Newer versions of our appliance (v7.4 and later) already have the required kernel modules pre-installed by default. This enables us to control which version of each module is installed at kernel build time to ensure optimum stability. Therefore it’s not a requirement to install VMware tools on the appliance. If other VMware tools features are required such as the ability to send a shutdown or restart signal to the loadbalancer’s Linux OS, the tools can be easily installed by following the steps in section A below.

For older versions of the appliance (v7.3.2 and earlier), these modules are not installed by default at kernel build time and therefore VMware Tools are required and are pre-installed. Appliance versions v7.1 and later running on ESX 4.0 and later use Vmxnet3 drivers. Therefore in this case it makes sense to upgrade the VMware tools to keep these drivers up to date. Older versions of the appliance and those running on ESX 3.5 and earlier use the E1000 driver, so keeping the tools up to date is not so important. If you do need to update the tools, this can be done by following the steps in section B below. Continue reading →