{"id":1210,"date":"2018-03-07T13:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T18:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ithinkvirtual.com\/?p=1210"},"modified":"2019-01-17T17:57:48","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T22:57:48","slug":"vmware-software-manager-the-good-the-bad-the-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ithinkvirtual.com\/2018\/03\/07\/vmware-software-manager-the-good-the-bad-the-alternative\/","title":{"rendered":"VMware Software Manager: The Good…The Bad…The Alternative!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post, I am going to discuss a little, “not-so-well-known” utility, called VMware Software Manager<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0This little “beast” was first released as v1.0 back on 2015-03-12, and its most current release, v1.5, came out on 2016-08-25.\u00a0 So as you can see, it’s been quite a while since this tool has seen a new update release.\u00a0 The problem now is that this utility seems to have been forgotten and\/or neglected by VMware, but I will get into more of that a little later.\u00a0 Let’s start off with the positive stuff.<\/p>\r\n

The Good:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\r\n

The VMware Software Manager allowed valid VMware-account holders the ability to download various software, such as ESXi or vCenter server, quickly and easily.\u00a0 The installation was a breeze, the interface was clean and downloading software was effortless.\u00a0 It basically just worked flawlessly!\u00a0 The new software was readily available for download shortly after it was announced\/released since this utility would read configuration files to see what software is available from the VMware repository and then provided that software for download.<\/p>\r\n

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So, having said that, what could possibly be wrong with this thing?\u00a0 Let’s continue…<\/p>\r\n

The Bad:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\r\n

My main gripe with this utility was that support was only community-based, so if you had issues, you could forget about raising an official SR with support.\u00a0 You had to rely patiently on the VMTN community and hope that users were knowledgeable enough and willing to help out.\u00a0 Not saying anything bad about the community though, it’s a great forum full of some really smart people and it provides a wealth of information.<\/p>\r\n

As I mentioned earlier, when this thing worked…it just plain WORKED!\u00a0 Then, vSphere 6.0U3A was released with some bad\/corrupt or missing files and upon launching the utility, it would simply hang at login or error out due to the missing files not being available! (Shhhh!..someone never updated the configuration files…\u00a0\u00af\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af \u00a0)\u00a0 There is a thread<\/a> over on the VMTN community that myself and others have contributed to and another<\/a> describing this issue and a workaround method to ultimately get you to log in again.\u00a0 This involved looking at log files to find which missing file was causing the error, then editing the configuration file to remove the missing files, and it was a major pain!<\/p>\r\n

Lastly, it’s become extremely out of date and it seems as if VMware has completed forgotten about and\/or decided to neglect and give up on it as there has not been any new software available for download in at least 6 months.\u00a0 It’s also possible that the original responsible for this thing disbanded or moved onto other roles…who really knows?\u00a0 Luckily, a friend and fellow community\/vExpert\u00a0member has provided a solution!<\/p>\r\n

The Alternative:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\r\n

Fellow vExpert, Edward\u00a0Haletky aka Texiwill<\/a>,\u00a0has created a Linux-based port of the utility, titled “VSM<\/strong><\/em>“, which he updates almost daily to add new software and simply improve the appliance and it runs on an RHEL type distro like CentOS.\u00a0 You can hit the ground running with this appliance in about 30 mins or less.\u00a0 I have been fortunate enough to serve as a beta tester for him and have been doing so since he released v0.95, just shortly after the initial public launch.\u00a0 At the time of this writing, the most recent release was v3.7.7 but has now been updated to the newest 4.5.3.\u00a0 Screenshots may reflect previous versions.<\/p>\r\n

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Well…How do you get it?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\r\n

In this post, I am going to cover how to install this bad-boy on a CentOS 7 minimal installation on ESXi using NFS, and on VMware Workstation leveraging the “Shared Folders” feature using VMHGFS.\u00a0 Another vExpert, Michael White<\/a>, has a similar post<\/a> on setting up this appliance and using SMB\/CIFS for storing the downloaded software.\u00a0 Let’s get to it, shall we!<\/p>\r\n

Prerequisites:<\/p>\r\n