For a future me - remembering to stop VMware Tools service when running Kata Containers on Ubuntu on VMware on macOS

I keep writing and re-writing this script, because I forgot to store it somewhere memorable ....

The problem to be solved is that the Kata Containers runtime, aka kata-runtime, will not start unless I remember to stop the VMware Tools service, aka open-vm-tools.service and unload a few dependent modules.

At present, I'm running Kata via a snap installation - I'm not terribly keen on that approach, as there seem to be too many fiddly configuration things to-do, but I'll look at that another day, and perhaps raise an issue in the Kata repo.

Meantime, this is what I have: -

/snap/kata-containers/current/usr/bin/kata-runtime -version

kata-runtime  : 2.1.0

   commit   : 0f822919268e4095dd9bdbbb2351248b53746501

   OCI specs: 1.0.1-dev

and, when I run the check tool: -

/snap/kata-containers/current/usr/bin/kata-runtime check

I get this: -

WARN[0000] Not running network checks as super user      arch=amd64 name=kata-runtime pid=1431 source=runtime

WARN[0000] modprobe insert module failed                 arch=amd64 error="exit status 1" module=vhost_vsock name=kata-runtime output="modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'vhost_vsock': Device or resource busy\n" pid=1431 source=runtime

ERRO[0000] kernel property not found                     arch=amd64 description="Host Support for Linux VM Sockets" name=vhost_vsock pid=1431 source=runtime type=module

System is capable of running Kata Containers

System can currently create Kata Containers

The vhost_vsock module cannot be loaded, as evidenced by this: -

modprobe vhost_vsock

modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'vhost_vsock': Device or resource busy

lsmod | grep vhost

vhost_net              32768  0
tap                    24576  1 vhost_net
vhost                  49152  1 vhost_net

Somewhere I realised / discovered / found out that VMware Tools, more specifically open-vm-tools, was responsible :-)

Given that, for my use cases at the moment, I don't need VMware Tools for e.g. GUI interactions between guest and host, shared folders etc. I chose to simply disable it.

I've got a script for that: -

~/stop_tools.sh 

#!/bin/bash
systemctl stop open-vm-tools.service
rmmod vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common
rmmod vmw_vsock_vmci_transport
rmmod vsock
rmmod vhost_net
rmmod vhost

So I can run my script: -

~/stop_tools.sh 

and check that neither vhost* or vsock* modules are now loaded: -

lsmod | grep vs

<NOTHING RETURNED>

lsmod | grep vh

<NOTHING RETURNED>

and then load the vhost_vsock module: -

modprobe vhost_vsock

and check the loaded modules: -

lsmod | grep vs

vhost_vsock            24576  0

vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common    32768  1 vhost_vsock

vhost                  49152  1 vhost_vsock

vsock                  36864  2 vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common,vhost_vsock

lsmod | grep vh

vhost_vsock            24576  0

vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common    32768  1 vhost_vsock

vhost                  49152  1 vhost_vsock

vsock                  36864  2 vmw_vsock_virtio_transport_common,vhost_vsock

and, even more importantly, use Kata: -

/snap/kata-containers/current/usr/bin/kata-runtime check

WARN[0000] Not running network checks as super user      arch=amd64 name=kata-runtime pid=1911 source=runtime

System is capable of running Kata Containers

System can currently create Kata Containers

/snap/kata-containers/current/usr/bin/kata-runtime kata-check

WARN[0000] Not running network checks as super user      arch=amd64 name=kata-runtime pid=1926 source=runtime

System is capable of running Kata Containers

System can currently create Kata Containers

I could probably hack a better solution and/or uninstall VMware Tools but .....