Bug 1959167

Summary:	[ESXi][RHEL-7][RHEL-8][open-vm-tools] Open VMware Tools is not included on AARCH64
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8	Reporter:	Razvan Corneliu C.R. VILT <razvan.vilt>
Component:	open-vm-tools	Assignee:	Virtualization Maintenance <virt-maint>
Status:	CLOSED DEFERRED	QA Contact:	ldu <ldu>
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	CentOS Stream	CC:	boyang, bstinson, carl, cavery, jen, jjarvis, jsavanyo, jwboyer, jwolfe, ldu, leiwang, ravindrakumar, ribarry, yacao
Target Milestone:	beta	Flags:	pm-rhel: mirror+
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	aarch64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2021-05-11 18:16:02 UTC	Type:	Bug
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:	1959148, 1959150, 1959152, 1959154
Bug Blocks:

Description Razvan Corneliu C.R. VILT 2021-05-10 19:54:56 UTC

Description of problem:

Open VMware Tools has native support for AARCH64 since version 11 (bc00152c1e5df9284eee2914062adaa3eb51a9f5) . Please include it in the Fedora/RHEL builds. Both EL7 and EL8 build and run successfully on ESXi VMs.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 11.0

How reproducible:
Every Time

If you change the ExclusiveArch to also include AARCH64, it builds fine and runs fine as long as:
* systemd is updated to include esxi-arm support (#1959148, #1959150)
* virt-what might also be a dependency. I've created a patch for esxi-arm support (#1959152, #1959154)

There is a workaround for the systemd issue, by removing the ConstraintVirtualization in the systemd unit (vmtoolsd.unit in the SRC.RPM), but I've created bug reports directly to Systemd and virt-what in order to have a proper fix and you can require a systemd > $nextVersion for aarch64.

There is an issue spamming the console with Unknown ioctl 1976 and I've linked to it, but it seems harmless and related to a vmci module that is not available.

Comment 1 Cathy Avery 2021-05-11 18:16:02 UTC

Hi,

There are currently no plans to support AARCH64.

We will update this BZ if those plans change.

Thanks,

Cathy

Comment 2 Razvan Corneliu C.R. VILT 2021-10-26 16:16:22 UTC

Hi Cathy, Carl,

The systemd maintainers have added the prerequisite vmware support to 8.5 (#1959150). Rich did the same for virt-what (#1959154 for el8 and #1959174 for el9). The only missing piece of the puzzle seems to be open-vm-tools. Could you please reconsider this? If you need any QA help I will volunteer to help out.

Thanks,
R.

Comment 3 Cathy Avery 2021-11-01 10:57:13 UTC

(In reply to Razvan Corneliu C.R. VILT from comment #2)
> Hi Cathy, Carl,
> 
> The systemd maintainers have added the prerequisite vmware support to 8.5
> (#1959150). Rich did the same for virt-what (#1959154 for el8 and #1959174
> for el9). The only missing piece of the puzzle seems to be open-vm-tools.
> Could you please reconsider this? If you need any QA help I will volunteer
> to help out.
> 
> Thanks,
> R.

Hi,

Unfortunately we will not be supporting open-vm-tools for AARCH64 in either RHEL7 or RHEL8. We do however suggest that you explore the SIG option [1] made available through CentOS as a way to get OVT AARCH64 support into the CentOS sources. 

[1] https://wiki.centos.org/SpecialInterestGroup

 
Thanks,

Cathy