cloud-init.service dependency is missing on 10.3.5 open-vm-tools service

[Pengpeng Sun]

Hi there,

Found on version 10.3.5, the cloud-init.service dependency is NOT in open-vm-tools.service.
Want to check with you if it’s removed on purpose? and what’s the reason of removing it.

The cloud-init.service dependency was adding “Before=cloud-init-local.service” under [Unit] section of open-vm-tools.service file.

Thanks,
Pengpeng

[Pengpeng Sun (pengpengs)]

change to open-vm-tools package

[Pengpeng Sun (pengpengs)]

$vmtoolsd -v
VMware Tools daemon, version 10.3.5.6873 (build-9998599)

$cat /lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service
[Unit]
Description=Service for virtual machines hosted on VMware
Documentation=http://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools
ConditionVirtualization=vmware
Requires=vgauth.service
After=vgauth.service

[Service]
....

[Christian Ehrhardt  (paelzer)]

Hi Pengpeng,
the latest version in Ubuntu actually has this dependency still.

debian/open-vm-tools.service:6:Before=cloud-init-local.service

That is version 2:10.3.0-0ubuntu4 in Disco and is the same for all 10.3 backports for now.

We will port and backport the 10.3.5 version later this development cycle, but sneak peeking at the just appeared 2:10.3.5-1 in Debian shows the same is true there as well.
No changes other than merging with recent upstream.

I assume you got your open-vm-tools from another source?
If so it would be interesting which one that is?
And if you happen to know where, please file the same bug there and let us know the reference to the bug here.

To help you finding where things come from you can run "dpkg -S" and "apt-cache policy".
For example in most recent ubuntu that looks like this:

root@d:~# dpkg -S /lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service
open-vm-tools: /lib/systemd/system/open-vm-tools.service
root@d:~# apt-cache policy open-vm-tools
open-vm-tools:
  Installed: 2:10.3.0-0ubuntu3
  Candidate: 2:10.3.0-0ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 2:10.3.0-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

For Ubuntu as-is this report is invalid as we still have the dependency that you are missing.

[Pengpeng Sun (pengpengs)]

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your checking and quick response, and you are right. I double-checked my Ubuntu16.04 VM, it was configured with a local source on open-vm-tools indeed. After remove the local source and re-install open-vm-tools, it's 10.2.0 and has the dependency.

Thanks,
Pengpeng