which version?
I remember seeing some VMtools related issues in the release notes for VMware Workstation, so - have you checked ESXi's release notes? Workstation release notes can be found here: https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/ws_pubs.html - I'd wager a guess that ESXi's release notes are available somewhere in the vicinity of that page.
<soapbox> The hassle with having to install vmware tools in every guest to perform a soft power-off, and keeping the tools up-to-date and matching the currently installed kernel is one of the many reasons why I'm moving my customers away from VMware to KVM+libvirt. Of course, they were using VMware Server, not ESXi, but honestly, my personal opinion after years of using VMware products in multiple scenarios is, if you aren't forced to use VMware (upper management decisions, already existing virtual infrastructure based on VMware components,...), don't. Had KVM been available and in a usable state 6 years ago, I would never have touched VMware Server. VMware Workstation is kind of neat for debugging/demoing stuff, though, I have to admit that.
Shutting down a guest in KVM/libvirt works by sending an ACPI "power-button pressed" event to the guest, no special drivers/modules required, just the stock ACPI support present in every modern operating system, be it Linux, *BSD or Windows. </soapbox> -Stefan
On Sat, 2012-02-18 at 20:13 +0100, newsgroups.mail2@stefanbaur.de wrote:
Am 18.02.2012 19:54, schrieb Daniel Lindgren: <snip> <soapbox> The hassle with having to install vmware tools in every guest to perform a soft power-off, and keeping the tools up-to-date and matching the currently installed kernel is one of the many reasons why I'm moving my customers away from VMware to KVM+libvirt. Of course, they were using VMware Server, not ESXi, but honestly, my personal opinion after years of using VMware products in multiple scenarios is, if you aren't forced to use VMware (upper management decisions, already existing virtual infrastructure based on VMware components,...), don't. Had KVM been available and in a usable state 6 years ago, I would never have touched VMware Server. VMware Workstation is kind of neat for debugging/demoing stuff, though, I have to admit that.
Shutting down a guest in KVM/libvirt works by sending an ACPI "power-button pressed" event to the guest, no special drivers/modules required, just the stock ACPI support present in every modern operating system, be it Linux, *BSD or Windows. </soapbox> <snip> Likewise, if we're not using VServer, we're using KVM - John
On Sa 18 Feb 2012 21:01:01 CET "newsgroups.mail2@stefanbaur.de" wrote:
Am 18.02.2012 20:58, schrieb John A. Sullivan III:
[my Anti-VMware rant]
<snip> Likewise, if we're not using VServer, we're using KVM - John
This could be the beginning of a wonderful friendship... ;-)
Not wanting to destroy this upcoming romance... But John, wasn't it
the other way round? You use VServer, not KVM, I always thought.
*** Mike's using KVM though...
;-)
Mike
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Am 18.02.2012 21:05, schrieb Mike Gabriel:
On Sa 18 Feb 2012 21:01:01 CET "newsgroups.mail2@stefanbaur.de" wrote:
Am 18.02.2012 20:58, schrieb John A. Sullivan III:
[my Anti-VMware rant]
<snip> Likewise, if we're not using VServer, we're using KVM - John
This could be the beginning of a wonderful friendship... ;-)
Not wanting to destroy this upcoming romance... But John, wasn't it the other way round? You use VServer, not KVM, I always thought.
*** Mike's using KVM though...
;-)
Judging from his statement, he seems to be using both,with the VServer instances being the majority.
-Stefan
On Sa 18 Feb 2012 21:01:01 CET "newsgroups.mail2@stefanbaur.de" wrote:
Am 18.02.2012 20:58, schrieb John A. Sullivan III:
[my Anti-VMware rant]
<snip> Likewise, if we're not using VServer, we're using KVM - John
This could be the beginning of a wonderful friendship... ;-)
Not wanting to destroy this upcoming romance... But John, wasn't it
the other way round? You use VServer, not KVM, I always thought.*** Mike's using KVM though... <snip> We use VServer for our X2Go desktops and all our Linux servers except
On Sat, 2012-02-18 at 21:05 +0100, Mike Gabriel wrote: those which need significant access to kernel functions, e.g., the monitoring and vulnerability scanning systems. Those and any Windows systems including the Windows desktops are running on KVM. We are very happy for the most part with X2Go and VServer. The shared file system creates for some very interesting possibilities and allows us to move some of the processes which are one per X2Go server to one per VServer host with every user having their own X2Go server - John
Exactly which flavor of Linux are you running? Plain Debian, Ubuntu ("bastardized" with an additional Debian repository for open-vm-tools), or something completely different? And which version?
Debian Squeeze 6.0.4, fresh install today. Open-vm-tools is in contrib.
I remember seeing some VMtools related issues in the release notes for VMware Workstation, so - have you checked ESXi's release notes? Workstation release notes can be found here: https://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/ws_pubs.html - I'd wager a guess that ESXi's release notes are available somewhere in the vicinity of that page.
Haven't seen anything related to vmtoolsd. Googling the problem leads nowhere, probably because it's related to X2Go which is not commonly used, at least not together with VMWare.
<soapbox> The hassle with having to install vmware tools in every guest to perform a soft power-off, and keeping the tools up-to-date and matching the currently installed kernel is one of the many reasons why I'm moving my customers away from VMware to KVM+libvirt. Of course, they were using VMware Server, not ESXi, but honestly, my personal opinion after years of using VMware products in multiple scenarios is, if you aren't forced to use VMware (upper management decisions, already existing virtual infrastructure based on VMware components,...), don't. Had KVM been available and in a usable state 6 years ago, I would never have touched VMware Server. VMware Workstation is kind of neat for debugging/demoing stuff, though, I have to admit that.
Shutting down a guest in KVM/libvirt works by sending an ACPI "power-button pressed" event to the guest, no special drivers/modules required, just the stock ACPI support present in every modern operating system, be it Linux, *BSD or Windows. </soapbox>
At the end of the day, VMWare is the biggest player in the virtual enterprise. At work we have ~400 virtual machines running 24/7 and very, very few problems. VMWare Server is not an enterprise product, ESXi is and I would highly recommend anyone that can use the free version of ESXi instead of VMWare Server to switch ASAP.
If you buy VMWare vCenter you get live migration too, once you've used it you'll never want to go back ...
Cheers, Daniel
If you buy VMWare vCenter you get live migration too, once you've used it you'll never want to go back ... Live migration is possible with KVM, too - in combination with DRBD for shared storage, another open-source solution. One of my partner companies (they're in fact the guys that convinced me
Am 18.02.2012 21:04, schrieb Daniel Lindgren: that the time to switch to KVM has come) is using this at quite a few of their client sites and also showcased it at their last open house.
Since we're drifting away from the topic of this mailing list, feel free to contact me off-list if you're interested in more, I'm more than happy to get you in contact with them (happy, satisfied customer yadda yadda yadda).
-Stefan
Live migration is possible with KVM, too - in combination with DRBD for shared storage, another open-source solution.
Sure, but I was comparing ESXi to VMWare Server.
There are several options if you want live migration, I believe that Citrix XenServer supports live migration in their free version. Maybe even the free version of Microsoft Hyper-V Server can do it too, I'm not sure.
Either way, AFAIK, KVM is not a supported paltform by Microsoft, so it's not viable in an enterprise environment were support contracts are a must.
Cheers, Daniel
Am 18.02.2012 21:26, schrieb Daniel Lindgren:
Either way, AFAIK, KVM is not a supported paltform by Microsoft, so it's not viable in an enterprise environment were support contracts are a must.
That's what I meant with "forced to use VMware" in my rant.
(Aside from that, no matter if it's officially supported or not, I can confirm that it works well with W2K3 and W2K8R2 - both in my own little test environment as well as at customer sites of my aforementioned partner company, from what they're telling me. I've also created one of my Win7 instances that I use for testing on a 64-Bit KVM system, as my main dev machine with VMware Workstation doesn't have hardware virtualization support and thus won't run 64-Bit Windows 7, and I didn't want to spend the $$$ on another license - that, too, works flawlessly)
-Stefan
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Daniel Lindgren -
John A. Sullivan III -
Mike Gabriel -
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