VMware Tools status shows as not running after running VMware Consolidated Backup

Caution: Articles written for technical not grammatical accuracy, If poor grammar offends you proceed with caution ;-)

Yesterday, VMware posted a Knowledgebase Article about VMware Tools appearing to go off line after a VCB snapshot is taken. This issue occurs after applying the ESX350-200901401-SG hotfix. The KB Article also says it can occur “for some time after the initial snapshot” on unpatched hosts, but I have never seen it.

The work-arounds are simple:

  1. restart the mgmt-vmware service (Make sure you don’t have VMs set to auto start)
  2. Log In and log out of the VM, this will cause VMware Tools to kick itself in the pants.
  3. Use the name or UUID lookup method instead of the ipaddr method.

This was originally addressed here.

It is difficult sometimes to get your backup software to use the name lookup method if it does not use a VCB Integration Kit. If you ARE using an integration kit, you can set this in the config.js file:

VM_LOOKUP_METHOD=”name”;

Since most of the “majors” in backup software, like NetBackup, TSM and Networker were originally Unix based, you may be able to find a config file somewhere to set this option.

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